3 of a kind: Hotels that appeared in movies
PARK HYATT, TOKYO
3-7-1-2, Nishi-Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
Tel: 0081-35322-1234, tokyo.park.hyatt.com
Park Hyatt takes up the top 14 floors of the 52-storey, 235m Shinjuku Park Tower designed by Kenzo Tange, who at the beginning of his career drew plans for the rebuilding of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb devastated it. At the granite and glass tower’s apex are three pyramid towers giving nearly every public space and private room a view of Tokyo, the Kanto Plain, and Mount Fuji.
The glass pyramids reach their summits at the 41st, 47th and 52nd floors: the latter containing the New York Bar where many scenes in Lost in Translation, starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, were filmed (there are also scenes in bedrooms). Here, guests can enjoy live jazz by American musicians and consume bird’s eye views of Tokyo by night. Despite its towering modernism, the hotel is designed to be a serene escape from the city below so the interior is not only sleek but dramatic and warm: combining steel, green marble, brown and grey granite and a panoply of glass and mirrors, with wood, hand-tufted carpets and hemp wall coverings.
There’s fun and drama in features such as the way the light in the dimly-lit lifts from the lobby gradually increases to the natural light level of the atrium.
Rooms: 177 rooms including 24 suites. The 55 sq m standard rooms are some of the most spacious in Tokyo. There are wide beds, Egyptian cotton bedlinen as well as deep baths and double sinks. Some walls are panelled with rich, rare water elm from northern Japan that has been submerged in lakes for up to 2,000 years; sleep on that. Doubles from 34,200 yen (€312).
ST REGIS PRINCEVILLE, HAWAII
5520 Ka Haku Road, Princeville, Kauai, Hawaii.
Tel: 001-808-826 9644, stregis.com/princeville
The St Regis Princeville Resort reopened after a renovation in late 2009 and was soon providing a backdrop to the film The Descendents starring George Clooney and Shailene Woodley. If you find yourself having to sit and contemplate your marriage and life, as Clooney did in the film, there are much worse places to do it. The resort is beside the Hanalei Valley and overlooks the Napali Coast. It is surrounded by five mountains, a wildlife refuge, hiking trails, sea caves and lagoons. The hotel’s design was inspired by the Hawaiian concept of Ahupua’a, a philosophy of living in balance with nature, which is stunning around these parts: although that natural world has been interpreted sumptuously, such as with the cascading chandelier with 4,000 pieces of Murano glass representing the waterfall of Na Molokama Mountain.
There is also a coffered ceiling of natural woven raffia, palm-wood floors and soaring glass panels that open to the sea and afford a live screening of sunsets over Mount Makana.
The restaurant naturally serves fish and other local ingredients. Outside in the tropical gardens is an infinity pool overlooking Hanalei Bay.
Rooms: 252 rooms, including 51 ocean-view suites, designed with a "residential feel" but luxurious all the same. Doubles from $375 (€287).
THE MANOR HOUSE, WILTSHIRE
Castle Combe, Nr Bath, Wiltshire, England.
Tel: 0044-845-521 1880, manorhouse.co.uk
This 14th-century manor hotel, surrounded by 365 acres of parkland, is in the impossibly beautiful village of Castle Combe in Wiltshire, in the countryside that Steven Spielberg fell in love with while filming War Horse. Many of the scenes were shot in the village and the hotel’s Archway Cottage plays a role: it overlooks the village and the market where much of the filming took place. The cast and crew booked the whole hotel for a week during the shoot and Disney also hosted a two-day event there to talk to press about the film.
There’s a golf course on site and you can go horse riding in the grounds, and indulge in other sports such as croquet or duck-herding. Others, including, we hear, Gwyneth Paltrow and Sienna Miller, prefer to sit by the open fires in one of the many rooms, either spacious spaces or quirky hideaways.
Rooms: 48 rooms – in the main house or mews cottages – all individually designed, with features such as exposed oak beams, four-poster beds, and single or double baths (including roll top, infinity or Jacuzzi). Doubles from £205 (€245.80).