The Ritz Hotel

The Ritz Hotel is a grand hotel built in 1906 by architects Mewés and Davis, marking their first major commission in London. It features a combination of Norwegian granite and Portland stone cladding and is one of the earliest buildings to utilize a steel frame. The roof is covered with green slate. The design is heavily influenced by Parisian architecture, particularly resembling styles found on rue de Rivoli and Place Vendome, with a restrained yet enlarged Beaux Arts detailing.

The hotel stands six storeys tall and includes two tiers of dormers in a steep mansard roof. The ground floor has a podium with a channelled arcade that extends over the pavement, featuring semicircular arched openings adorned with carved keystones depicting bearded and female heads. Behind these arches are later 20th-century shop fronts flanking the main entrance.

The upper floors are characterized by central and flanking five-bay pavilions framed by channelled pilaster strips. The first and second floor windows are linked by through-storey architraves with enriched cornices above the second floor. The third-floor windows have segmental arched flat surrounds with carved head keystones, and there are Louis XV style iron window guards. A mutule cornice crowns the fourth floor, and there is a balustraded parapet at the set-back attic storey, with applied pediments on the attics of the pavilions. The roof features ornamental leadwork cresting.

Similar architectural details are present on the return elevations facing Green Park and Arlington Street, where there is a wrought iron and glazed canopied entrance. Inside, the hotel boasts richly gilded Louis XV interiors with exquisite detailing, particularly prominent in the central Fountain Court and the Restaurant located at the Green Park end of the axial promenade-corridor.