The Savoy has been quietly reinventing itself again. London's first luxury hotel — open since 1889 and home over the years to everyone from Claude Monet to a young Guccio Gucci working as a luggage porter — has completed a major guest room refurbishment, finished in 2026, and it's a fascinating case study in how a heritage property modernises without losing its soul.
The hotel has always had two design personalities. Rooms facing the Thames lean Edwardian: classical proportions, silver and ivory silk, marble and antique brass. Along the Strand, the Art Deco rooms go bolder, with strong geometry, polished finishes and that unmistakable Savoy green. The new refurbishment, led by design studio GA with lighting consultants Nulty and client representatives Artizan Group under co-owner Kingdom Hotel Investments and operator Accor, keeps both identities intact but treats them as complementary chapters of one stay rather than rival aesthetics.
The quiet star of the project is lighting. Nulty layered ambient, task and decorative light so rooms can shift from a calm morning retreat to an evening entertaining space, while letting the Thames views and daylight do their share of the work. Original decorative fittings were reinstated where possible, backed by a Lutron control system — the myRoom XC platform — that ties lighting, blinds and temperature into one interface. Guests get pre-set scenes like a warm 'Welcome' on arrival and an 'Evening' wind-down, bedside keypads, and a master-off button so you can kill every light without leaving the bed. The Palladiom keypads were chosen specifically because their finish works in both the Edwardian and Art Deco schemes.
There's a practical side too: the system feeds room-level energy data into a central dashboard, supporting the hotel's BREEAM sustainability targets — no small thing in a landmark building of this size. And impressively, all of this happened while The Savoy stayed open, with phased works that ran a month ahead of schedule and on budget.
Why should a traveller care? Because this is the version of The Savoy you'll actually experience if you book now: rooms that feel period-authentic but behave like a modern smart hotel, where the tech never shouts. If you've stayed before, the recognisable character is intact. If it's your first time, you get contemporary comfort with the history thrown in — electric lifts and en-suite baths were novelties here once, after all. Whether it's a special-occasion splurge or a base for a West End weekend, the newly refurbished rooms are the ones to ask for.
Story credit: Hotel Designs
