Forming a majestic gatehouse from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace, it will certainly be able to offer rooms with a view.

After years housing civil servants’ dilapidated offices, Admiralty Arch (left), one of London’s best-known landmarks, is to become a luxury hotel. The project is being headed by Rafael Serrano, the Spanish developer behind the glitzy Bulgari Hotel in Knightsbridge, which offers guests lavish dining areas (top right) and rooms (bottom right).

After years housing civil servants’ dilapidated offices, Admiralty Arch, one of London’s best-known landmarks, is to become a luxury hotel, it was announced yesterday.

And with Rafael Serrano, the Spanish developer behind the glitzy Bulgari Hotel in Knightsbridge, heading the project, it should be eye-catching at the very least.

Some critics have panned the Bulgari – the most expensive place to stay in Britain, with even the cheapest rooms from £850 a night – for its ‘brash’ and ‘tasteless’ decor, dubbing it the ‘Vulgari’.

Now Mr Serrano’s London-based firm Prime Investors Capital has bought Grade I-listed Admiralty Arch for £60million, there is talk of ‘subtle illuminations’ on the outside, and a sumptuous ballroom and spa inside.

Admiralty Arch, one of London’s best-known landmarks, is to become a luxury hotel

But at a press conference to unveil the sale yesterday, Mr Serrano was quick to stress that the 100-year-old building’s period features will be painstakingly preserved as part of the deal.

When the arch’s sale was announced last year, it was contingent on the building being made accessible to the public for the first time, with a museum mooted as an option.

Turning it into a five-star hotel will inevitably invite criticism that the arch will be accessible only to the super-rich.

Mr Serrano said the hotel should attract 50,000 guests a year in its 100 guestrooms, with a further 50,000 visiting its bars and restaurants, which will be open to the public.

The development will also create hundreds of jobs.

In the 100 years since it opened, the building has had virtually no public access, including the south block staircase, but Mr Maude says that the Government wants to ‘preserve it for future generations’

With nearby six-bedroom houses on the market for £30million, £60million might seem a snip.

But the deal is to restore the arch during a 99-year lease, a project which will probably cost hundreds of millions.

Spread over eight storeys, the 147,300 sq ft building is not being used at present, is falling into disrepair and has £900,000-a-year running costs, which Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude said amounted to a ‘tragic waste of an historic building’.

No decision has yet been made on what the hotel will be called or who will run it.

The team will liaise with the Government on the security implications, due to its sensitive position overlooking Whitehall and the Mall.

Buckingham Palace has been consulted, while the Government retains the freehold and still has the final say in its development.

The sale does not include Admiralty House, next door, which dates from 1788 and has provided grace-and-favour apartments for politicians including former deputy prime minister John Prescott.

@MailOnline