Turn your house into a luxury hotel
EVERY week our Holiday Hero NEIL SIMPSON takes an in-depth look at a brilliant holiday topic, doing all the legwork so you don’t have to. This week, he reveals how to enjoy the full hotel experience… at home.
IT’S the new way to have a staycation: replicating your favourite hotel room at home so you can stay in the holiday mood all year. It’s also getting easier to do as hotel groups open online furniture and accessories shops, selling almost every item from their rooms and suites. Here’s what you can buy from hotels around the world.
TREASURE ISLANDS
Check in to a Four Seasons resort in Bali and you can gaze out across your own private terrace and infinity pool towards the sea. In the Maldives, you can have breakfast in bed while palm trees sway and the Indian Ocean gently laps the stilts of your overwater villa.
Although the views have to stay put, you can now bring a big part of the Four Seasons experience to your home. The company has started selling its beds, mattresses and bedding sets online. A brand new king-size bed, including the base and frame plus a mattress and bedding set, starts at £5,000.
CITY SLICKERS
If you’re heading to any of the world’s most exciting cities and want to stay somewhere a little bit out of the ordinary, you’ll want to look at W Hotels.
They are billed as the place to be for creative types, with vibrant colours and bespoke art everywhere from the lobby to rooftop pool.
Even if you cannot manage to get to a W in glitzy LA or Miami, it doesn’t mean you can’t go online to buy some of its boldest items.
There are dozens of decorative pillows that reflect the character of each hotel: the electric pink ‘lights out’ boxing glove pillows from W Bangkok are the most eye-catching (and, at £185 a pair, the most expensive). Artwork from the walls and everything else from the hotel’s ‘own label’ sunhats to sunglasses are also on offer.
COUNTRY LIFE
A splash of urban style in the heart of the country is guaranteed at the celeb magnet Soho Farmhouse, set in the Oxfordshire countryside. It is the rural offshoot of Soho House, the ‘club with rooms’ that was founded in London in 1995.
You need to apply for membership to stay in the cabins, cottages and barn bedrooms in the grounds or you can ‘bring the house home’, buying everything from tableware to textiles from the country club. Prices vary hugely – if you want something for your floor, then Soho’s sheepskin rugs start at £120, while some carpets cost more than £4,000. Alternatively, just remember the good times from your stay with four cocktail glasses for £56.
AMERICAN DREAM
Big beds and oversized fluffy towels tend to be the star attractions of US hotel rooms, whether you’re enjoying the lights of Las Vegas or the sunshine of San Diego – and mainstream brands such as Hilton now sell both online. Hilton’s king-size mattresses and bases start at £920 plus delivery, while a set of bath towels, hand towels and flannels starts at £64.
Enjoy the flattering bathroom mirror in your Courtyard by Marriott hotel? You can now have one of those delivered too – they start at £105. And if details really matter, you can even buy Marriott shower curtains from £79.