Contents of The Hempel Hotel to be sold at auction
The contents of Bayswater’s iconic The Hempel Hotel, originally designed by Anouska Hempel, are to be sold following the building’s sale to British Land for £33 million in March.
A favourite of Michael Jackson and Victoria Beckham and featured in the cult film Notting Hill, The Hempel is to be turned into 18 luxury apartments. The project involves the redevelopment of some 40,000 square foot of accommodation and is expected to cost some £56 million in total.
As a result the hotel is being cleared of everything from Palecek furniture to entire bathroom suites by auctioneers Pro Auction Limited in a sale that will be held both online and at the property. Ironing boards, pedal bins, towels and sewing kits are joined even by a limited edition sculpture of an elephant.
In 2010, Hempel (also known by her married name of Lady Weinberg) made clear her position on the hotel – which she was “forced out” of by her backers in 2001 – in comments to The Telegraph’s ‘Mandrake’:
“[The Hempel’s] not mine… They’ve changed the bathrooms, they’ve got purple fluffy rabbits in the foyer and they’ve taken my walls out… People go there and they think it’s me… I have to make an announcement very soon that it’s not. It annoys the hell out of me; it gets right under my skin”.
London’s first “minimalist hotel” is about to get a little more so. Anouska Hempel will surely be delighted.
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Never liked the place. It had no soul. Much preferred Blakes but even that’s lost its way.
She is the most ****** ***. I had her thrown out of a restaurant in Amsterdam when she was incredibly rude to the waiter. I knew the owner well and simply told him to chuck her and her party out and that I would pay the bill, which he did.
Apparently, all her staff at this hotel loathed her. Allegedly, they had some form of piped video in the hotel, so the staff would put on one of the **** films she ‘starred’ in whenever she wasn’t there.