Design Hotels

A historic bank building in downtown Versailles has been transformed into a 29-room boutique hotel with its own craft distillery, a steakhouse that channels 1950s glamour, and a rooftop bar on the way. The former Woodford Bank and Trust Company now offers clawfoot tubs, equestrian-inspired design, and the kind of …

Canada's first hotel room intentionally designed for sex. A retrofitted Airstream trailer in the parking lot. A water slide that runs year-round. Hotel Zed Victoria – a riot of neon, velvet, and unapologetic fun – operates far outside the standard business hotel playbook. Working rotary phones sit beside QR codes …

Most hotels have lobbies. AMOY Hotel by Far East Hospitality has a 200-year-old temple. To reach reception, you walk through the Fuk Tak Chi Museum, one of Singapore's first Chinese temples, past artifacts from the 1800s depicting the lives of early Chinese migrants. The hotel has transformed a heritage shophouse …

You won't see The Lindis until you're practically standing on it. That's exactly the point. This eight-room lodge sits so low and still in New Zealand's Ahuriri Valley that it might as well be part of the moraine itself – the geological rubble left behind when glaciers retreated 10,000 years …

In a region where jungle-chic dominates the landscape, Babel Tulum rises from the streets of Tulum Pueblo like something out of a 1960s Palm Springs fever dream. This blush-pink architectural marvel, completed in 2024, challenges everything you thought you knew about Mexican resort design – and somehow makes it work …

In a city already famous for turning unlikely buildings into accommodations – from former jails to converted banks – Oxford has outdone itself. The Netty, which opened in June 2025, takes the concept of unconventional lodging to its logical extreme: a boutique hotel carved out of a Victorian-era underground public …

Singapore's one-north district has long been the city-state's answer to Silicon Valley, a sprawling tech hub where glass towers house startups and multinational R&D labs. Now it has a place to match: lyf one-north Singapore, a 324-unit experience-led social living serviced residence that's less hotel, more urban village with room …

Glasgow's latest boutique hotel doesn't just embrace excess - it practically wallows in it. House of Gods, which opened in April 2024 after a three-year renovation, has transformed a corner building in Merchant City into something that feels less like heaven and more like a very stylish purgatory. This is …

Forget everything you think you know about Santorini hotels. Neema Maison Finikia isn't trying to be another whitewashed cave dwelling with predictable blue accents and donkey photos. Instead, this 16-room adults-only retreat feels like stumbling into a high-fashion backstage area that somehow materialized on a Greek cliff. The brainchild of …

Hidden behind ivy-covered walls in Austin's Travis Heights neighborhood, Hotel Saint Cecilia feels more like stumbling upon a rock star's private estate than checking into a hotel. This isn't some corporate luxury property - it's a carefully curated sanctuary where turntables come standard and the minibar stocks incense alongside the …

When most people picture Santorini hotels, they imagine pristine white buildings cascading down cliffsides like sugar cubes. Kivotos Santorini throws that postcard image out the window with a dramatic flourish. Painted entirely in volcanic black and charcoal gray, this boutique retreat in Imerovigli looks like Batman's vacation home - and …

Step off a Shinkansen bullet train in Kyoto and you can find yourself, two minutes later, in a lobby that feels like a meditation retreat designed by a modernist architect. The Thousand Kyoto, which opened in 2019, sits practically next door to the city's main railway station (Kyoto Station), yet …

Walking into HOTEL TAVINOS Kyoto feels like stepping through the pages of a manga. The walls explode with illustrations of sumo wrestlers, traditional bathhouses, and moon-viewing scenes - all rendered in the bold, playful style that has made Japanese comics a global phenomenon. This isn't your typical business hotel. Since …

Picture this: you're sipping a cocktail surrounded by whitewashed walls and blue-domed architecture, but instead of the Aegean Sea stretching before you, it's the Indonesian waters where Komodo dragons patrol their ancient territory. The Loccal Collection Hotel in Labuan Bajo has committed fully to this geographical identity crisis, and somehow, …

What started as a house-hunting expedition in 2002 has morphed into one of Morocco's most photographed properties. Howell James and Vanessa Branson thought they were buying a holiday home in Marrakech's ancient medina. Instead, they accidentally acquired a string of crumbling buildings that would become El Fenn – a maximalist …

On the precipice of nowhere, where ancient stone meets endless blue, sits a hotel born from one man's obsession with a ruined windmill and a love affair with isolation. Folegandros – try saying it without stumbling over the syllables – remains mercifully untouched by the cruise ship hordes that descend …

A father-daughter duo have created something extraordinary in the hills above Manali - part spaceship, part anthill, entirely magical. Driving through the winding roads of Naggar, you'd be forgiven for doing a double-take when the Tree of Life Eila Art Hotel comes into view. Rising from the cedar forest like …

In a quiet side street in the 17th arrondissement, between residential buildings and a stone's throw from Parc Monceau, sits what might be Paris's most brazen attempt at bottling romance. The Paris j'Adore Hotel & Spa doesn't whisper sweet nothings – it shouts them from behind art deco doors flanked …

If you've been to Berry - NSW South Coast lately, you might have noticed something a bit different about the old motel at the north end of Queen Street. The Berry View, that 1950s roadside stop where families once pulled up for a basic overnight stay, has had quite the …

Animals strut freely between palm trees while mezcal cocktails are crafted behind an open-air bar – welcome to Acre, a paradoxical oasis where desert meets jungle in the quiet outskirts of San José del Cabo. Sprawling across 25 hectares of improbable greenery, this isn't just another Mexican boutique hotel but …