On Melrose Avenue, surrounded by businesses devoted to how a home looks, Alistair Hughes starts with how it sleeps. Discussing the new Savoir Los Angeles showroom, the British bedmaker’s co-owner and company director reaches back to a London hotel and an ambition that still guides the business: make a bed worth seeking out.
“He decided he wanted the best bed in the world,” Hughes says, recounting the ambition behind the Savoy Hotel’s signature bed. “So he said he couldn’t find it. He would make his own.”
That pursuit is the foundation of Savoir’s new West Coast address at 8551 Melrose Ave. Scheduled to begin welcoming visitors in preview on Oct. 12, the 940-square-foot showroom brings six bed models, British handcraft and a design created especially for Los Angeles into the West Hollywood Design District. The invitation is straightforward: Come see the work, then lie down and feel it.
Alistair Hughes on the Bed Behind Savoir
For Hughes, the company’s history is best understood through something visitors can actually try.
“This bed here that we call the number two,” he says, pointing out the model descended from the Savoy bed, “was created in 1905.”
He describes generations of hotel guests as a demanding, real-world audience for its construction and comfort. It is a useful way to understand the brand’s longevity: A bed has to deliver after the room’s first impression has faded.
Hughes acquired the Savoy Bedworks in 1997 and helped expand Savoir internationally while retaining its British manufacturing and traditional methods. Each bed is made by hand in the United Kingdom using natural materials. Here, those methods become part of the showroom experience.
The No. 2 is displayed “naked,” in the company’s Trellis ticking, paired with the Lenoir headboard. Without layers of decorative bedding, visitors get a clearer look at the bed itself. Nearby, the No. 1, Savoir’s deepest mattress, is presented with a cashmere and horse-tail hair topper.
Seeing the two together gives shoppers a reason to slow down, compare and ask questions about what sits beneath the sheets.
A Savoir Showroom With a Los Angeles Point of View
The space also makes a case for visiting even before a bedroom renovation is underway.
Designer Hannah Carter Owers, whose studio worked on Savoir’s Mayfair flagship and New York showroom at 200 Lexington, has given the Los Angeles location its own material vocabulary. Natural light falls across sand and pale umber tones, refinished concrete floors and custom beech millwork. The palette draws on California’s relationship with nature and indoor-outdoor living.
Its local introduction is the Melrose bed, a new design with a low, wide-fluted headboard and midcentury references. Upholstered in Dedar’s Karakorum bouclé, a textured blend of wool and viscose, it brings a softer presence to the room.
Other displays include Nicole Fuller’s Stella bed, refreshed in de Le Cuona’s Pearl-colored Heritage fabric, alongside the Winston and new Teddy designs. Together, they show how differently a handmade bed can inhabit a room.
The details extend beyond upholstery. Photography developed with Los Angeles-based Natural Curiosities pairs nature imagery with scenes from Savoir’s London workshop. Horsehair, one of the materials used inside the mattresses, reappears in a coiled artwork and Apparatus wall lights. A Cox London Spring Oak Tree chandelier and a reclaimed elm-and-brass consultation table by Scottish cabinetmaker Faolchú continue the attention to materials.
Why Visit Savoir on Melrose?
The strongest reason is also the least complicated: Comfort is personal, and a photograph can only explain so much.
Discreet retractable curtains surround each bed, allowing visitors privacy while trying models with guidance from the showroom’s specialists. That gives the space a practical purpose beyond presenting beautiful furniture. Clients can compare the beds and discuss their preferences without feeling quite so exposed on a retail floor.
“Los Angeles has long been an important market for Savoir,” Hughes says in the opening announcement. He describes the Design District as “a place where visitors can experience the quality of our beds firsthand and understand the craft behind each one.”
That is the connection between his account of the original Savoy bed and this new showroom. The history gives visitors something to consider. The materials give them something to inspect. But the final judgment belongs to the person lying down.
On Melrose, Savoir makes room for that decision.
For more information about Savoir, visit us.savoirbeds.com
Location: 8551 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood
Hours and Dates: Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m.–6 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
Photo credits: Photo courtesy of Savoir and Lorenzo Dela Rama.
