Tag: Design Hotels View All Tags
Tags: Anti-View / Design Hotels / → All Tags
Iced Out Of a Killer View in Iceland
| July 2, 2009 at 2:31 PM | 0 Comments
You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
Now, there is a certain type of anti-view that sucks spectacularly because the view you wanted is, like, half-obstructed by a wall. And now here is a very different, more modern and design-y version of an anti-view that is annoying because we don't really understand what it is that we're looking at here. A piece of a set from The Fifth Element? The side of a spaceship? Part of the 101 Hotel, or part of the building next to it (which, we believe, is the Iceland Opera House)?
Regardless, this is a shot of the view from 101 Hotel — one of those sweet Design Hotels — in Reykjavik, which has 38 rooms, free WiFi and is run by a gallery owner who uses "grays, black and white, clean lines and well-placed local art works to convey pure Nordic coolness." (Sidenote: how would W's wordsmith describe this place? We can only imagine.)
Rezzies here go for 45,900 ISK (just over $360) and, if you can deal with this potentially-poopy view, you can book here.
[Photo: Miamabanta]
Tags: Sweet Suites / Paris Hotels / Hotel Deals / Design Hotels / Fixed Dollar Rates / → All Tags
Suite Guarantees from the Bel-Ami Hotel Paris
| July 2, 2009 at 10:47 AM | 0 Comments
With the worldwide economy staying on its current roller coaster ride for the foreseeable future, it seems like there are fewer and fewer guarantees in life…especially when it comes to international travel. However, the 112-room Hotel Bel-Ami (a member of Design Hotels) in Paris’s St. Germain neighborhood is offering guaranteed room rates in U.S. dollars through 2009, including for the three new suites it has just unveiled.
The two larger suites are called the “Creation” suites and were designed by French couture hat designer Marina Besse on the first floor (that means second floor for us Americans). The third suite is the “Romance” suite on the fourth (or fifth!) floor, and is done up in “rich, warm, jewel-toned colors accented by soft green and raised ceilings” for a touch of bohemian Paris ambiance. Of course, the in-room La Durée macarons and Les Contes de Thé teas in the lounge don’t hurt either.
Tags: Design Hotels / Naples Hotels / Art Hotels / → All Tags
Romeo Hotel Gets Extra Arty With Clemente Exhibition
| June 26, 2009 at 9:48 AM | 0 Comments
The Romeo Hotel has already gotten a mention from us for getting boutique hotels into Napoli, but it's more than just a boutique – it's really an impressive art hotel as well. They feature modern artists but not with the standard exhibition; instead, the Romeo has been commissioning artists to create a piece of art inspired by the city of Napoli.
At the moment, Francesco Clemente is the artist-of-the-moment, and as well as catching his specially-commissioned piece in the hotel, you can also see his larger solo exhibition at the MADre Museum. And to celebrate all that, the Romeo Hotel has created a Clemente Package which includes museum tickets and the exhibition catalogue, Sea View room accommodation with breakfast, a couple of discount vouchers for restaurants and spa treatment and a limited edition postcard collection of Clemente's artworks. This deal starts at €299 ($420) but to coincide with the MADre exhibition, it's only valid until October this year.
The great thing about this hotel is that if you're lost, you can wander the streets saying "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo Hotel?" Or maybe not, but it's the kind of Friday pun we couldn't resist. Fortunately the hotel – and especially its art - sounds a lot better than our jokes.
Tags: Design Hotels / France Hotels / Hotel Renovations / Boscolo Hotels / → All Tags
The Boscolo Exedra Nice Dared Remodel Their Riviera Beauty
| June 9, 2009 at 4:09 PM | 0 Comments
When it comes to French Riviera hotels, you generally don't mess with a winner, especially when it's a historical building in the Belle Epoque style. Nonetheless, all hotels need updating once in a while, and so the Boscolo Exedra in Nice chose only the best to renovate their right half.
Choosing Massino Iosa Ghini to re-conceptualize the common areas like the conference room and breakfast room, the Exedra Nice wanted to evoke Italian style in a warmer way and "create a contemporary version of the Belle Epoque lines of the lavish historic envelope."
The result is now open in Nice, and we recommend swinging by the sculptural white bar, with its freaky tree features and light-up ceiling. We suppose this is to re-orient the folk who have spent all day in the sun on the beach? In any case, we're happy they didn't touch the elaborate facade of the classic hotel, but instead updated the interior enough to keep the first-class guests interested.
{Photo: Design Milk]
Tags: Abu Dhabi Hotels / Hotel News / Sports Hotels / Design Hotels / Hotel Construction / → All Tags
Abu Dhabi Nears the Finish Line With Their Racetrack-Side Hotel
| May 22, 2009 at 1:00 PM | 0 Comments
Remember when we hinted at Abu Dhabi's plan to compete with Dubai's entertainment by building themselves a Ferrari Theme Park, F1 racetrack and track-side hotel? Well, they've actually gone and started the thing; at least the hotel. The structure of it is complete, and currently the construction workers are hemming the glass cloak that will give the building a modular look (one that that reminds us of the Olympiapark in Munich).
The Yas, which will be the world's first five-star Formula One trackside hotel, is a monster with 500 rooms and a marina for docking your megayacht. All of this capped by the pivoting, diamond-shaped glass panels of the roof, which will produce "optical effects and spectral reflections that play against the surrounding sky, sea and desert landscape."
Tags: Design Hotels / Germany Hotels / Marcel Wanders / Hotel Construction / → All Tags
Coming Soon in Germany:: The Design Hotel-Power Plant Hybrid
| May 21, 2009 at 4:56 PM | 1 Comment
Now that the Mondrian South Beach has been open for almost six whole months, the hype as well as the advertising of its Marcel Wanders-designers interior has died down. This means it's perfect timing for Marcel to put himself back out there by leaking photos of his next big hotel project, the Kameha Grand in Bonn, Germany.
Due to to open this fall, the Kameha Grand is going to be one of those hybrid design/business hotels, where they'll be venturing outside of neutral tones but still respectful of business traveler tastes. Boasting 192 rooms, 61 suites, and one massive Presidential Suite with a sweeping staircase reminiscent of Wanders' Miami masterpiece, the Kameha will bed the trendiest of suits.
Tags: Airport Hotels / Hotel Hype / Design Hotels / → All Tags
Is a Luxury Hotel With a Bowling Alley On Its Way to Heathrow?
| April 22, 2009 at 11:09 AM | 0 Comments
Good news for frequent London travelers: A "new design-forward, energy-efficient 5-star hotel" is going to be going up (well, supposedly will be going up) super close to Heathrow airport. According to Inhabitat, Foster + Partners — the designers behind the Bowery Art Gallery, the NetJet airline interiors, and something called an "elephant house" — will design the place, while Riva Properties have signed on as developers.
Some notable design features, per Inhabitat:
The exterior of the new hotel will be covered in layers of glass, just one small part of the highly energy-efficient strategies characteristic of Foster+Partners designs. In addition to flooding the interior with daylight, the glass shell will act as a noise barrier from planes taking off and landing. While the hotel is actually 13 stories high, many of the floors are sunk below ground level, which gives the building a lower profile similar to the surrounding structures. Hotel rooms are contained into six different pavilions connected by bridges and enveloped by the glass shell.
Tags: Hotel Books / Design Hotels / → All Tags
Design Hotels Overloads Our Coffee Table With Their 'Yearbook'
| April 7, 2009 at 12:00 PM | 0 Comments
Another day, another hotel interiors coffee table book. Newest on the bookshelf is one from the recently re-branded Design Hotels; it is simply their "Yearbook," documenting 170 member hotels of their group in glossy style.
Available in black or white, we're guessing to help best contrast other colorful hotel books out there, the Yearbook is a weighty 476 pages, ringing in at a similarly hefty price of 44 Euro ($58.80). To spare you the need of lugging one of these babies home from the bookstore, we'll let you in on a few of the eccentric properties featured: Limes Hotel in Brisbane, New Majestic in Singapore, Azucar in Veracruz, East Hotel Hamburg, Goldman 25Hours in Frankfurt, the Hospes Maricel on Mallorca, and the Alila Villas Hadahaa on an atoll in the Maldives.
It may be nothing more than a glorified catalog, but there is a definite winning argument for owning this type of book: it makes you look cultured and well-traveled, and its very presence makes your bookshelf appear eccentric. Since we admit to having shallow moments where these things matter, you'll be catching this on our Christmas (in July) list.
[Photos: Design Hotels]
Tags: Hotel Openings / Rock and Roll Hotels / London Hotels / Design Hotels / → All Tags
Sanctum SoHo Will Serve You Jack Daniels in the Bath
| April 2, 2009 at 1:45 PM | 0 Comments
Remember that hotel for rockstars that some journalists dubbed the "Iron Maiden Hotel" because, um, the hotel was meant to appeal to musicians and also because one of Iron Maiden's managers was involved in the company behind the hotel? Yes, well. It's called Sanctum Soho, and it opened today.
Owner Mark Fuller, in an interview with Sky News, was all about getting across the anything-goes vibe of the place, emphasizing that all are welcome — whether they're John Legend-types dressed in suave suits, or drunk, sweaty and fresh-off-the-stage rockers rolling in past midnight.
Tags: Hotel Parties / Hotel Happenings / Design Hotels / Standard Hotels / → All Tags
Standard LA Is Totally Having a Rooftop Architecture Party, And You're Invited
| March 27, 2009 at 11:06 AM | 0 Comments
If you're reading this, then we think it's fair to assume that you like blogs, or at least don't mind them. And since you're reading about hotels, then perhaps it's safe to postulate that you may also have a thing for architecture, or maybe trendy interior design? If you're game for a little party involving all of these (blogs, hotels, architecture and design), then the Standard Downtown LA may just have you booked up next week.
Tags: Killer View / Design Hotels / Budapest Hotels / → All Tags
A Design Hotel With a Designer View in Hungary
| March 19, 2009 at 1:36 PM | 0 Comments
We are suckers for a room with a killer view. We find that we are even more likely to forgive some minor hotel inconveniences if we can stare out the window at something pretty--yeah we are that shallow. Let's help out our fellow hotel mavens by uploading rooms with killer views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. We will feature our favorites in this space from time to time. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number of the hot view.
Now that Design Hotels is now Design Hotels, Made by Originals, we're having a hard time coming up with witty one-liners about the hotel group — we tend to stumble over lots of syllables, so let's just get right to this week's Killer View: check out this awesome view from the Lanchid 19 Hotel in Budapest, a member of Design Hotels, Made by Originals (oh, alright; that wasn't so hard).
This property is located by the Danube riverbank, with only 45 rooms and three suites — all of which have a totally different look.
Tags: Design Hotels / Hotel Rebranding / → All Tags
Design Hotels is Now 'Design Hotels, Made by Originals'
| March 13, 2009 at 4:59 PM | 0 Comments
Ladies and gentlemen, the company formerly known as Design Hotels will henceforth be known as "Design Hotels, Made by Originals." Apparently, people kept on throwing around the term "design hotels" in the generic way — you know, sort of like how people in the South call all sodas "Coke" — and Design Hotels wasn't havin' it.
In the words of the New York Times:
The company had in some ways been the victim of its own success, mostly unfairly. Like Kleenex, it was the brand that became a generic, and people tossed off the phrase “design hotel” — at first adoringly and later disdainfully — to mean any hotel with an architectural lobby, minimalist furniture and rooms that looked better than they actually functioned.
That's a whole lotta syllables. Couldn't we have gone with D.H. or some such?
Hotels In: Africa | Asia | Australia | Caribbean | Europe | North America | South America
Our Publications:
Jaunted | HotelChatter | VegasChatter
