4 days ago
The Westbourne Park hotel and club that could rival Soho House
At first glance, the new Mason & Fifth, Westbourne Park, which overlooks the graffiti- covered Grand Union Canal and equally gritty Westway, on a site that once housed the headquarters of the London Taxi Driver's Association, has a lot of similarities with establishments such as Soho House.
This cool, plant-filled, mid-century-inspired hotel and community hub is close to Notting Hill and Maida Vale, with simple, beautifully designed bedrooms, co-working spaces, artist studios, a gallery, a recording studio, DJs, live music, a pop-up retail space, bicycles to borrow, a cinema, a restaurant, a bar, a wellness centre with a pool, a listening lounge with amazing speakers, a vinyl library and talks by the likes of Norman Jay MBE.
This is the group's third property; the first two, in Bermondsey and Primrose Hill, are more like boutique guest houses with bedrooms featuring kitchenettes, plus communal kitchens, drawing rooms and workspaces.
But the Westbourne Park opening takes this concept to the next level, by serving as an all-singing, all-dancing community 'hub', offering more flexibility than a conventional hotel and more inclusivity than a members' club.
Membership is available for Meadow, its serene and spacious dedicated workspace, which has 100 bench-style desks bookable on a flexible basis; by the day (£25), week (£100) or month (£250), plus 12 big and lockable art studios from £2,085 per month for a minimum of three months (locals have access to discounted rates).
Meadow also comes with a big shared kitchen, free tea and coffee, lockers and bike storage and business services such as printing.
The property is also a friendly, sensibly priced hotel, with natural wood finishes, artisan tapestries, custom-made ceramics, Moroccan pots and interesting, earthy sculptures. Of its 332 bedrooms, 300 are studios with Hypnos mattresses, clever under-bed storage, decent hanging space, desk/dining tables and fully equipped kitchenettes (with thoughtful touches including a filled olive oil dispenser and Origin coffee).
These start at about £200 per night, but can drop to as little as £76 when staying for a month or more, which a surprising number of people do.
My Classic Studio was perfect for me and would have been fine for two, although all beds are doubles so couples who both like to sleep star-shaped might struggle.
Hotel guests also get to use a big cosy 10th-floor lounge with deep, comfy sofas, spectacular panoramic views of London, two terraces and a large kitchen and dining area, should you want to cook 'at home' but not in your room.
Then there's The Grounding, a guest-only subterranean wellness floor with a 15-metre pool naturally lit through big round skylights, steam rooms with cold-water therapy bucket showers, a fully equipped gym, movement studio offering yoga, Pilates and Boxfit classes and a treatment room, where I enjoyed (through the pain) a knot-busting, 60-minute deep tissue massage.
'I didn't really know what to expect when I turned up – my daughter-in-law found it online,' said Grace Shaw, a guest from Michigan who works in pharmaceutical compliance and was staying for a month while visiting a relative. 'It's hard to be in an unfamiliar city surrounded by strangers but the set-up here is perfect for me, both as a solo traveller and a remote worker.
'If I feel like being social, I pop up to the 10th floor to cook my dinner but I've also made quite extravagant soups in my room. I'm also loving the events programme.'
The ground-floor lounge and bar and a pop-up shop selling everything from ceramics to a new memoir by Jazzie B, is open to all, as is the new canal-side seasonal modern European restaurant Canal, with its sun-drenched terrace, by the people behind Crispin and Bistro Freddie.
Here, I sipped icy French rosé from a reasonably priced list, feasted on a flavour-packed bream crudo with cherries and chilli, a delicate ricotta-filled agnolotti with courgettes, lemon and parmesan, and while waiting for all that, nibbled on little slices of a 'table cheeseburger' to share.
Anyone can attend the various free events (I counted about 20 scheduled in July alone, ranging from interviews with musicians in the Listening Lounge – I caught a riveting Q&A with Barbados-born British dub-reggae legend Dennis Bovell the night I stayed – to kayaking on the canal) by booking a space in advance via the app.
The plan is to gradually build more hubs in more cities, eventually expanding into European cities such as Berlin and Lisbon, as well as adding smaller boutique guest houses and rural outposts for urbanites wanting to move the other way.
While the likes of Amazon and JP Morgan Chase have made headlines in recent months by insisting their staff return to the office full time, Mason & Fifth's unique model seems to speak to the significant numbers of people around the world for whom remote or flexible working, and the nomadic lifestyle generally, is here to stay.
Francesca Syz travelled as a guest of Mason & Fifth, Westbourne Park, which has doubles from £170.
