45 Park Lane

Park Lane has its grand hotels and, at number 45, a small one. The building went up in the 1960s on the corner facing Hyde Park, and from 1966 to 1981 it housed the London Playboy Club, the casino where the bunnies worked and much of the company's profit was made. Dorchester Collection, whose flagship stands across the street, bought it and in September 2011 opened 45 Park Lane with fewer than fifty rooms and a restaurant from Wolfgang Puck.

History

The Playboy Club occupied the building until the casino lost its gaming licence in 1981, after which the floors were offices and private residences. Dorchester Collection acquired the building in the late 2000s as a companion to The Dorchester: a hotel with the services of the big house next door and the scale of a private residence. It opened on 1 September 2011. Thierry Despont, the French architect who had restored the Statue of Liberty and designed interiors for the Ritz Paris, handled the design, and the hotel commissioned British artists for its walls, with works by Damien Hirst, Peter Blake and Bridget Riley among them.

Architecture and design

The exterior is a mid-century block of ten storeys in stone and glass, lower than its neighbours. Despont's interiors use walnut, bronze, leather and shades of brown and gold in an Art Deco manner that suits the building's age, with a staircase of bronze and glass rising through the ground floor. The restaurant and bar take the ground floor and the mezzanine; a private cinema sits below. Every bedroom has a floor-to-ceiling window onto Hyde Park, and the corner suites have views along Park Lane as well.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has 45 rooms and suites, including ten suites and the Penthouse Suite on the top floor, which has a terrace running the width of the building and a view across the park to Kensington. Rooms are large for London, with marble bathrooms, a desk by the window and a media system that was advanced for 2011. Guests use the spa, pool and restaurants of The Dorchester across the road, and since 2022 the hotel has had its own spa floor.

Dining

CUT at 45 Park Lane was Wolfgang Puck's first restaurant in Europe, a steakhouse in the manner of his Beverly Hills original, with dry-aged beef and Wagyu from Japan and Australia, on the ground floor with the park through the windows. BAR 45, on the mezzanine above, serves cocktails and a smaller menu, and the hotel's residents' lounge takes breakfast and afternoon tea.

Wellness

The hotel's spa has treatment rooms, a sauna and a fitness room, and guests also have the use of The Dorchester Spa and its facilities across the road. Hyde Park begins outside the door for runners, and the Serpentine is ten minutes into the park on foot.

Weddings and events

45 Park Lane hosts private dinners and receptions in the private dining room and in CUT, which can be taken for a party, and the Penthouse Suite serves as a venue for small receptions with the terrace over the park. The private cinema seats a small audience for screenings and presentations. Larger weddings and conferences are referred to The Dorchester's ballroom opposite; the hotel itself has no event space on that scale.

Location

The hotel stands on Park Lane in Mayfair, at the corner nearest Hyde Park Corner, with Hyde Park across the road. Hyde Park Corner and Marble Arch underground stations are both within a ten-minute walk; Green Park station, with the Jubilee, Piccadilly and Victoria lines, is similar. Heathrow is about 45 minutes by car and under an hour by the Elizabeth line from Bond Street. Mount Street and the shops of Mayfair are five minutes away, Bond Street ten. For a luxury hotel in London it offers the rare combination of a park view from every room and a front door that few people notice.