RH London: INSIDE A Palladian Mansion Reborn in Mayfair
A Five-Storey Journey Through Design, Dining and Discovery
RH London, The Gallery in Mayfair, is housed in a trio of eighteenth-century townhouses between New Bond Street and Savile Row, the new five level destination from American design house RH marks the brand's most ambitious project to date, and its first proper landing in Britain. We have long admired RH's outdoor furniture collections, so seeing the full weight of the brand's ambition brought to bear on a London address of this pedigree felt like a feature we could not pass over.
A Palladian address with real history
Photography Courtesy of RH.
The building itself does much of the talking. Built in 1723 as Queensberry House, later enlarged for the first Marquess of Anglesey and known for a period as Uxbridge House, the mansion went on to serve as a home of the Bank of England before its latest transformation. It stands among a small number of surviving Palladian mansions from eighteenth century London, designed originally by Giacomo Leoni, an early and influential figure in English Palladianism. RH has folded three previously separate properties into one continuous gallery, working with British architecture practice Foster and Partners to knit the spaces together without erasing what came before.
A design partnership two decades in the making
Photography, RH Estates AT RH London, Mayfair.
Photography left, RH Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Gary Friedman and Bella Hunter Friedman. Right,Diamond Rectangular Dining Table By Michael Taylor.
RH founder, chairman and chief executive Gary Friedman has spoken of a long held admiration for the work of Anouska Hempel, the designer credited with founding the modern boutique hotel category through Blakes Hotel. That admiration has become a formal creative partnership for RH London, with Hempel shaping several of the building's most theatrical moments alongside the wider architectural vision from Foster and Partners. The result reads less like a furniture showroom and more like a considered, layered residence, one that treats retail, hospitality and art as a single continuous experience rather than separate departments.
Five levels, and a library that opens the story
Photography, Lugano Collection from RH Estates.
Guests enter beneath a limestone portico into the Architecture and Design Library, a room built around rare volumes from Vitruvius, da Vinci, Palladio and British architect Inigo Jones. Its centrepiece is a first edition of Vitruvius's De Architectura from around 1521, the text whose description of a man inscribed within a circle and a square would later inspire da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. It is a confident opening statement, positioning RH London as a study of architectural history before a single sofa comes into view.
From there, a scenic glass lift designed with Foster and Partners connects all five levels, its curved structure framed in champagne gold. A Tea Salon and Wine Bar clad in bronze Amani Spanish marble sit either side, serving speciality teas, Champagne and wine to browsing guests, in the manner of a private club rather than a shopfront.
Two dining rooms, two very different moods
Photography, The Dining room at RH London, Mayfair.
RH London offers two distinct dining experiences. The Dining Room occupies a former banking hall, its high gloss oak panelling, mirrored skylights and champagne lacquered Roman columns rising eight metres beneath a gold leaf ceiling, evoking the private members' clubs of old London. Above, on the rooftop, The Perch by Anouska Hempel takes a different tone entirely: a jewel box interior in blackened eglomise glass gives way to a garden of pleated umbrellas, arched mirrors and running water, set directly above storied Savile Row.
A bar built for browsing, and a UK debut for RH Estates
Photography, The Wine Bar, RH London.
Photography left, The Tea Bar. Right, Margot Robbie at the RH London, Mayfair Opening.
The World of RH Bar and Lounge, also shaped by Hempel, pairs Italian merino wool velvet seating with a bronze sunburst ceiling and a 360 degree holographic display tracing the brand's global footprint. Elsewhere in the building, RH Estates makes its United Kingdom debut, bringing together tailored upholstery from Dmitriy and Co, classical pieces from Dennis and Leen, reproductions by Formations and designs by Michael Taylor, a further sign that RH London is positioning itself as a genuine centre for collectible design rather than a seasonal showroom.
Guests climbing Leoni's original grand staircase, its ironwork and cantilevered limestone steps rising beneath a hand gilded gold leaf dome nearly thirteen metres overhead, are left in little doubt that this is a building designed to be experienced slowly, and returned to often.
The Fluxx take
Photography,Valencia Collection, from RH Estates.
Photography left, The Jennifer Sofa at RH London. Right, Yinka Ilori, at the RH London, Mayfair Opening.
RH London, The Gallery in Mayfair, is the kind of opening that rewards an unhurried visit. It sits at the exact intersection our readers tend to gravitate toward: serious architectural history, a genuinely collaborative design partnership, and hospitality considered as carefully as the furniture itself. For anyone who has followed RH's outdoor collections as closely as we have, this feels like the brand finally showing its full hand on British soil.
Photography Courtesy of RH.
DISCOVER RESTAURANT & BAR FINDS
