The Icon Hotel is privately owned & operated by Franco & Lefi Anacreonte. Franco is of Italian descent whilst Lefi is Greek.

Our vision and aspiration is to purposely differentiate ourselves from any other hotel, particularly the larger chain-branded establishments, and to offer a quality and service of a 4 star hotel at affordable prices. On the 1st August 2008 we purchased arguably two of Luton's most iconic (hence the name) and landmark buildings; the former head offices of insurance giant Zurich Plc and the former Luton Chamber of Commerce, which had been vacant for some 10 years.

The buildings were adjacent to each other but not connected and joining them together to form one building proved an enormous technical & structural task.

The £3m conversion works commenced in March 2009 and we paid particular attention to sound proofing, comfort, design, energy saving features & subtle but nonetheless state-of-the-art gadgetry. We aim to open the first of two phases in the first week of November 2009 with the final phase opening by the first week in December 09.

We've furnished the hotel in a themed, elegant and aspirational manner. It is our deliberate intention to associate ourselves with and contribute to the community having sponsored for example both Luton Town Football Club (Franco's life-long team) & Luton Borough Council and continuously forging relationships with various local business. To this quest therefore we want the Icon to provide an ambience based not only on design but also interesting historical associations such as Luton's hat industry. Capello's (our signature restaurant) is both the Greek & Italian word for Hat. Luton Town FC are known as ‘The Hatters'.

We wish to be recognised as Luton's best hotel offering a truly exceptional and unique guest experience at affordable prices.

ART GALLERY

It was our web designer who told us "I didn't realise until I looked how all hotel web sites over the world look like they've been designed by the same person". We therefore knew from the start that we wanted to create an easy-to-use web site that was original & one-off.

Because of our love of art, we wanted to fill the hotel with it, thus simultaneously creating a gallery within the premises with the items available for sale, or simply for our guests & the general public to view. We wanted fuse the web site on a practical level with an arty feeling and custom-made illustrations that would depict the theme, tab or web page. For example our creation of a lily pond heads the page for therapy treatments. The subliminal message here to the viewer of the page is one of calmness.

We commissioned the following world renowned illustrators to create our own exclusive range of art work. Even our Capello's restaurant logo was designed by one of them:

Dermot Flynn
Alessandro Gottardo - Shout
Tavis Coburn
Stuart Daly

The above have produced creations for organisations such as Time Magazine, National Geographic, Arsenal Football Club and the list goes on.

Slowly and over time the entire hotel will feature a variety of ‘alternative' and diverse art from bespoke illustrations to Michael Jackson concert tickets.