The Dorchester has unveiled the final chapter of its Oliver Messel Suite restoration: a private terrace above Hyde Park, curated by celebrated English artist and designer Luke Edward Hall.
Few hotel suites carry the weight of history quite like The Dorchester‘s Oliver Messel Suite. First conceived by the legendary British designer in 1953, the suite has long stood as one of the most complete expressions of Messel’s interior design legacy — a space defined by theatrical illusion, expressive colour, and deeply personal decoration. Now, with the completion of its terrace, the suite’s long-awaited restoration is finally whole.
The terrace — offering sweeping views across Hyde Park — was curated by Luke Edward Hall, a name that has become synonymous with a certain strand of romantic, culturally rich English design. His appointment was both natural and deliberate.
Why Luke Edward Hall?
Hall’s credentials speak for themselves. A collaborator with Burberry, Lanvin, the Royal Ballet and the Royal Academy of Arts, he is also one of the most articulate champions of Oliver Messel’s work in the contemporary design world. For Hall, Messel’s art of illusion and theatrical sensibility have long been touchstones — direct influences on his own practice.
The connection deepened most recently when Hall reimagined Messel’s designs for Glyndebourne, producing a mural and a series of artworks for an exhibition dedicated to the designer at the opera house’s 2025 season. Few designers working today could claim both the aesthetic sensibility and the scholarly intimacy with Messel’s legacy that Hall brings to this project.
Palette, Materiality and the Art of Continuity
One of the most quietly impressive achievements of the terrace design is its seamlessness. Hall drew his colour palette directly from the suite’s interiors — lifting soft peachy pinks, dusky blues, greens and yellows from the carpets, fabrics and artworks inside. These tones are then echoed across the terrace’s furniture, fabrics and detailing, ensuring that stepping outside feels like a continuation rather than a departure.
The material language is equally considered. Rattan and bamboo elements reference materials already present within the suite, while a recreation of Messel’s original rose fabric — used across cushions and soft furnishings — establishes a direct visual and historical link to the designer’s 1953 vision.
Antique Meets Contemporary: The Furniture Edit
The terrace brings together an eclectic yet cohesive mix of antique and contemporary pieces, chosen to sit comfortably alongside original Messel-designed furniture that remains in situ. Among the standout additions are a mid-20th century Italian patio set and a pair of French painted and gilt stools — selected as much for their character and provenance as their visual contribution.
Hall has also incorporated textiles from his own collaboration with the historic Venetian house Rubelli, inspired by historic garden motifs and reinterpreted with bold sensitivity. The result is a layered outdoor room that rewards close attention.
British and Italian Craftsmanship
The terrace is also a quiet celebration of exceptional making. Parasols sourced from Italian atelier Guido Toschi Marazzani Visconti bring a sun-drenched Continental elegance, while rattan loungers — crafted in England by The Houghton Collection — are based on 1920s originals still in daily use at Houghton Hall in Norfolk. The choice of the latter is particularly telling: Hall is not interested in mere aesthetic pastiche, but in objects that carry genuine histories and continue to function.
Together, these pieces reflect a shared ethos: that luxury is not simply about cost or newness, but about a dedication to craft, continuity and context.
The Oliver Messel Suite: A Living Legacy
The completion of the terrace marks the end of a careful restoration project — one that has sought to honour Messel’s original vision while making the suite fully alive to contemporary use. The terrace, intimate and private above one of London’s most celebrated views, is now the final room in a suite that remains, more than seventy years after its creation, one of the most extraordinary places to stay in the capital.
For those who understand what Messel meant to British design — and what The Dorchester, which recently unveiled its new-look Royal Suite, means to London — the Oliver Messel Suite Terrace is not merely an addition. It is a completion.
