Resolving the tension between a Grade II-listed Berners Street building — a 1908 Edwardian pile by architect William Woodward, its Portland stone facade crowned with a pedimented portico and figurative relief sculpture — and the downtown sensibility Ian Schrager has spent four decades refining was the central challenge of The London EDITION. Schrager worked with John Pawson on the conversion, which opened in 2013 across 173 rooms and seven floors, and the pairing makes immediate sense: Pawson's reductive instincts kept the historic envelope intact while clearing the interior of period sentiment. The guest rooms carry this logic into something warmer than minimalism — walls lined floor to ceiling in bookmatched walnut veneer, wide-plank oak underfoot, globe pendants in amber glass, and faux-fur throws that pull the palette toward the tactile rather than the austere. The attic-level suites open onto planted terraces through angled dormer windows, the timber lining following the roofline in a move that gives the rooms the atmosphere of a well-appointed ship's cabin. Downstairs, the Berners Tavern dining room — designed with theatrical intent, its elaborate Edwardian plasterwork ceiling left entirely untouched — lines every wall with hundreds of gilt-framed paintings in a dense salon hang curated by artist Russell Marshall. The bar alongside it goes deliberately dark: oak panelling, tufted teal velvet banquettes, leather club chairs, and candlelight doing the heavy work.

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