The race is on: who will become the resident of Admiralty Arch? As far as notable addresses go, it has its merits. Your neighbours would be Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace, Lord Nelson up his column in Trafalgar Square and you’d have access – should you wish to confront national issues – to No 10 via an underground tunnel (while also having views to its famous rose garden from the terrace). You’d be able to manifest your historic heroes, should your preference be for the political, royal, literary or starry – because the truth is, they all seem to have an Admiralty Arch link. If the arch were a human, the rules of the ‘six degrees of separation’ in the upper echelons of society would be axed to one, with the arch as the recurring common connection. It’s where Sir Winston Churchill lived, where Daniel Craig has been filmed as 007 (which is ever more potent thanks to the Ian Fleming link) and where Earl Mountbatten resided when not at Hampshire’s exceptionally grand Broadlands House.
And now we bring Rafael Serrano into the fold, a larger than life, Toad of Toad Hall character with flamboyance, pizazz and a kind of infectious entrepreneurial energy that he doles out by the truckload. Serrano is the founder of Prime Investors Capital, who in 2012 spearheaded the winning bid to purchase the great arch on a 125-year lease – and he is doing so with a palpable, deep-rooted fondness and (meticulously researched) respect for its history and heritage. He has turned his temporary office into a kind of Admiralty Arch anorak’s haven with old briefcases, notes and artefacts that have been dug up along the way and are now on display for visitor delectation and approval. There’s the portrait of Sir Aston Webb, the slim faced, bushy moustached original architect behind the Grade I-listed arch – and who also designed Buckingham Palace’s principal façade. Then there’s tea-stained, edge-tattered Mall floor plans, cut outs of the late Duke of Edinburgh in his medal-adorned, naval uniform and union jack flags that line the entranceway offering a certain pomp and ceremony (despite the place currently – largely – still being a building site). They are all certain markers of the grandeur that awaits its feted opening, scheduled for late 2023, early 2024 under the Waldorf Astoria brand. The century-old former government building will soon be open for business as part-exclusive hotel, part-uber glossy apartments (with the ideal situation being that all the allocated apartments go to a single buyer as a 12-bedroom mansion, with a reported price tag of between £135 and £150 million).
Serrano, a former JP Morgan investment banker who was behind Knightsbridge’s uber glamorous Bulgari Hotel and residences, is keenly aware of – and very eager to foster – the monument’s royal connections. To the extent that he has followed the lead of Sir Hugh Roberts, the former director of the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace, in appointing veteran British design legend David Mlinaric to ritz up the interiors. Mlinaric, the aristocrat’s choice, has done up the decadent homes of everyone from Lord Rothschild to Mick Jagger via the Broadlands previously mentioned for Lady Brabourne. And Broadlands – where the Queen and Prince Philip spent their honeymoon – is where a deep Admiralty Arch connection has been cultivated. The hotel is very much still in development – as we speak an expansive ballroom is being excavated beneath Trafalgar Square (with a spa and private members’ club to follow), the site currently brimming with hard hats and high vis, but a presidential wing has achieved polished completion status and it won’t surprise readers to learn it’s called ‘the Mountbatten suite’ and formed of a corridor of pristine rooms with windows looking down the mall to Her Majesty’s residence or, for architecture lovers, on to the coffered inside of the historic arch itself.
The Mountbatten family, with the Countess Mountbatten of Burma at the helm, have been extremely generous to the project (either because of their familial connection to the Arch with its naval ties or due to the impenetrable, affable charm of Serrano). The wing brims with glossy Mountbatten robes and one-off replica paintings – of Broadlands and a coronation procession. (The procession is pertinent, given that Queen Elizabeth’s did just that, passing through the arch in 1953, 70 years ago). It must be one of the most imposing memorials ever constructed – originally commissioned by King Edward VII in memory of his mother, Queen Victoria, who died in 1901, and was completed in 1912 after the king’s own death.
David Archer and Julie Humphryes – of Archer Humphryes (the guys behind Chiltern Firehouse and C20 icon The Standard) – are the architects fuelling the project. Their expansive, glamorous team – bicycles et al – have set up in one wing of the arch where they have worked tirelessly pandemic-long (but with gratifying views out to Trafalgar Square). While it’s still a work in progress, the plans look fabulous: abounding with colour, richness and character, tailored to the different themes and inspired by trips to HMS Victory, the Royal Maritime Museum and all sorts. Arguably, the arch’s pièce de résistance is that rooftop – and Archer Humphryes’ terrace designs will set your heart aflutter: draped with vines, wisteria and at its very best cast in dappled sunlight, it will very soon be the most sought after spot in London. With mad-cap 360 views of London – straight down the mall to Buckingham Palace one way and then over to the London Eye another and of course o’er to Nelson’s column.
It’s abundantly clear, this hotel is going to be grander than grand itself. Michael Blair, king of historical architectural projects, who has a track record creating, extending and refurbishing the likes of Claridge’s and the Ritz has also been involved. If the arch, one of the most imposing memorials ever constructed, was originally commissioned by King Edward VII in memory of his mother, Queen Victoria, who died in 1901, and was completed in 1912 after the king’s own death, when the Admiralty Arch Waldorf Astoria – how exquisite that sounds – finally opens at the end of next year, it will be a love letter, and tribute to, the world. Get us to that terrace.
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