Inhabit QUEEN’S GARDENS – LONDON An evolution of its Paddington predecessor, the second Inhabit hotel is a paragon for environmental and socially-conscious hospitality. Words: Ben Thomas • Photography: © Jack Hobhouse
T
he brainchild of hotelier Nadira Lalji and her cousin Rahim Lalji, Inhabit Hotels made quite the impact when it arrived on London’s hospitality scene in 2019,
introducing what was described as ‘urban wellness’ to the British capital with a concept centred around health, social connection and environmental responsibility. Three years later, with wellbeing and sustainability at the forefront of people’s minds following the pandemic, the brand has planted a second flag in London, just a stone’s throw from its debut on Paddington’s Southwick Street. Following the success of the first property, the Lalji family turned to familiar faces for the renovation of several neighbouring townhouses on Queen’s Gardens, re-enlisting architecture firm Holland Harvey and interior designer Caitlin Henderson to transform the 19th-century crescent. While the design tenets, wellbeing ethos and environmental initiatives carry through from Inhabit Southwick, the new outpost has been moulded to capture a slightly different demographic thanks to its larger, and in some cases interconnected family-friendly rooms. “The hotel is an evolution of the original, with generous public spaces and almost twice as many guestrooms,” says Maria Gutierrez Vargas, Senior Architect at Holland Harvey and Project Lead. “We used this as an opportunity to drive the core brand ideas into every element of the property.” Infusing such ideas into the fabric of the Grade II-listed Victorian buildings was helped by the fact that much of their original character had been stripped out during previous refurbishments, meaning Gutierrez Vargas had something of a blank canvas to work with and could be bolder in her
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