Steve Jobs Hated The Hempel Hotel in London

Where: 31-35 Craven Hill Gardens, London, United Kingdom, W2

October 31, 2011 at 3:00 PM | by juliana | Comments (0)

The world knows Steve Jobs for his creation of the gadgets that have become an everyday necessity in our lives like the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. But thanks to the new biography on the Apple mastermind by Walter Isaacson, we've learned that Jobs would have also made a badass hotel critic.

HotelChatter HQ has just finished the book, which pounds home how hard Steve jobs is on design. In fact, he would immediately classify design examples as "the greatest" or "shit". More often than not, he was right in these knee-jerk assessments.

And yes, his extreme design assessments extended to things outside the computer world--like hotels. Here's a very telling bit in the book about a hotel stay Jobs had in London (please flip to page 462 if you've got your books open.)

On a trip to London with Jobs, Jony Ive had the thankless task of choosing the hotel. He picked The Hempel, a tranquil five-star boutique hotel with sophisticated minimalism that he thought Jobs would love. But as soon as he checked in he braced himself, and sure enough his phone rang a minute later. "I hate my room," Jobs declared. "it's a piece of shit, let's go." So Ive gathered his luggage and went to the front desk, where Jobs bluntly told the shocked clerk what he thought.

Eeek. Was this when Michael Jackson or Perez Hilton was staying there? And we wonder if the hotel clerk ever told this to British designer, Anouska Hempel, who indeed designed her namesake hotel? Her inspiration was apparently Zen minimalism.

Regardless of what Jobs thought, the hotel does take art and design very seriously having opened their own art gallery, the Art Work Space, within the hotel's restaurant and bar. And while the hotel may not stock iPads in the guestrooms (and we doubt they ever will now), the Hempel does give its guests free WiFi, a rarity in London. If you're interested in seeing what Jobs did not want to see any more of, rooms start around 144GBP a night for an advance purchase rate.

What do you think--is the Hempel "the greatest" or "shit"? Let us know what your inner Jobs says in comments below.

[Photo: The Hempel/Facebook]

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