Raffles Hotels & Resorts, the luxury brand of AccorHotels Group, is to open in London in the Old War Office building in Whitehall.
Raffles was bought by Accor Hotels last year, along with sister brands Fairmont and Swissotel.
Close to 10 Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, the Old War Office was bought by Hinduja Group December 2014. Planning permission was granted for a multi-purpose development including 125 guest rooms (of which 40% are suites), 88 private residences, restaurants and other amenities.
Completion of the new hotel is expected in just over three years.
The Grade II-listed Old War Office, with its 1100 rooms across seven floors plus two miles of corridors, was completed in 1906.
It has been the office for many of the United Kingdom’s most important and influential political and military leaders of the twentieth century, notably Sir Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George, Lord Kitchener, Herbert Asquith and T.E. Lawrence.
It was also the haunt of the British Secret Service who had their own, more discreet entrance.
