You Can Now Book a Night in One of London's Last Great Houses
Cambridge House is taking bookings. The Georgian mansion behind the gate piers marked IN and OUT opens as a hotel on 1 February 2027, twenty-eight years to the day after the club that held it walked out and left it empty.
It is Auberge Collection's first hotel in London: 102 rooms, 24 of them suites, on Piccadilly facing Green Park with the laneways of Shepherd Market behind. Rates start at £1,250 a night room only, and the booking calendar is open for arrivals from April 2027.
What you are actually booking
Matthew Brettingham built the house between 1756 and 1761 for Charles Wyndham, second Earl of Egremont. It was Egremont House, then Cholmondeley House, and from 1829 the London home of Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, Queen Victoria's uncle, whose title is the name that stuck. On 27 June 1850 the Queen was leaving after visiting him when a former army officer struck her on the head with his cane at these gates.
Lord Palmerston took the house in 1856 and kept it until his death in 1865, through most of his years as prime minister, and his funeral procession left from the front door. The Naval and Military Club leased it next and opened here in April 1866. The signs on the gates gave the club its name, the In and Out, and it kept both for 133 years, until it moved to St James's Square on 1 February 1999.
Then the house sat empty. Reuben Brothers bought the estate in 2011, and the restoration since has been unusually heavy for a Grade I listed building: the terrace was cut free and set down on rubber pads to isolate it from the Underground lines below, four storeys of basement were dug out underneath for the plant, the services and the spa, and the front portico came down stone by stone to be put back. Studio PDP led the work, with Jean-Louis Deniot on the hotel and guest rooms and Laura Gonzalez on the bar, the spa and the club.
The team behind that is worth knowing, because the result is what the rate is buying. Studio PDP is the architect, with Donald Insall Associates as historic buildings consultant, AKT II on structure, Ardmore as main contractor and Walter Lilly on the heritage work. Decorative plaster was strapped, netted and squeezed into rubber moulds so missing runs could be cast to match, and the main staircase balustrade was reproduced from the Norfolk House precedent. The acoustic isolation had not been done to a Grade I listed building before.
Which room to book
House Queen runs 33 to 40 square metres, Chamber King is 36, House King 35 to 45, and Great House King goes to 52. All of them come with a marble bathroom, a walk-in rainfall shower and a washlet, and some have a bath, which is worth asking about at the time of booking rather than after.
The standard is the same across the categories: a curated minibar, an espresso machine, and tea, coffee and soft drinks included. Rooms on the laneway side are the quieter ones on paper, though the whole building sits on rubber pads, so the usual Mayfair problem of Underground rumble is the one thing you can stop thinking about.
Pick by what you want out of the window. Green Park King, 38 to 47 square metres, faces the park. Garden Terrace King, 36 to 41, comes with a private terrace of around 9 square metres. Great House King looks over the laneways, and some of those rooms overlook the garden terrace.
One step up, the Georgian Junior Suite is 57 square metres and the park-facing version 61. The Green Park One Bedroom Suite is 74 square metres with a separate living room and Georgian bay windows. The Garden Terrace One Bedroom Suite is 59 square metres with a 26 square metre terrace over the courtyard. The Eaves is 41 square metres, open plan under the roof with skylight windows.
The suites worth the upgrade
The signature suites are the historic rooms themselves, and most carry the names of the people who used them. Egremont is 49 square metres over the courtyard. Victoria is 53 with five-metre ceilings and original plasterwork above the Shepherd Market laneway. Edwardian is 65, Augusta 88 facing the park, Regency 99, Palladian 100. Palmerston, at 109 square metres, includes the study that was the prime minister's office and a small terrace. Adolphus has 110 square metres indoors plus a 30 square metre roof garden with a water feature. Elizabeth, 139 square metres over Green Park, is the largest single suite in the house.
They combine, which is the move for a family or a group. Elizabeth becomes a 227 square metre two bedroom, Palmerston a 219 square metre two bedroom, and the entire principal floor can be booked as The Piano Nobile: 600 square metres, up to six bedrooms, two landscaped terraces, park on one side and courtyard on the other.
Where you will eat and drink
Major's takes the restored Georgian ballroom and the open-air jasmine courtyard beside it. It is the London restaurant from Major Food Group, the New York group behind Carbone and Torrisi, and the idea is the American chophouse run against the traditions of the London grill: caviar service, seafood towers, prime cuts, fish and game, built on British produce. The group's New York rooms are Carbone, Torrisi and ZZ's Club, which is the register to expect: dark, theatrical, priced accordingly, and hard to get into on a Saturday.
The Drawing Rooms and the In and Out Bar are the house's social rooms off the hall. The Reuben Bar is the signature one, designed by Laura Gonzalez, with more than ten versions of the martini and a long wine list.
The spa
Three floors, built on British healing traditions and the sequence of the Roman bathhouse. There is a heated swimming pool, a bathhouse, six treatment rooms, hydrotherapy, wet and heat rooms, a circular relaxation lounge around a fire pit, a gym and studios. A Master in Residence programme brings visiting practitioners through. The pool runs from 7am to 9pm.
What is not ready on day one
The members club arrives later in 2027, also designed by Gonzalez. It has no published name, no membership terms and no fee, so a stay in the opening months will not have it. The seven private residences in the building total 22,277 square feet, the largest running to 7,018 square feet across the fourth and fifth floors, and none of them has a published price.
Planning the stay
The setting does a lot of the work. Green Park is across the road, Shepherd Market's laneways and their pubs and small restaurants are immediately behind, and Green Park station a few minutes east puts the Piccadilly, Victoria and Jubilee lines within a short walk. Bond Street and Oxford Circus are both under twenty minutes on foot.
Practicalities. Private airport transfers can be arranged from any London airport through the concierge, and if a room is not ready when you land the team will hold you and your luggage until it is. Cancellation terms vary by date, rate and room type rather than running to one house policy, so read the confirmation rather than assuming. The reservations line is +44 20 8089 1365.
The address is 94 Piccadilly. The hotel opens on 1 February 2027, reservations run from April 2027, and rates start at £1,250 room only. If the principal floor is the reason you are going, book early: there are nine signature suites in a 102-room hotel.
