Edwin Lutyens designed the building on the corner of Great Russell Street and Southampton Row in 1928 as the headquarters of the YWCA — a commission that explains both the civic confidence of the Edwardian baroque facade and the slightly unexpected grandeur of its interiors. The Bloomsbury, which took over the building following a careful conversion, carries that institutional seriousness as a kind of structural gift: high ceilings, panelled rooms, a stone entrance stair rising beneath a vaulted iron-and-glass canopy thick with trained branches, lit at dusk like a stage set for an Edith Wharton adaptation. Inside, the design moves across two registers that sit in productive tension. The bar — walls lacquered in a deep persimmon red, a long brass-footed counter with a marble top, Murano-style glass chandeliers hanging in clusters — draws on a knowing Art Deco vocabulary that flatters the building's bones without attempting strict period accuracy. Guest rooms divide between an earlier, more restrained scheme of dark-panelled headboards, burnt-orange velvet cushions, and warm taupe walls, and a newer palette introduced during later refurbishment: arched crimson leather headboards trimmed in gilt, periwinkle velvet armchairs with ochre cushions, antique kilims underfoot, and a mid-century floor lamp in blackened steel. The courtyard restaurant, dressed in pampas grass, sheepskin throws, and rattan bistro chairs beneath a black-and-white striped canopy, achieves something closer to a Parisian conservatory than a London hotel terrace.

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