For all their designer spas, state of the art beds, marble bathrooms, plush furnishings and executive service, far too many five star hotels are indistinguishable from each other. Which is why your average frequent business traveller can easily wake up in yet another hotel suite with very little clue as to where they actually are, except possibly the day of the week.
This is known as the ‘It’s Tuesday It Must Be Dusseldorf" syndrome.
There is no shortage of air-conditioned splendour, but what many of these hotels lack is a spirit of place - an interior design that gives you an essence of the country you are waking up in.
But combining luxury and location can be tricky.
Take Australia for example, too many kangaroo motifs can look kitsch very quickly, and what appeals to an overseas tourist might not appeal to a local (think Ken Done artwork). Clearly hotels have to cater for both, and there is a real knack to getting this right.
Southern Ocean Lodge on Kangaroo Island, South Australia (
www.southernoceanlodge.com.au) is one property that successfully manages to do this. Owners James and Hayley Baillie, the talented team behind Capella Lodge on Lord Howe Island, purposely used local talent wherever they could. The architect Max Pritchard is a Kangaroo Island local, and regional artists were used for both the interior artworks and many of the furnishings - for example the subtle kangaroo motif on the soft furnishings was designed
by Julie Patterson of contemporary Australian fabric company, Cloth. The spa too uses Australian treatments
from L’itya, rather than the ubiquitous Asian therapies you so often
tend to find in hotels worldwide. These touches of Australiana appeal to the overseas market without alienating sophisticated Sydneysiders or Melbournians looking for a wilderness stay.
Of course it is always easier to imbue a small boutique property with a local flavour than it is a larger hotel, so it is admirable to see the results of the just-completed re-fashioning of the
Cape Grace hotel on the waterfront in Cape Town, South Africa (
www.capegrace.com). The 121-room five star property has just undergone a refurbishment to be unveiled this month.
Kathi Weixelbaumer a respected interior designer born and bred in the Western Cape, was commissioned to give the hotel a distinctive local feel, and she’s succeeded. Weixelbaumer is known for her elegant interior designs for wealthy home owners, but this is her first hotel project. This may well be why she avoids so many of the usual traps and combines five star style with twist of humour and originality - and a very successful spirit of place.
The history of the Dutch East India Company in the region and the beauty of the old porcelain, paintings and antiques, have all been incorporated into designs, and the skills of local talent have been utilised to create bespoke hand-painted fabrics with a series of beautiful botanical designs depicting native flowers such as the bold, blue Agapanthus.
The result is a suave five star refurbishment with subtle reminders of the beauty of the Western Cape, and the history of the V & A waterfront, over which the hotel presides.
Another hotel that has long managed to pay homage to its native surroundings is
The Sukhothai (
www.lhw.com) in bustling Bangkok. Buddha statues, calming water features, Thai silks, and lush fabrics in this hotel ensure that you never forget the country you are staying in was once exotic Siam.
I only wish more five star hotels would follow suit and save us from the relentless horrors of beige.