Best hotels for design-conscious travellers
From bold paint colours to block-printed sheets, these statement-making hotels might inspire your own interiors at home.
Grand Hotel Son Net, Mallorca
Occupying a Mallorcan manor house and an estate dating back to 1672, Grand Hotel Son Net has good bones. A three-year makeover initiated by hotelier Javier López Granados has made the hideaway more enticing than ever. Design fans will be wowed by its masterful, multilayered interiors by Madrid-based designer and antiquarian Lorenzo Castillo. An inveterate maximalist, Castillo has infused each of the 31 suites with an individual look. Among the swirl of flourishes are Baroque paintings, Syrian chests, vintage tapestries, florid wallpapers and rich, painterly fabrics that wrap chairs, sofas and bedheads. The hotel, a 20-minute drive from Palma, is emblematic of the new generation of chic Mallorcan getaways. sonnet.es
8 Holland Street Townhouse, Bath
The influential London design store 8 Holland Street has a bookable three-bedroom townhouse in Bath, allowing you to live out your Jane Austen fantasies while luxuriating on a plush Mario Bellini Le Bambole leather sofa. Designed by founder Tobias Vernon, the rooms are filled with an ever-changing roster of (mostly for sale) art, furniture, decorative objects and textiles. The hallway, with its stairs painted in Blue Gum and woodwork in Muga – oil-based glosses from UK-based Paint & Paper Library – hints at the eclecticism to come: a Christopher Farr rug is set against a 1970s wavy-legged Vivai del Sud cane console table. Upstairs, delights include a Plain English kitchen, a living room with an Angelo Mangiarotti marble coffee table and a Vico Magistretti Artemide armchair in grass green, while a top-floor snug is papered in Josef Frank’s Eldblomman print for Svenskt Tenn. Did we mention the artworks by Howard Hodgkin and Elizabeth Frink? They’ve covetable, too. 8hollandstreet.com
Villa Palladio, Jaipur
Diana Vreeland, the eminent American fashion editor, once proclaimed, “Red is the great clarifier – bright, cleansing, revealing”, dousing her own living room in a deep scarlet tone. There’s a Vreelandesque vim to Villa Palladio, the nine-room boutique hotel in Jaipur that extends the warm hospitality of its Italian-Swiss owner, Barbara Miolini, known for her restaurant Bar Palladio. Miolini, too, has embraced crimson inside the snow-white turreted mansion she has transformed with fashion designer Marie-Anne Oudejans and painter Vikas Soni. Most of the walls are red, in a shade inspired by cardinals’ robes, while some are enlivened with murals of palm trees and latticework. Red pool parasols, to contrast with the chequerboard terrace, were commissioned from Venice and the linens in Lake Como. You’ll want to buy the block-printed bedding and lamps, made by local artisans, and toiletries by Kama Ayurveda. villa-palladio-jaipur.com
Ett Hem, Stockholm
The key to Ett Hem’s intimately soothing vibe is in the name, which means “a home” in Swedish. But it’s rare to uncover a residence as lovely as this one, occupying an Arts and Crafts-era building in Stockholm with tactile interiors by British designer Ilse Crawford. Recently expanded to encompass two neighbouring buildings, it’s full of Crawford’s preoccupations: blue-grey walls, brass cabinetry, moss-green velvet sofas and vintage mid-century lamps. A stay here will have you Googling Antti Nurmesniemi striped armchairs, Behagligt bed linens, Waterworks brass toothbrush holders, and Åre Glashytta glassware. And if you’re particularly taken with the Birgitta Watz ceramics in which your granola is served, you can ask to buy them – the Stockholm-based potter is a friend of the hotel. etthem.se
Boath House, Scotland
The artist Jonny Gent intended the Boath House, the rural hotel he co-owns in Nairn, on the north coast of Scotland, “to smell like a cross between a cave and a church”. That mysterious signature scent has been achieved thanks to hourly burnings of palo santo and sage, a fireplace in a secluded room and keeping the front door of the 19th-century Georgian mansion open regardless of the weather. Hints of rain, wild garlic and lavender drift through, combining with those of foraged mushrooms from the kitchen. As one would expect from the team behind Sessions Arts Club, London’s buzziest restaurant, the interiors and the food by Florence Knight are stellar, too. Artworks by Julian Schnabel, Kate Friend and Luke Edward Hall add charm to the mix of elements, including vintage linen sofas, Marset Ginger floor lamps and 600-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets. boath-house.com
Tuba Club, Marseille
A former diving school facing the sea, Marseille’s Tuba Club takes its name from the French word for “snorkel”. The maritime theme continues in the Le Corbusier-inspired cabin rooms and three new suites, decorated with foam pool floats strung up like necklaces above the beds, rope skirting boards inspired by beach huts, a canopy bed repurposed from old sailing canvas, Vallauris ceramics and the odd pair of retro rubber flippers. The work of local interior architect Marion Mailaender, Tuba Club has plenty of clever tricks to inspire DIY interiors, not least the Poulpe Fiction coffee table – a Perspex box placed over old clay octopus traps. At Bikini’s, the new rooftop lounge, a bar has been fashioned from a boat hull by Ateliers Laissez Passer, a local collective of upcycling artists, and reclaimed deckchairs have been painted turquoise, their canvas seats revamped in black-and-white gingham. tuba-club.com
Ulysses, Baltimore
Switch “accidentally Wes Anderson” for “purposefully John Waters” and you’ll end up with Ulysses hotel in Baltimore, inspired in large part by the over-the-top oeuvre of the Pink Flamingos film-maker who calls the city home. Designed by New York-based hotel firm Ash, the lodging is unapologetically flamboyant. With 116 quirky rooms, a wood-panelled bistro and a cocktail lounge with mirrored walls and violet carpet, the 1912 building could have been a location for Hairspray. The bedrooms are provocative, with custom wall-to-wall leopard-print carpets by Shaw Carpets, Etruscan flowerpot-shaped vanity mirrors, four-poster beds with scalloped canopies and handmade quilts inspired by Baltimore album quilts. The hand-beaded lampshades and flowers displayed in antique Champagne buckets are a delight, too. Seeking a souvenir? Ash sells classy hotel merch. ash.world
Further Hotel, Bali
At first blush, Further Hotel, an 11-room lodging that recently arrived on Bali’s southwest coast in Pererenan, projects a tropical brutalist air. Burnt sienna bricks, sharp angles and raw textures by architecture studio Morq have a monolithic edge that sets it apart. To balance that bold aesthetic, Sydney-based interior designer Amy Wenden has swathed the guest rooms in a soft, serene mix of furnishings and accessories: organically shaped lounge chairs, hand-woven rugs, airy linens, and moody images on the walls. As light filters through the latticed structures, the spaces feel poised and peaceful. Many of the in-room accessories, including sleek kimonos and quilted slippers, are available to buy. Also on site are retail offerings from Thomas Surfboards, Smile Clothing and Indonesian skincare brand Oaken Lab. An art gallery space, featuring rotating exhibits, is another chance to feather your nest. furtherhotel.com
Son Blanc, Menorca
Those feeling overly visually stimulated would do well to check in to the palette-cleansing Son Blanc in Menorca. Benoît Pellegrini and his wife, Benedicta Linares Pearce, bought the dilapidated 19th-century farmhouse in 2018 and have transformed it into an ecologically responsible, 14-room retreat. Conceived in a soothing array of local limestone, wild olive wood, coconut fibre and clay, the hotel showcases the work of European artisans. Highlights include woven cotton headboards by artist duo Cañadas Murúa, burnt-wood tables by French cabinetmaker Vincent Vincent, terracotta bedside tables and lamps by Spanish ceramicist Núria Efe, and pottery by the local artist Isaac Femenías Ferrà. If you’re feeling creatively inspired, pottery courses and watercolour workshops are run as part of the hotel’s activities. So too are farming sessions if you’d like to get down to earth. sonblancmenorca.com
Hôtel de la Boétie, Paris
Designer Beata Heuman, lauded for her playful take on Scandi style, has an impressive client list including British model Adwoa Aboah. Now her colourful interiors have come to Paris for her first hotel project, the 40-room Hôtel de la Boétie, near the Champs Élysées. The lobby provides an instant visual hit, with striking silver wallpaper from Phillip Jeffries’s Vinyl Metalworks collection alongside furniture and lighting from Heuman’s own Shoppa range and large-scale posters from the Royal Academy shop. Meanwhile, the bedrooms are painted in Argile Paint’s relaxing pale-blue Terre de Lune. Clever flourishes abound, like the use of red curtain linings to make the hotel look cosy from the outside, even when the curtains are drawn. But the most spirited touch is GPO Retro’s rotary phones in every room. hoteldelaboetie.com
THE TIMES