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Iconic Luxury Hotels hotels

English estates and coaching inns keep their character, with country-house traditions of hosting.

Iconic Luxury Hotels gathers individually named country houses, townhouses, and coastal retreats, including Cliveden, Chewton Glen, and The Lygon Arms. Formed by London & Regional Properties in 2016, the collection gives these buildings a shared approach to hospitality while retaining the histories and personalities that make them worth visiting.

9 Iconic Luxury Hotels hotels in 4 countries on the Luxury Hotels Atlas, each placed on the six LHA Tiers.

• Owned by London & Regional Properties
• Worldwide: 9 hotels, in the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States, and Spain
• On the atlas: 1 Apex Luxury, 6 Core Luxury, 2 Accessible Luxury

History

Andrew Stembridge’s years at Chewton Glen preceded the Iconic name, giving the collection an established understanding of the house, its spa, cookery school, and treehouses. London & Regional later gathered that experience into a wider family. Townhouses and overseas hotels extended a collection whose early identity was already rooted in individual places.

Timeline

• 1532 — The Broadway inn later called The Lygon Arms is recorded as the White Hart. The four-gabled stone front goes up in 1620.
• 1732 — Chewton Glen House is documented on the edge of the New Forest, a Palladian house of the 1720s and early 1730s.
• 1887 — Four Chelsea townhouses on Cadogan Gardens are already standing. They later run as a private members' club.
• 1890 — The red-brick house at 26 Cadogan Gardens, much later The Chelsea Townhouse, is built.
• 1908 — Giovanni Sardi's Hotel Excelsior opens on the Venice Lido.
• 1962 — The Duval family, owners since 1947, make Chewton Glen a hotel. The Skan brothers, Martin and Trevor, buy it in 1966.
• 1985 — Cliveden House in Taplow begins its life as a hotel. Forty-eight rooms.
• 1990 — The Skan brothers open a spa at Chewton Glen, the first hotel spa of its kind in Britain.
• 1996 — Andrew Davis founds Von Essen, which grows to 28 British country-house hotels.
• 1997 — Andrew Stembridge joins Chewton Glen as operations manager. He returns as managing director in 2003.
• 2006 — Ian Livingstone buys the 130-acre Chewton Glen estate.
• 2011 — Von Essen enters administration, debts above £250 million.
• 2012 — London & Regional buys Cliveden from the estate. Lord Cadogan takes the leasehold of 11 Cadogan Gardens and turns the members' club into a 56-room hotel.
• 2016 — Iconic Luxury Hotels is formed. Stembridge leads Chewton Glen, Cliveden, 11 Cadogan Gardens, and The Lygon Arms. 11 Cadogan Gardens is renovated and relaunched.
• 2019 — 11 Cadogan Gardens becomes a Relais & Châteaux hotel.
• 2020 — The Mayfair Townhouse opens, 172 rooms in an 18th-century southwest Mayfair house, designed by Goddard Littlefair.
• 2022 — Iconic buys the Draycott Hotel at 26 Cadogan Gardens.
• 2024 — The Draycott reopens as The Chelsea Townhouse, 36 rooms. Palm House in Palm Beach reopens in November, 79 rooms, after 17 years empty.
• 2025 — Gran Marbella opens in Elviria, 135 rooms, the ninth house, with Spain's first Champneys spa.

The houses to know

1. Cliveden House, Taplow, United Kingdom — The Taplow estate that has taken hotel guests since 1985, 48 rooms, bought by London & Regional out of the Von Essen collapse in 2012.
2. Chewton Glen, New Milton, United Kingdom — A Palladian house documented since 1732, a hotel since 1962, and the place Andrew Stembridge has run since 2003.
3. 11 Cadogan Gardens, London, United Kingdom — Fifty-six rooms in four Chelsea townhouses, a members' club until Lord Cadogan took the lease in 2012.
4. The Chelsea Townhouse, London, United Kingdom — Thirty-six rooms in the old Draycott at 26 Cadogan Gardens, relaunched in 2024.
5. Palm House, Palm Beach, United States — Seventy-nine rooms on Royal Palm Way, reopened November 2024 after seventeen years empty.
6. The Mayfair Townhouse, London, United Kingdom — One hundred seventy-two rooms in an 18th-century southwest Mayfair house, opened in 2020, without televisions.
7. Hotel Excelsior Venice Lido Resort, Lido di Venezia, Italy — Giovanni Sardi's 1908 palace on the Lido, where the Venice Film Festival began on a balcony in 1932.
8. Gran Marbella Resort & Beach Club, Marbella, Spain — One hundred thirty-five rooms in Elviria, opened in 2025, with Spain's first Champneys spa.
9. The Lygon Arms, Broadway, United Kingdom — A Broadway coaching inn recorded in 1532 as the White Hart, with a 1620 stone front.

Newest openings

• Gran Marbella Resort & Beach Club, Marbella, Spain, opened in 2025. One hundred thirty-five rooms in Elviria, on Playa del Real de Zaragoza. Andalusian courtyards, Spain's first Champneys spa, and Amù Beach Club. The hotel record calls it the ninth house of the same London group as Chewton Glen and Cliveden.
• The Chelsea Townhouse, London, opened in 2024, the relaunch of the Draycott, bought in 2022. Thirty-six rooms in an 1890 red-brick townhouse near Sloane Square, sister to 11 Cadogan Gardens, and London's second Relais & Châteaux hotel in the collection.
• Palm House, Palm Beach, United States, reopened in November 2024. Seventy-nine rooms. The site had been the Heart of Palm Beach hotel, opened in 1961, expanded in 1981, and closed in 2007 when a renovation never finished. Iconic bought the derelict building in a 2019 bankruptcy sale for nearly $40 million. MICHELIN One Key, 2025.

Opening next

• No further Iconic Luxury Hotels openings with a confirmed location and year were identified in the sources reviewed.

Every Iconic Luxury Hotels hotel on the atlas

United Kingdom

• Cliveden House — Taplow · Apex Luxury
• 11 Cadogan Gardens — London · Core Luxury
• Chewton Glen — New Milton · Core Luxury
• The Chelsea Townhouse — London · Core Luxury
• The Mayfair Townhouse — London · Core Luxury
• The Lygon Arms — Broadway · Accessible Luxury

Italy

• Hotel Excelsior Venice Lido Resort — Lido di Venezia · Core Luxury

Spain

• Gran Marbella Resort & Beach Club — Marbella · Accessible Luxury

United States

• Palm House — Palm Beach · Core Luxury

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