How to create the ‘boutique hotel look’ inside your own home
- A ‘boutique vibe’ often focuses on conveying charm, character, nostalgia and sentimentality – feelings that travellers often miss
- Homeowners often look to inject the sense of luxury and sanctuary that they find in hotels into their own properties
The “boutique hotel” came to life in a New York nightclub, Studio 54.
Watching and mingling with the crowd that frequented the famed establishment in the 1970s, co-founders Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager realised their clientele wanted hospitality with personality – something different from the offerings of the homogenous, mass-market hotels of the time.
So, in 1984 the duo launched the first Morgans Hotel in the city. With just 117 rooms, the hotel featured distinctive interiors by French designer Andrée Putman.
It was an instant hit, fast becoming a New York icon – setting the standard – and inspiring a slew of subsequent “boutique hotels” – a term coined by Rubell, who likened Morgans to a chic boutique.
Today the term refers to hotels of between 10 and 150 rooms that “are generally not cookie-cutter and have strong design personalities that reference unique tastes”, says Carl Almeida, partner of P49Deesign, the Thai interior design company responsible for interiors of boutique hotels such as 137 Pillars House in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Alila Jabal Akhdar in Oman and The Sanchaya, on Bintan Island, Indonesia.
