HOSPITALITY
A PALL MALL PALACE
Founded in 1836 as the HQ for the Liberal Party, London’s Reform Club has hosted everyone from Princess Diana to Gorbachev. Grahame Senior fi nds out how the private members’ club is moving with the times
Y
ou could say it all started with Michelangelo. His magnifi cent Farnese Palace in Rome was the inspiration for archi- tect Charles Barry’s stunning
interpretation of Renaissance style and while the Farnese Palace has since been transformed into the French Embassy, the Reform Club is still housed in the splendid build- ing – completed in 1841 – which it commissioned from Barry. Like the Renaissance palazzos on which it was modelled, 104 Pall Mall looks austere from the outside. Enter those unmarked doors, however, and you’re transported to an environment of exquisite refi nement and aes- thetic stimulation. Everything about this wonderful interior is designed to soothe the soul and excite the senses. The job of the main atrium is like that of any grand palace – to create a sense of awe and grandeur. Walking into its full-height space and gazing up to the sky glistening through a thou- sand lead-crystal lozenges of the roof high above defi nitely delivers the wow factor. As befi ts a palace, the interior is fl amboyant, with walls and columns in marble and scagliola interspersed with huge portraits and massive mirrors all adding to the impression of light and scale and space. It’s a statement building – just as
important in its day as the Shard today. It speaks of power and confi dence.
More than a magnifi cent building The Reform Club is one of the longest established institutions on Pall Mall. From the very beginning it was revolutionary in concept and radical
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The Reform Club architect, Charles Barry, was inspired by the Renaissance palazzos that he visited as a student in Rome
in execution. It was founded in 1836 by Edward Ellice, the Whig Whip who secured the successful progress through Parliament of the Reform Act of 1832 – after which the Club is named. His fortune was based on the Hudson’s Bay Company which was at that time at its zenith and he had the wealth and infl uence to inspire the ‘new men’ of the era. This was the time of the changing of the guard between the Old Whig aristocracy and the new liberal thinkers – the coming men. In effect they were not really wel- come at London’s more traditional
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Brooks’s Club, so Ellice and his col- leagues resolved to create a new and much bigger club for themselves. The mission was to promote liberal and progressive thought and enable the ‘social intercourse of the reform- ers’. Like all such clubs, the Reform was founded for the benefi t of its members and is run for that purpose today. Membership now is not specifi c to any party or political persuasion (the liberals moved out and on to the National Liberal Club in 1882). The Reform is open to those who
want to escape from the constraints of any particular political adherence. Paradoxically enough, the Reform was born at a time of coalition between the Whigs (later to be overtaken by the Liberals) and the Tories. That relationship had much the same unease about it as the UK’s current
ISSUE 3 2014 © cybertrek 2014
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