Should a Hotel Feel Like a Home?

It can be difficult these days to translate certain terms encountered while traveling. “Luxury hotel” is often used to describe quite corporate establishments, and “boutique hotel” no longer suggests one that is small and privately owned. What I am looking for is more individual hotels, and the rise in establishments offering this alternative experience suggests I am not alone.

When I was asked to do Jeff Klein’s first San Vicente Bungalows in Los Angeles, a domestic vibe was what I was after. The dreariness of the beige bedroom, surprisingly widespread in L.A., a city full of sunshine and color, was something I wanted to abandon. We did every room at the club differently, and mostly with fabric on the walls inspired by the Hotel Duc de Saint Simon in Paris—where the bedrooms are literally jewel boxes.

I love small rooms. Nothing is more exhausting than an enormous hotel room that is under-decorated but packed with useless furniture. (I am strongly opposed to hotel desks, for example. It’s much nicer to sit at a round table and send some emails without staring at a wall.) Jeff was incredibly open to a new way of doing things, while keeping a pragmatic eye on the way hotels are used—which is harshly, so we had to make sure it all stood up to high traffic! Even at 850 (the boutique hotel across from the bungalows) we were able to create beautiful rooms with seagrass walls and China Seas fabrics for the upholstery. Everything felt “individual” in the way I referenced above.

Amanda Lindroth’s Dunmore Hotel in the Bahamas is like this too. I remember the first time I went there, for lunch, having this immediate feeling that I wanted to sit down, order a drink, and hang out for a long while before moving to our table. It felt like the sort of Bahamian house I would absolutely love to have—and that’s what makes you want to be somewhere.

This is the key to decorating in general, and it applies to these sorts of individual hotels: eliciting emotion. The mission is to get a response from your guest that is something along the lines of, “Oooh, I want to hang out here and investigate and experience what this room has to offer.” I love hotels that offer this, that inspire the impatience in us to explore everything. Comfort, of course, but never without curiosity.

I am now working on a new hotel project in the U.S. that I am really excited about, and I am finding that (as before) the client experience is driving the design. The rooms in the common areas and bedrooms alike should feel equally good to be in-—and the bedrooms should be spaces you want to spend time in beyond sleeping. All the furniture must have a use, which is, perhaps ironically, what makes the experience truly luxurious.

One of the things I have been trying to do is combine the checklist of high-end expectations with some new additions that aren’t expected. For me it’s all about the joy of walking into a room and finding something new and spoiling.

I do wonder if we can abandon the television. They are awful to incorporate into a bedroom or sitting room, and I have not been able to make a hotel television work better than my computer for a good 15 years. I love discipline in decorating, but the screen really ruins the romance of a beautiful suite that is supposed to transport you from your busy life.

The most fun thing about working on a hotel is thinking about what one would want for oneself. I want a really well-laid-out and well-decorated room. I want a tray of delicious things to greet me, warm madeleines or something. (Not fruit, unless it’s a delicious peach from the greenhouse.) I want a minibar that entices me to crack open a drink and for there to be a well-thought-out accompanying snack, like Perelló olives or the best sort of potato chip. I want really good lighting, and beautiful bed linens with very soft pillows.

My sights are also on the bathrooms now. I want space for a comfortable armchair, a generous pot of bath salts, and a little decanter of Wiberg’s Pine Bath Essence for pouring into the tub.

I love using four-posters in guest bedrooms and, by extension, hotel rooms, because they are not what most people have at home. There is a bedroom on my inspo board by Miles Redd: red curtains with his trademark pagoda pelmets and a wonderful chinoiserie chintz on the walls. This bedroom isn’t for everyone—but that is what makes it so desirable in a hotel. It’s getting what you don’t get at home that feels the most exciting.

By Rita Konig