From the ‘Lady in Black’ portrait in the eponymous private dining room, you can tell the Sloane Club is a place where the matriarchs are in charge. The 103-year-old private members’ club, founded in London as a sanctuary for ex-servicewomen and society of choice of then-queen Mary, has long since accepted men into its ranks and evolved into an inclusive all-day meeting place. Still, the DNA of the red-brick Victorian on Lower Sloane Street skews feminine.
Leading a rare, predominately female staff, MD Neena Jivraj-Stevenson recently unveiled a £20 million interior overhaul by go-to hospitality designer Russell Sage. The result is an embroidered, antique-mirrored, silk-tasseled scene for power-lunches, private dinners and mid-day workouts. Like the Chelsea crowd that rates it, the place has emerged fresh-faced, manicured and more fashionable than you’d guess from an old-guard club.
The Lady in Black private dining room. Photography: courtesy of the Sloane Club.
The Lady in Black private dining room. Photography: courtesy of the Sloane Club.
The Helena restaurant. Photography: courtesy of the Sloane Club.
The library. Photography: courtesy of the Sloane Club.
The Venus restaurant. Photography: courtesy of the Sloane Club.
A shower room in the wellness centre. Photography: courtesy of the Sloane Club.
The redesign is highly symbolic, picking up oval motifs from the old facade in sharing tables and bedroom headboards – the shape also appears in the club’s enduring cameo logo. Portraits in Dutch Master colours are everywhere. And Venus, the fine-dining room, has had a honey-toned makeover, helped by warm lighting and murals of the goddess, hand-carved by Lizzie Bentley and artist Rosie McGuinness – all nods to the Venus statue down the road in Sloane Square.
Lunch is an event, whether in Helena’s, with its embroidery-inspired wallpapers (club-founder Princess Helena was the first president of the Royal School of Needlework) or under Lila’s conservatory-style glass roof, which retracts in about 90 seconds. But lunch has always been a draw here. New to the space is the basement wellness centre, smelling of Bamford products and pristine equipment, and its high-tech infrared sauna.
A recent peek saw a mixed, multi-generation crowd wasting no time making themselves at home. There is no intel as to how many members have rolled upstairs to the dozens of revamped bedrooms — discretion here is woven into the fabric.
