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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Week of June 12, 2023

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: acid-house Victorian-floral bedding by Jonathan Saunders, a fun new striped bench from Spain, and lots of summer travel porn in the form of two restaurants and two hotels in four different sun-soaked locales.
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Four New Design Hotels With Interiors to Melt Your Winter Blues

Anyone else get back from their end-of-year break and immediately start thinking about their next vacation? We’re only a week into 2023 and already mapping out trips for the rest of the year. To help plan yours, or simply provide a moment of mental escape from the January gloom, floods, and other bizarre happenings, here are some of our favorite new, gorgeously designed hotels that offer everything from a beach getaway in Oaxaca, to a romantic weekend in Paris, to total relaxation in the Azores.
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Conjuring the Soul of Baltimore — And John Waters — At ASH’s New Hotel Ulysses

At The Ulysses, ASH’s latest hotel, newly opened in Baltimore, maximalism is having a moment — but in a surprisingly considered way, where a wealth of patterns, textures, and influences combine and cohere in a highly cinematic, vintage style. The interior nods to Baltimore’s own John Waters and his trashy-kitsch leanings, for sure, but it's matched with the refined opulence a Visconti set from the Italian cinema classic Il Gattopardo. We spoke to ASH's Will Cooper about how ASH approaches the cities they inhabit, how to be trendy without becoming dated, and how to know when over the top is just enough.
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fall travel design hotels

Three New Hotels With Dreamy Interiors to Inspire Your Fall Travel

Summer is practically over, once again. But before we resign ourselves to seasonal affective disorder and reach for the hot chocolate (or hot toddy, depending on your pref), let's remember that fall is a great time to travel. Places are quieter, lines are shorter, prices are cheaper, and the weather typically offers a balance between perfect to stroll and explore in, and gloomy enough to stay inside your hotel wearing a robe and slippers for the entire day, guilt-free. If you’re going to do the latter, it may as well be in a beautifully designed space, and our three picks of new (or newly rejuvenated) hotels for this season have us daydreaming of an autumnal escape.
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Berlin Startup Raus Is Building Designer Cabins in the Woods that Let Tired City-Dwellers Become One With Nature

With its 170 square-foot bookable designer cabins, German startup Raus lets its guests leave the craziness of the city behind to experience being separated from endless trees and sky by a mere sliver of glass (without giving up the comforts of a proper mattress and shower). Its founders created the first few cabins themselves, negotiating deals with farmers outside Berlin to park the off-the-grid structures on their land, then commissioned architect Sigurd Larsen to envision model 2.0, which debuted this past spring.
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This Renovation of a Montauk Motel Retains Its Seaside Charm Even As It’s Become Eminently Instagrammable

When I heard that longtime friends of Sight Unseen Home Studios were spearheading the renovation of Daunt's Albatross, a 23-room motel in the center of town that's been in the same family since 1977, I was cautiously — but extremely — optimistic. That Home's design for the space would be beautiful was never in question — have you seen what this studio can do with tile? — but could the motel retain the quirky fishing village charm of old Montauk while still being someplace I'd want to obsessively Instagram?
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