The most fabulous example of a hotel combining drama, surprise, luxury and comfort is hiding in the heart of the historical, artistic and night-club haven of Montmartre in Paris. Opened in June 2007, the restored aristocratic mansion The Hotel Particulier de Montmartre has definitely decided to grow up. The two masterminds behind the project are Morgane Rousseau and Frederic Comtet who with the help of Mathieu Paillard have managed to mix art and comfort brilliantly in their unusual hotel.
The owners commissioned well known artists, designers, sculptors and architects to create an intimate five-room enclave of exceptional atmosphere and charm.
One of the distinctive rooms is the ‘vegetable room’ designed by New York-born, Paris-based contemporary artist Martine Aballca. With her interpretation, she wishes to evoke hanging gardens, trees and the play of sunlight and shadow. The other artists involved in creating one of the compact private suites are photo artist Natacha Lesueur (room theme: Curtain of hair), painter Philippe Mayaux (Window), fashion and textile curator Olivier Saillard (Poems and hats) and illustrator and creative director Pierre Fichefeux (Tree with ears).
Finland-born Mats Haglund of Chanel, Colette and Paul & Joe boutique fame, created the private living room. He used the personality of the proprietors as his starting point and furnished the salon with originals of classics by Arne Jacobsen, Mies van der Rohe and Alvar Aalto.
From every window, residents can view the luscious and intimate garden created by Louis Banech, one of the landscape designers responsible for revitalizing the world-renown Tuileries Gardens.
With that much artistic and design cache, The Hotel Particulier de Montmartre will not have difficulty attracting a clientele. But to get there, you must leave the nightclubs of Montmartre, start thinking like former Montmartre residents Salvador Dali, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh, and locate the secret alleyway between l’avenue Junot and la rue Lepic. Continue to the Sorcerer’s Stone and pray that the iron gates will open for you. By Tuija Seipell
The Great Wall is a masterpiece of construction of ancient China that has also high symbolic value. The stone and earthen fortifications in northern China were built originally to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire against intrusions by various nomadic groups. The wall stretches for 8,800km and spans 17 Chinese provinces.
Several walls have been built since the 5th century BC that are referred to collectively as the Great Wall, which has been rebuilt and maintained from the 5th century BC through the 16th century. One of the most famous is the wall built between 220–206 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. Little of that wall remains; the majority of the existing wall was built during the Ming Dynasty.
Unesco stated that it is “virtually impossible” to guarantee the perfect preservation of the whole length of the wall. The conservation is focused on the following parts:
- Badaling section, a 7 km popular stretch
- Jiayuguan Pass, the starting point of the western section of the Great Wall of the Ming Dynasty
- Shanhaiguan, 26km of the northern wall until it meets the sea
Our search for much-needed calm, relaxation and revitalization ended earlier this month in Bali, Indonesia, where we spent two blissful weeks.
If you, too, want to give your weary body and mind a complete vacation, head to Southeast Asia where they really know how to do luxury relaxation well. They understand design; they set the trends. Some of the most luxurious resorts we have experienced have been in this region.
We’d seen the huge amount of media coverage of two Alila Villas properties — Alila Villas Soori and Alila Villas Uluwatu — and we wanted to experience them first-hand. We were not disappointed.
This is how to really experience Bali: Start at Alila Villas Soori for three nights to rest off your jetlag and get used to being relaxed. Then head to Central Bali’s Ubud and stay three nights at Four Seasons Sayan – Ubud. A few days’ stay at Ubud is a must for the bike tours, monkey forest and rafting experiences. Then continue your blissful vegging for another three or four nights at Alila Villas Uluwatu.
The best time to visit this region is from July to September when the weather is absolutely perfect.
We recommend skipping South Bali’s Seminyak although that is where all the shops, restaurants and bars are located. We found it to have the atmosphere of an adult school spring break with a few too many drunken tourists in hair braids. If you do go, enjoy dinner or lunch at the Fire Restaurant at W Hotel Bali or Sarong Restaurant or Metis Restaurant and experience the incredible massage services at Jari Menari the home base of many of the massage therapists that work at the resorts as well.
Our first stop was Alila Villas Soori, located a 90-minute drive from the Ngurah Rai International Airport. When you book with Soori, they will email you a confirmation to personalize your stay.
This includes everything from what kind of foods you don’t eat to what kind of music you would like in your room to what experiences you would like to include in your stay.
The bliss starts on your arrival at the airport where a Soori concierge will greet you, take your luggage off the carousel, zoom you through express customs and whisk you to a car with fresh cold face towels and nibbles on your way to Soori. You feel like a rock star minus the noisy fans.
The images in this post are exactly how Soori looks like. Designed by Soo Kian Chan of SCDA Architects, the hotel’s contemporary villas are designed in a way you’d like your home to be designed. Alila Villas Soori’s setting is breathtaking, yet the villas feel like beach homes.
The resort’s harmonious design combines cool, grey and black volcanic stone and polished teak. The interiors are dramatic but understated.
The 48 villas are spacious, all with perfect postcard views, private pools and a fabulous outdoor deck. The villas’ standard equipment includes an Apple TV, iPod and a Nespresso machine, dramatic bath for two, an indoor and outdoor shower and linen sheets. Each villa is assigned a butler/host who will look after everything. We recommend the Ocean pool Villas.
The beach is covered in glittering black sand that looks as if fairy dust had been sprinkled on it. The waves are extremely strong which makes it virtually impossible to swim in the ocean, plus at night it can be quite loud so ear plugs are necessary if you are a light sleeper.
The ten bedroom Residence (pictured above and below) offers a sense of tranquility in seclusion with its lavish indoor and outdoor spaces spread over two levels, surrounded by West Bali’s pristine coastal beauty showcasing uninterrupted views of the Indian Ocean. Two master bedrooms and adjoining suites are on the upper level, each with its oversized Jacuzzi, in and outdoor shower and walk-in closet. Landscaped gardens within living spaces open onto the pool area creating generous living and dining spaces, which lead out to a private library, all interwoven with pavilions, and a 20-metre infinity pool, fronting an endless ocean beyond.
The massages and spa treatments are some of the best we experienced in Bali! Book one the moment you arrive to get you super relaxed.
We loved the breakfast menu that changed daily offering small servings of delicacies. The fresh juices are amazing as was the omnipresent Mangosteen fruit.
This is the kind of resort you don’t leave or explore purely due to its location because everything is at least one hour away – (UBUD – Seminyak). You arrive, you sun bake, you read, you have spa-treatments, you eat, you switch off – you just enjoy it for what it has to offer. - Bill Tikos
Best time to visit Bali: July – Septemeber
Eco luxury does not get any better than this. The Singapore based Alila brand has a firm grasp of what it takes to do it right. It is a brand to watch in the coming years with 20 new properties launching in Asia as well as Portugal.
We are most excited about Alila’s Alila Villas properties. Having just spent time at their sister hotel Alila Villas Soori, we were expecting the same level of luxury and care at Alila Villas Uluwatu.
Uluwatu is only 30 minutes from the airport (depending on traffic) and does indeed have the same WOW effect as Soori.
Stunning views, cliff-top balconies overlooking the ocean, beautifully designed villas with their own pool and decking, indoor and outdoor showers and just space, so much lovely space!
This is one of the reasons why the Southeast Asian luxury is so incredible: They understand space. They design spaces that make you immediately feel you are not “in Kansas” any more. It is unlike anything we run into in our everyday lives, or even in our customary luxury moments.
They make you feel that you are somewhere special and the fact they use sustainable materials in their design makes you feel smugly happy about splurging a bit.
The service at Uluwatu is on a level you seldom see. You are greeted by name throughout the resort. The staff at the restaurants knows you preferences, dislikes and allergies but makes no big show of it. It is like a great host, a close friend would treat you.
Everyone was extremely well trained and that, we believe, comes from managing director, Sean Brennan, the Aussie who has spent the last 13 years in the hospitality industry in Asia and who is a force of nature on his own.
Over our years of staying at hundreds of hotels, we have seldom, if ever, met a hotel manager like him. Sean is the type of hotel manager you would pouch for your own hotel if you had one.
He is more hands-on with guests and staff than anyone we have observed. He greets guests personally on arrival, shows them around, offers drinks, and sits with them at lunch and dinner, literally moving from table to table making sure the guests are enjoying themselves. He is a pleasure to watch, as he clearly loves what he does.
Just like Soori – the images here show exactly what the resort looks like and these last three images were taken by my own camera.
And guests become quite giddy and silly about their dramatic surroundings and service. Guest with their $10,000 cameras with super zoom lenses took pictures constantly posing by the pool, by the cliff, in the villas, complete with costume changes every few hours. It was hilarious to watch.
La Banane on St. Barts is an exclusive, retro-chic hotel of nine distinctive bungalows. This hotel’s cool vibe of the 1950s is not a fake as it has a great storied past and its stories are based on real life, real events, real personalities.
La Banane’s founding father was the late Jean-Marie Rivière, a luminary of the Parisian cabaret world, who was often photographed with Zaza Gabor, Brigitte Bardot and other stars.
His first sexy revue called La Banane was performed in this hotel where celebrities and Rivière’s friends mixed and partied, and enjoyed the green lushness of the surrounding nature. The welcoming Rivière and his show ruled the hotel and gave it its name, its sexy glamorous air and the show-piece island in the middle of the pool.
And even more real-life story has been added when La Banane was recently completely revamped. Each of the bungalows and all of the common areas are furnished with pieces that one would expect to see in a home of an avid collector of original pieces by great modernists, with Le Corbusier the chief figure.
Several of the pieces are originals created in the mid-1950s when Pierre Jeanneret, went to India to help his cousin, Le Corbusier, who was creating a bold, new city, Chandigarh in the Punjab. There they designed and commissioned local craftsmen to build leading-edge, new-style furniture of rosewood and teak.
Each bungalow at Le Banana is named after an artist, designer or craftsman, ranging from Hungarian designer Mathieu Mategot (1910-2001) to American painter and sculptor Alexander Calder (1898-1976). Each piece of furniture is individually identified and its origin and design explained, so that the guests can appreciate the pieces that surround them. – Bill Tikos
Paris loves to show off. The recently re-opened Le Royal Monceau is by far the showiest hotel in which the TCH team has ever stayed. This is a storied hotel and a location with a fantastic, historical past, but the latest incarnation is reimagined by Philippe Starck.
We are not huge fans of Starck as we tend to consider him one of the somewhat “gimmicky” designers — together with Karim Rashid or Marcel Wanders — whose creations sometimes transcend time and become classics, yet at others appear like a flash-in-a-pan that you only want to see once. This kind of design is fun and quirky, but we get tired of it very quickly.
In Le Royal Monceau, Philippe Starck has created a classic. Two years after possibly the wildest ‘demolition party’ in history, Paris’ newest palace hotel is THE place to stay.
The location itself is a winner: Five minutes’ walk from Arc De Triomphe and Champs-Elysées.
The entry to Le Royal Monceau is super-grand, from the six doormen to the first glimpse of the foyer — it feels like you’ve walked onto the movie set of Eyes Wide Shut. The luxe-chic interiors are the grandest we’ve seen but it’s somehow magically NOT over the top. It works in Paris; it really works wonderfully.
The hotel’s point of difference is a serious commitment to art. It has its own gallery, Art District, with the inaugural Basquiat show, of works selected from Enrico Navarra’s collection. There’s also an art bookshop and a dedicated blog Artforbreakfast.
There’s also a whiff of rock’n’roll, with each room featuring its own guitar, with a portable recording studio available to guests. Trailblazing fashion multibrand, L’Eclaireur, will also host a show room in the hotel. Plus there’s a Clarins spa, Pierre Hermé desserts, a cigar smoking room, a cinema, an extensive garden.
The rooms are fantastic, and for 800 Euro a night, you’d want them to be.
We were upgraded to the hotel’s best suite on the top floor with an attic-style roof. We entered a room to find a service of croissants, macaroons, coffee, water, grapes and oranges presented in a way fit for a president. The room has a small lounge with a large mirror leaning against the wall like a painting. The mirror miraculously becomes a TV with a switch of the remote control.
While the bed with its Italian crisp linen is divine, the bathroom is a real eye-opener. It’s like ‘Studio 54 meets a Puff Daddy video’ or like bathing on the face of a Chanel diamond wrist watch. All mirrors on every wall. You either love it or hate it.
Le Royal Monceau has it all, including all the beautiful people. The in-crowd has found it and the breakfast room was buzzing with film directors, actors models, advertising gurus, fashion types ; everyone dressed immaculately looking like a tear-sheet from Paris Vogue.
Power meetings were happening over lunch and at dinner/drinks. The place was buzzing with the most flamboyant characters we’ve seen in a while and literally every night was busy. We can only imagine the vibe of this place when Paris Fashion Week comes along! – Bill Tikos
Castello di Vicarello is the kind of place you dream about. Movies and novels describe such places but you don’t really believe they exist. Too good to be true. But Castello di Vicarello is definitely real and it has been so since 1100. The castle sits on a hill overlooking the Maremma countryside in southern Tuscany, and it offers absolutely everything that any of your senses would want of a Tuscan vacation.
About 50 years ago, it was practically a ruin, completely abandoned, when the Baccheschi Berti family saw the potential. With much love and care, and quite a few lira, the family transformed the ruin into an exquisitely luxurious yet completely unpretentious Tuscan paradise that opened for guests in 2003.
We had the pleasure (thank you Maserati) of driving from Rome to Tuscany (about 2 hours) and then being the guests of Aurora and Carlo Baccheschi Berti and their two sons who pampered us with their company and their incomparable food, and gave us the opportunity to let the stress melt away in their amazing castle.
Each room and villa (only 7 in total) is different, with hand-picked furnishings, fabrics and accents. The exposed stone, brick and wood of the structure provide a perfect framework for the harmonious mix of antiques, modern design and Indonesian touches (the Baccheschi Bertis spent a decade in Indonesia in the textile business). The beds are adorned with the highest-quality Italian linen sheets and yes, they do help you sleep better.
The views of the countryside, the two outdoor fresh-water pools, the magnificent garden that changes with the seasons, the beautiful spa, the vineyards, the olive groves, not to even mention the amazing food Aurora and her staff prepare daily — there is absolutely no reason to leave this place. Ever. We spent hours just wandering around lazily and barefooted, gazing at the vistas, listening to the birds — no social networking, no technology, just peace and quiet.
Arguably the best holiday we’ve ever had anywhere, even in Italy, our favourite country, that manages to deliver every time — from food to the fashion, from people-watching to design, from architecture to hotels, from wines to coffee. How many countries get this many things right?
Mention TCH for the special rates.
If you feel like cooking, you can help Aurora in the kitchen (she runs an informal cooking school)
OMG! This is insane! Those were the most common — and in some situations the only — comments we made during our stay at Saffire Freycinet, the luxury resort that just-opened on Tasmania’s East Coast in Australia.
Very few resorts manage to get all the ingredients right when opening but we can assure you, this beauty of a hotel has ticked all the right boxes. We were literally left speechless — and that takes some doing — as we feasted our eyes on the breathtaking vistas, indulged our senses in our gorgeous suite and in the spa, and devoured the food that made any thought of a diet ridiculous. A four-hour walk on the pristine beach helped, too.
These were the first notes we scribbled just after departing: “Expectations were far exceeded. The resort, the location, the backdrop, the mountain walks, the spa, the room, the excellent service, the attention to detail, the happy staff, and the food, OMG the food! — Saffire is truly one of Australia’s most exciting places to stay.” Without wanting to sound cocky, it takes a lot to get us to write something like this.
In the suite, the amazing bathroom was all marble with heated tiles. Our suite’s amenities included, of course, wireless internet and remote controlled blinds, but the best part was the sweet turn-down service. They supplied a hot water bottle for the bed and a thermos of hot chocolate as it is winter in Tasmania.
One of the highlights of our stay was Saffire’s restaurant Palate. The multi-course degustation menus matched with the outstanding local wines are the specialty of head chef, Hugh Whitehouse, who is an Australian icon and a master of fresh, local, imaginative food prepared and served with style, love and care. We would go back for the food alone.
Designed by Tasmanian architects Morris Nunn and Associates, Saffire consists of only 20 suites ranging in size from 80 m² (860 sq. Ft.) to 140 m² (1506 sq. ft.). The buildings are super-modern yet reflect the surrounding environment perfectly. Waves, manta rays, sand dunes are all forms that come to mind both inside and out.
The interior design, by Chhada Siembieda Australia, takes advantage of the surrounding materials and vistas. Stone and timber are the key materials but they are used in a light, airy fashion. The colour palette reflects the surroundings as well focusing on soft grays, greens and a snap of orange.
Elite, exclusive, private – Soho House Group’s properties continue to exude an air of privilege and luxury that entices members and non-members with its exclusive, members-only spaces, hotel suites, several restaurant brands and the Cowshed spa brand.
The newest property, Soho House Berlin is Soho House Group’s first outside-UK European property and its largest so far.
It is a private members club and 40-room hotel located on eight floors of a 1928 late-Bauhaus building on Torstrasse in Berlin’s famous Mitte district.
The hotel rooms offer the typical upscale fare: custom beds, rainforest showers, Samsung flatscreens and in-house Cowshed spa products. Some even have restored vintage record players and vinyl LPs to evoke a retro industrial feel also reinforced by exposed concrete and dark paneling.
Soho House Berlin’s hotel rooms are a delightfully mad yet subtle mix of this hard, angular visual language with a padded-velvet lush and prissy 1930s glamour. Soho House’s cool interiors are the work of in-house designer Susie Atkinson and London-based Michaelis Boyd Associates.
When you travel constantly, you are not easily impressed by hotels. You have no patience for pretentious or poor service, and you have seen enough amenity kits and fluffy robes to turn you off bathing permanently. Design does not even enter the picture until the all-too-common problem issues, such as bad pillows, no wifi or no internet connection at all, noisy surroundings and slow service, are eliminated.
However, if the service and comfort issues are handled well, we start to really appreciate design. This is why, when in London, TCH stays at the Firmdale Hotels. Our favourite is The Soho Hotel, situated right in the centre of Soho but tucked away in a quiet lane with theatres, shops and cafes within walking distance. The rooms are spacious and luxurious, and the penthouse is extraordinary.
Firmdale is a UK-based boutique hotel operator with six hotels in London and now one in New York. Firmdale is privately owned by husband and wife team of Tim and Kit Kemp. In each Firmdale property, Kit Kemp has been in charge of interior design and her attention to detail is impeccable. Colour, texture, quirky themes and art collections are part of her signature style that manages to translate into an inviting and beautiful hotel experience. Kit Kemp’s eclectic but luxurious design work makes her hotels akin to the refined British Airways business class.
Late last fall, Firmdale opened its first-of-many-to-come North American hotel, the Crosby Street Hotel, in New York. Again, it is in the perfect location in the heart of SoHo between Prince, Spring and Lafayette Streets. It is a few cobblestones away from all the action, but on a quiet street.
The brand new 11-storey, 86-room Crosby Street Hotel was built on a vacant parking lot over a two-year period. A short film by Jean Roman Seyfried “The Reconstruction of My Views” chronicles the construction period using time-lapse photography. The film premiered in the hotel’s own 99-seat screening room. (all images here are of Crosby Street Hotel). – Bill Tikos
Firmdale’s next opening will be in London. They have acquired a site in Piccadilly (called Ham Yard) and will begin to develop later this year.
