One of London’s more striking Art Deco office buildings is to be converted into a hotel.
Ibex House is a Grade II-listed building that was built near the Tower of London between 1935-37 as a speculative office development, and was given heritage protection in 1982.
Described as “the city’s most up-to-date office building” when ot opened in September 1937, it was quickly filled up with occupants.
About half the building was rented to private companies, with the government (the Air Ministry, the Admiralty, and the Office of Works) taking the rest. One of their more notable later occupants was Radio Rentals, back when owning a radio, and later, a television was an unaffordable luxury for many.
Advert in The Times, October 1937
A previously approved scheme to refurbish the building would have involved a large basement excavation underneath to house a ballroom-style space, but the development never took place.
The new owners have come back with a revised scheme that slightly extends the two upper floors, but is more about refurbishing the open-plan office interior into a hotel layout.
They also plan to reopen the corner pub, the Peacock, which was included in the building as a replacement for the pub that stood on the site prior to the 1930s, but closed around the time of the pandemic lockdown.
And for those who pay the premium, the two curved staircases on either side of the building will be converted into additional bedroom space.
As a listed building, it would have been harder to rebuild the interior to meet modern office requirements, so a hotel conversion is one of the few alternative uses the building could have been put to.
As part of the application process, the hotel will include a training academy for future hotel workers and will offer its commercial meeting rooms to local organisations free of charge. A new swimming pool in the basement will also be open to City of London social housing residents living nearby.
The City of London approved the plans last week.
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