Smooth

You could call Henry Togna suave, charming and sophisticated - but it has been said before in magazines all over the world. This 52-year-old former property developer has honed the art of favourable press to a tee.

Since opening 22 Jermyn Street as an all-suite townhouse hotel in 1990, Togna has clocked up 600 articles about himself, his hotel and his staff. The best of the bunch are framed and adorn the office walls. They jostle for space with trophies, cups and plaques.

Only last year, the consortium Small Luxury Hotels of the World voted it Hotel of the Year. The latest accolade is from the 1996 Good Hotel Guide which has honoured the business with a César award as "London's premier townhouse hotel".

Togna has many important connections, his most high-profile friend being Lord Archer, for whom he gave evidence during the much-publicised libel case.

Togna is relaxed with journalists. As he sits sipping mineral water amid the clutter of computer screens, modems and a fax machine, he admits: "I know how to work with journalists. They always need a hook."

In the past six years, 22 Jermyn Street has become a self-perpetuating ideas machine. The hotel conveys the ideas and enthusiasm of Togna and his staff through a weekly newsletter to guests. Chatty and detailed, it urges residents to explore new restaurants, the latest plays or in-vogue exhibitions. There is even a children's version.

Thanks to Mel Gibson's young son, who wanted to feed the ducks in nearby St James's Park while the family was staying, a "birdie bag" was introduced and offered as an option for future guests.

Togna says of the child-friendly policy: "A lot of hotels don't like children. But here nearly all my staff are women and they love having children to stay."

Casting his mind back to his own youth, Togna recalls going to Downside, a Roman Catholic boarding school in Somerset. One of his peers was Rocco Forte and Togna remembers with wry amusement how, when he left school, Charles Forte offered the young Togna a job washing up in a Manchester hotel.

Declining the post, Togna took a job as a salesman. "That's really what I still am now!" From sales he moved to marketing and from there to property restoration. For a time in the early 1970s, he helped open three different restaurants and became fully acquainted with the hospitality industry.

He says: "I cut my teeth in restaurants by working seven days a week and from 7am to midnight. It was hard work but fun." In 1974 he struck out on his own, staying in the property business. His ventures took him overseas and meant spending up to six months a year in the USA.

He did the ultimate property deal in 1989 when he returned to London and persuaded his father to sell him 22 Jermyn Street, which, by the following year, he had converted from serviced apartments to a hotel.

With the frank self-awareness of someone successful, he recalls: "I was very experienced in property, interested in décor, experienced in staying in hotels - but very inexperienced in running one."

On opening day at 22 Jermyn Street in May 1990, the hotel had one guest. Ten days later it was full and now, with 60% repeat guests, it runs an average monthly occupancy of 86% with average rate for a suite at £245.

Boasting such modern essentials as in-room fax/modems, a CD-Rom reference library and access to the Internet, 22 Jermyn Street might offer a taste of the Edwardian era in its design but its fingers are clearly on the pulse of the nineties.

Showman, technology buff, property whizz-kid, luxury hotelier - when this man says: "London's economy is at the start of another upward cycle", you know you should watch this space.