Brown's Hotel Sports Stealthy Luxury

The English Tea Room at Brown's hotel.

PHOTO: Courtsey of Brown's Hotel

I'm never tired of life, so I'm never tired of London. Tired in London, though — that's another story. Unwilling to waste precious time sleeping when I travel, I'm perpetually run-down and not inclined to admit it. Brown's Hotel is perfectly suited to visitors like me. This Mayfair classic, opened in a series of town houses just west of Bond Street in 1837 and tenderly reinvented two years ago by Sir Rocco Forte, has the speed and service of a top business hotel, never leaving a guest waiting, even for a coffee refill. But it also offers a stealthy bit of luxury. From the hushed lobby to the chicly appointed guest rooms, Brown's is a genuinely soothing place, allowing you to unwind to a degree that many of London's new hotels, with their ruthless elegance, do not.

Sir Rocco cleverly entrusted Brown's nineteen-month renovation to his sister Olga Polizzi, director of design for Rocco Forte Hotels, who understood the refined English charm for which the place was celebrated. Retaining the hotel's iconic oak-paneled tearoom, mosaic-tiled lobby and clubby restaurant, where the daily roast is wheeled through on a carving trolley, Polizzi completely reconceived the guest quarters upstairs. The 117 rooms have been enlarged considerably, especially the nineteen suites. Yes, they all have flat-screen TVs and Internet access. More important, they've got touches such as soft silk draperies, woolen throws, leather-topped writing desks, hardwood floors, limestone-lined bathrooms, art you'd actually care to look at on the walls and books you'd want to read on the shelves. They also come with access to the newly equipped gym, the treatment rooms and the deeply hip Donovan Bar. "It was a jolly difficult operation," Polizzi says candidly. "But there's no point in designing a hotel today unless the result is comfortable and functional." She wins on both counts.

Best of all, at least for overdriven guests like me, Brown's location on Albemarle Street puts it in a spot so hot it now has its own acronym: WoBo, for "West of Bond" Street. In other words, you can take in Dover Street market, Rei Kawakubo's renegade fashion concept store and the new shops of David Linley and Paul Smith all in an hour, then walk over to the Royal Academy of Arts or the National Gallery for an exhibition, trot through Green Park or Burlington Arcade and finish with a meal at the Wolseley, all without leaving your own neighborhood. Gives you time for a nap. Or not. Rooms from $558, suites from $2,052. 011-44-207-493-6020; roccofortehotels.com.