Steal This Tip: Rich Velvet Curtains to Give Your Interior a Boudoir-Like Vibe

When it comes to curtains, the bigger the statement, the better. (See pretty much every photo shoot Sight Unseen has ever done.) Bold and heavy textiles might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but they can undeniably make a space more dramatic, cozy, and welcoming. And at Locke am Platz, a newly opened aparthotel in Zurich, they’re everywhere: ruby red drapes framing the headboards; Modernist-patterned fabric wrapping the guest-room living area walls; warm terracotta textiles encircling the lobby; and honey yellow portières dividing stations in the restaurant. The effect, created by London-based Sella Concept, is one of instant warm fuzziness in every space, encouraging guests who’ve booked two nights — or two weeks — to feel right at home.
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At Three Design Hotels, A Sense of Place Rooted in the Local Environment

Hotels are often transitory, sometimes liminal, spaces. But three recently opened or newly renovated ones are rooted in their local environments, taking design cues from their surroundings and creating a distinctive atmosphere. You’re not just anywhere, or even in-between, you’re there: in Fukuoka City, Japan at Hotel Il Palazzo, in Tomales Bay, California at Lodge at Marconi (above), and at Otro Oaxaca, you’re firmly in the southern Mexican city.
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Beata Heuman Made Her Name Designing Colorfully Maximalist Interiors. Now She’s Bringing That Same Aesthetic to a Chic Parisian Hotel.

The Swedish-born, London-based designer Beata Heuman is known for bringing character and charm to her interiors. And she does just that with her first hotel project: Hôtel de la Boétie, which opened in September, the sixth Parisian space from design-forward French hotel group Touriste. For this collaboration, Heuman and her studio worked with the 19th-century architecture of the building — located in rue de la Boétie in the eighth arrondissement, not too far from the Champs-Élysées — and incorporated existing elements such as the marble entrance, elevator, and staircase of the 40-room property. Keeping the design relatively simple, using a limited palette, natural woods, and stainless steel and brass, Heuman has created the kind of heightened atmosphere you can have in spaces that are meant to be traveled through and not necessarily lived in all the time. “We can treat it a bit like a stage set, which is not the approach I would take when it comes to someone’s home,” says Heuman.
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These Three Historic Properties Have Been Reimagined As Our New Favorite Design Hotels

Designing the interior for a hotel these days can be a tricky thing. Most hotels aren't ground-up builds, so there needs to be a certain amount of sensitivity towards the building's past while still imagining a place that a 21st-century traveler — who is constantly bombarded with other people's vision of what makes the perfect vacay — might actually want to stay. In our fall hotel round-up, we look at three projects who have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. How about a reimagined historic English country manor from the 17th century? A ‘50s-inspired guest house in Marseille above a famed restaurant? Or a renovated functionalist building that’s the talk of Brussels? Take your pick after the jump. 
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A New Design Hotel in Porto for Everyone Going to Portugal Right Now

Situated on the Douro river, The Rebello hotel in Porto features 103 rooms, a full-service restaurant, two bars, and a luxurious yet unfussy spa. But it’s the design, of course, that we’re most taken with. Outside, local architecture firm Metrourbe transformed a disused, 19th-century factory for kitchen utensils into four thoroughly modernized yet character-rich buildings, two of which were newly constructed to connect the original stone structures. Inside, Spanish designer and founder of Lisbon’s Quiet Studios Daniela Francheschini has woven together four central elements that reference Porto: water, wine, wood, and industry.
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The Latest Wave of Design Hotels Will Take You from Hong Kong to Louisville, Kentucky

We hate to break it to you, but summer is more than half over. Luckily, you still have time to travel to a beachside destination in the south of France, a quaint Spanish villa, the heart of Hong Kong, or Louisville, Kentucky (trust us, it's a thing). Embrace August's wanderlust and the spirit of the season by staying at some of the best new design-focused properties.
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Escape From Everything at This Silent, Solar-Powered, Artisan-Made New Hotel on the Mexican Coast

The main strip of Zihuatanejo, near the southern end of Mexico's Pacific coast, is basically a resort town — choked with all-inclusives, timeshares, jet skis, infinity pools, and all the other hallmarks of Big Travel, which favors convenience and familiarity over intimacy and locality. But drive an hour south, into an area of tropical wilderness below the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains that's interrupted only by small towns, and you'll arrive at Hotelito, a 13-bedroom boutique hotel that's the epitome of considered, off-the-grid peacefulness.
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Yowie, the Best Design Boutique in Philly, Has Opened an Equally Cool Hotel

We've long been obsessed with the always-just-under-the-radar design scene in Philadelphia, but a decade ago — when we devoted a whole week of coverage to Philly — something like Yowie, the design store founded and curated by creative director Shannon Maldonado, simply didn't exist. That all changed when Yowie opened its doors in 2016, introducing a variety of Danish and American furniture brands and a refreshingly playful color palette to Philadelphia. Today, Yowie offers clothing, lighting, furniture, homeware, gifts, books (including our own!) and more, deservedly it earning the title of coolest boutique in Philly. And thanks to this success over the past seven years, Yowie is now not only expanding its retail footprint, but opening an entire hotel upstairs.
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This Kelly Wearstler–Designed Cocktail Bar Boasts an Enviable Art Collection

With additions like Hauser + Wirth and the Ace hotel, downtown Los Angeles long ago ascended from commercial wasteland to must-visit destination. But this status was perhaps fully cemented when the Proper hotel chain opened its Kelly Wearstler–designed property in the neighborhood in October 2021. Her fourth hotel for the brand — and her second in LA, following the Santa Monica Proper, with its epic and oft-Instagrammed chair porn lobby — the hotel recently added an intimate cocktail bar, called Dahlia, to its offering — and, whoo, it’s a stunner.
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Heard of Quiet Luxury? This Newly Renovated French Riviera Hotel Epitomizes the Trend

The French Riviera, long a playground for the rich and famous, is undeniably chic, both in its physical structures and its natural beauty. And perched atop Cap d’Antibes, a rocky promontory between Cannes and Nice that was used as a backdrop in both Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief and Jacques Deray’s La Piscine, is a hotel that embodies that elegance in the most nonchalant way: The Cap D’Antibes Beach Hotel, recently reimagined by Belgian architect Bernard Dubois, a frequent collaborator with Brussels’ Maniera Gallery, who is known for his beautiful, brutally efficient approach to interiors.
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