Decorating & Design
Inside Some Of The World’s Most Stylish Boutique Hotels
Updated on October 26, 2016
There’s a reason boutique hotels are so sought after when traveling. Full of great decor and inspired design, they’re meant to feel like a home away from home. A new book, Hotel Chic at Home, takes a look inside these artful accommodations around the world. From Paris to Mykonos, click through to step inside spectacular hotel spaces.
At a Balinese retreat, the local wood accents bring color and warmth to the neutral palette of the room. Wooden sliding doors add a luxurious feel.
At this farmhouse retreat, an all-white scheme is perfect for relaxation. Crisp white linens are the epitome of hotel chic.
Take a cue from the newly renovated dining room in Paris’s Hotel Bachaumont and play with pattern. There are no rules that say dining chairs have to match. Here, four different, yet complementary, prints are used to upholster the dining chairs and banquettes.
Even the most stately hotels can have a contemporary flair. Beyond the Hotel Bachaumont’s dining room, a dingy hallway is brightened with cream-colored millwork and a grid of mirrored tiles in black mock-window frames. It elongates the space and plays up the room’s tension between traditional architecture and modern accents.
Having a tactile quality to a bedroom is another easy hotel-inspired trick — it instantly elevates a space and makes it feel homey. At Francis Ford Coppola’s Blancaneaux Lodge in Belize, local textiles were used as pillows, throws and even art.
Rather than trying to work around the concrete pillars prevalent, and necessary, in a taller building, turn it into a unique accent like at the Boro Hotel in Long Island City. The largely monochrome palette of soft grey, accented by blond woods, helps the concrete blend in. (A great design move for condo owners!)
For hotels, the interiors have to be timeless and suitable for any season. At Brücke 49 in Switzerland, their Scandi-inspired interior feels like a toasty Aspen lodge thanks to the sheepskins on the chairs. During the summer, the sheepskins go into storage and — ta-da! — it’s a light and breezy dining room.
Purple may be a divisive color, but it works wonders in bedroom designs. When paired with a classic greige and white, it can skew masculine. Small space tip: The chest of drawers are painted in the same color as the walls, making it recede so the room feels larger.
Statement art doesn’t have to be big. Sometimes smaller is better. In this boutique hotel, the black and white scheme is punctuated by small, yet mighty, pieces of modern art. The mismatched paintings and frames tie in with the gold of the lamp and the blue of the bedside table.
At the Captain Fairfield Inn in Maine, patterned walls are used liberally throughout the building. Here, a large-scale tree print helps the generously sized room feel more intimate and less expansive. It also makes a room feel more personal and unique.
In a dining area, or a room with a fluid purpose like this hotel lobby-cum-dining room in Mykonos, a variety of seating and a low-slung banquette around the edge of the room, keeps things casual. This interchangeable and easy-to-manipulate seating is especially useful in open concept spaces.
At Ett Hem in Stockholm, designer Ilse Crawford went for bold rooms which are full of unusual details. From afar, this room looks classic and sophisticated. Up close, it features a rattan chair and mirrored sideboard which blend in perfectly to the overall scheme.
At a seaside inn on Nantucket, bold horizontal stripes on the walls are balanced out by soft seaweed art and floral drapes.
If you’re lucky to have a stunning view, might as well take advantage of it! By building a conversation area in front of a tall window you get all the advantages of the view, the sun and the cool breeze blowing in. Pretty ideal!