The OWO Residences by Raffles
London, United Kingdom. Raffles. Eighty-five residences inside the Old War Office on Whitehall — Europe's first Raffles-branded homes.
The corridors are three metres wide because messengers rode bicycles down them. The Old War Office was built in 1906 to William Young's design, worked in by Churchill, drawn on by Ian Fleming, and closed to the public for more than a century. The Hinduja Group restored it with the original mosaic floors, oak panelling and the layout largely intact — the building now does something else in the same shape.
Eighty-five residences from studios to six-bedroom penthouses, 86 to 359 square metres, ceilings to 4.4 metres, two of them in the turrets, with 30,000 square feet of residents-only amenity and a 125-key Raffles hotel in the same walls. EPR Architects; residence interiors by 1508 London; hotel interiors by Thierry Despont. Raffles operates both the hotel and the homes — agreed in two stages, June 2017 and February 2020 — which is rarer than it sounds and is the difference between a serviced building and a licensed one.
Two things the register carries rather than resolves. The co-developer is named as OHL Desarrollos in the 2020 announcements and as Onex Holding in later sales material, and the register does not assume they are the same party. And the opening was promised for early 2022: the hotel opened in 2023, residences were still selling into 2025. Three years is an ordinary slip on a Grade II* restoration and it is nowhere in the marketing.
Who it is not for
Not for a buyer who wants a modern plan: this is a listed Edwardian building and its proportions, corridors and windows were fixed in 1906. Not for anyone who wants freehold — English long leasehold is the form and the term is unpublished.
Sources
- Accor press release, 25 February 2020 — Raffles confirmed as operator of the 85 residences
- Business Traveller, 21 February 2020 — first Raffles-branded residences in Europe
- Savills — project listing, Grade II* listed, Hinduja Group and Onex Holding
- UK Sotheby's International Realty — 85 residences
- Forbes, 8 September 2024 — studios to six-bedroom penthouses, three-metre corridors, original mosaics
- buildington.co.uk — EPR Architects, 1508 London interiors, turret residences
- LHL-R-260 · Raffles Residences, Part VII P7-01-10 · Thierry Despont
Verification
- Official source
- Checked
- Inventory
- Awaiting confirmation
- Sources disagree
- co-developer OHL Desarrollos vs Onex Holding; unit mix to five vs six bedrooms; opening promised early 2022
- Property confirmation
- Pending
- Last verified
- —
Booking
Private Residences records addresses; it does not broker them. Enquiries are passed to the party named in the record, and nothing on this site is an offer.
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