Inside The Peninsula: London’s first billion-pound luxury hotel
It’s been three decades in the making, and casts the capital in a glamorous, magical light — even if you don’t stay overnight. Susan d’Arcy is first in
As Lui Chun boarded his Heathrow-bound plane in Hong Kong this month his fellow business-class passengers probably didn’t pay much attention to the unassuming gent in casual black suit and Nike trainers. How were they to know that the opening of London’s first billion-pound hotel rested on his say-so?
Inside The Peninsula: London
WILL PRYCE
As Lui Chun boarded his Heathrow-bound plane in Hong Kong this month his fellow business-class passengers probably didn’t pay much attention to the unassuming gent in casual black suit and Nike trainers. How were they to know that the opening of London’s first billion-pound hotel rested on his say-so?
Chun is a seventh-generation feng shui master whose family has been guiding the great and the good for about 900 years. And since the builders broke ground on Hyde Park Corner in 2017, he has visited the UK several times to advise the site’s owner, Hongkong & Shanghai Hotels, on the flow of energy through what is now the eight-storey Peninsula London hotel.
Chun even suggested the opening date (September 12) for the £1.1 billion property, and the purpose of his trip this month was to determine the precise minute that the reception team should hand over the first room key to ensure good fortune. Along the way Chun threw in style tips for the managing director Sonja Vodusek — she should wear red for luck — and oversaw the contents of the time capsules placed within the marble lions that guard the entrances; they include a copy of The Times.