INTERIORS
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URROUNDED BY BOARDS covered with swatches and photos, with several small dogs at her feet, interior designer Nina Campbell is describing her recent work at the Draycott Hotel.
“They want a rather classic room here, so we’ve tried to make it classic but a little bit more contemporary. It’s possible to do both, I think,” she says.
Pushing a board for the Draycott’s lounge towards me, she points
out the various changes she has made, from graining the painted fireplace to make it look like mahogany to creating new seating areas, moving the bar to free up space and burying heating and air cooling systems in a wall. “We painted it a taupey colour, we did lovely rich curtains with the reds and the greens, this corner banquette is covered in a red chenille so it’s really comfortable, this sofa is also covered in this red wool, which is from my collections, and then we added this green. So it’s olives and reds and warm, but the walls are this light colour. “You look out onto this wonderful garden, and we made much simpler curtains, no pelmets. And then we used their furniture as much as we could, and their paintings and everything.” She emphasises the importance of making regular guests feel that
it’s still the same place they love after a refurbishment. “When you start messing with a hotel that’s been a great favourite of people for a long time, you have to be quite careful that you don’t completely radically go and change it, they get very upset,” she adds. As well as the lounge, she has been working on a new breakfast room and a bedroom suite at the hotel.
“I think my job at the Draycott is to make it
fresher, but still classical, still comfortable,” she explains. “That’s what people like about it, it’s a really comfortable hotel, it’s near Sloane Square.” Nina is also behind the look of Nathan Outlaw’s new restaurant at The Capital (see page 22). She has designed the restaurant before for owner David Levin, and is now working with his daughter Kate, who manages the hotel today.
“Kate Levin I’ve known since she was… actually I think unborn,” says Nina. “Because I did her parents’ house and I did the hotel. So I was thrilled when she asked me to come back. “It’s very nice when the next generation asks you to come back.”
Nina says she is taking inspiration from Nathan Outlaw’s company logo for the restaurant. “I saw his logo, which is the fishtail on a plate, and I just was inspired by that,” she explains. The quick turnaround before the restaurant opens means that Nina won’t be changing the structure of the room, but there will be new blinds, tables, chairs and coverings. She’s keen to point out that it’s not just being
Interior designer Nina Campbell’s sensitive touch was just what was needed for the redesign of the Draycott Hotel on Cadogan Gardens. She also reworked the restaurant at The Capital on Basil Street for Michelin-starred chef Nathan Outlaw. Lucy Brown finds out more
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