1. OCHILL HOUSE, GLENEAGLES
It’s not often that that conference spaces spark new design ideas, but Ennismore Design Studio’s work at Ochill House, overlooking the croquet lawn at Gleneagles Hotel, Scotland, offers break-out spaces that feel homely rather than work-like.
The 340sq m house has been filled with antiques, with the atmosphere in the pantry, pictured, a relaxed kitchen that perfect for cocktail parties or whiskey tasting, enhanced by kitchenalia on display, which includes traditional scales and French tureens. Marble countertops mismatch the checkerboard honed marble floor and rather than a contemporary dining table the team has installed traditional mahogany design that brings warmth and individuality to the room. Dublin-based Porter & Jones do similarly smart cabinetry.
gleneagles.com; ennismore.com; porterandjones.com
2. CHEWTON GLEN HOTEL & SPA
Chewton Glen Hotel & Spa in England's New Forest has used its environment to build a very unique experience, five-star tree houses set in the native woods. Enjoy being up close to birdsong with the dawn chorus as an alarm clock. And when you fall back to sleep you can enjoy a lie-in as breakfast in bed is delivered via a serving hatch without disturbing you in the morning. Each suite has its own hot tub and kitchenette and has an aesthetic that mixes big house Harris tweed-upholstered sofas with Scandi wood-burning stoves and uses raw timber in accent pieces to really gives it a sense of place.
chewtonglen.com
3. COQUI COQUI L’EPICERIE
If you fancy getting away for a romantic break then don't go anywhere without consulting Mr and Mrs Smith's knee-trembling publication, The World's Sexiest Bedrooms. One standout bolthole is south of the border down Mexico way in the white city of Merida, the former colonial capital of its Yucatan Peninsula. Housed in a decadent belle époque building, Coqui Coqui L'Epicerie offers a one-room private suite with an open living room, terrace and private rooftop pool to enjoy. Rich velvet drapes in deep jewel tones hang from windows, there's an encaustic tiled floor underfoot and a large iron four-post bed, big enough to swing from, balances the room's two freestanding French bathtubs – a look that you could replicate in a period home.
coquicoqui.com
4. PURO HOTEL GDANSK
If you're looking for ways to subdivide a large open plan room then the clever glass divider at the Dancing Anchor restaurant at Puro Hotel in Gdansk, Poland offers fresh thinking. The mix of clear, ribbed, opaque and coloured glazing panels gives each area a veil of privacy whilst still allowing each to benefit from the same light source. Sussex-based De Salles Flint interior design, who worked with KD Kozikoowski Architects, have reimagined the now commonplace Crittal window. In Ireland, Lambstongue or KCC Architectural will be able to design something similar.
purohotel.pl/en; desallesflint.com; kccarchitectural.com; lambstongue.ie/metal
5. HILTON IMPERIAL DUBROVNIK
If you're lucky enough to live in a period home with high ceilings you can play with colour, using the ceiling as a feature wall of sorts. Situated just above the old town, the Imperial Bar at the Hilton Imperial Dubrovnik, has a pronounced deco feel, with its shapes inspired by arched windows along the outside of the space. A glass light-box to the rear bar wall adds ambient lighting with carrara marble and brass inset detailing to the bar front brining texture in. But it is the ceiling that amp up the dramatics in a modern way. Painted a moody blue, as part of it refurbishment London-based Goddard Littlefair, it is a luxurious way to show off your lofty heights.
hilton-imperial-dubrovnik.h-rez.com; goddardlittlefair.com
6. GRAN HOTEL INGLÉS
The stylish art deco design of the Gran Hotel Inglés, Madrid, offers loads of flattering ideas to steal. Located in one of the city's most characterful neighbourhoods, Barrio de Las Letras – a place writers like Cervantes, Lope de Vega and Quevedo all called home – its LobByto bar is bedecked in sensuous textiles in a warm palette of burnt orange, silver, ochre and teal and is a good spot for noonday tapas. The room's rose gold tinted mirrors act like an Instagram filter and flatter, an idea to install in your house.
granhotelingles.com
7. TIVOLI CARVOEIRO
Open plan living has been reimagined as broken plan using half walls to help create zones within the larger room. This shelving unit helps form a corridor to link one part of the property with another and the design team at Tivoli Carvoeiro, perched on a cliff top on Portugal’s Algarve, have riffed on the marine blue of the sea and the white horses that define this coastline, in s very modern fashion with its while shelving backed in blue. The units can be used for books or local artisanal earthenware, as pictured here.
8. THE MANDRAKE
The Mandrake is a boutique hotel in London's Fitzrovia where fantastic beasts, real and imaginary, roam freely. Hanging over the bar is a creature made from beetle wings and vintage deer legs while a snug is tucked-away behind a chainmail of metallic links. A private dining room, pictured, is coated in red lacquer by Henry van der Vijver and resembles a Chinese jewellery box. It's an intense look that could be replicated in an after-dark, internal room. Beirut-born Londoner Rami Fustok is its owner. The son of the sculptor Bushra Fakhoury, he had his sister, Tala Fustok, do the interior design and it has just won a Sleeper Magazine AHEAD Europe award for its landscaping and outdoor spaces.
themandrake.com; talafustok.co.uk; hvart.co.uk; sleepermagazine.com
