Essay:
Inn StyleOn the hotel-ification of home.
( 1 ) According to Krystine Batcho, a professor of psychology at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, nostalgia plays a role in maintaining emotional stability. Lockdown nostalgia can be understood as a response to conflicting emotions about the end of the pandemic: relief that restrictions had been lifted, but lingering unease about the economic uncertainty it had created and the threat of catching the virus.
( 2 ) Crawford also led the design of Ett Hem’s 2022 expansion after two neighboring townhouses came on the market. As part of the project, three apartment-style suites were created for long-stay guests
( 3 ) The term “boutique hotel" was coined by hotelier Steve Rubell in 1984, when comparing the size and more intimate feel of a small hotel he had opened with his business partner, Ian Schrager, to a small boutique instead of a department store. The pair had previously opened the iconic Manhattan nightclub Studio 54.
( 4 ) Social media has been credited with making interior design more accessible and democratic, but it has also led to the rise of a “fast-homewares" industry that has a significant environmental impact; each year, Americans throw out more than 12 million tons of furniture.
( 5 ) Some of the most memorable moments from Open Door episodes include rapper Wiz Khalifa's weed bar, tennis player Maria Sharapova's regulation bowling alley in her basement and the revelation that actor Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the theremin.
( 6 ) Space Copenhagen's notable projects include 11 Howard—a Manhattan hotel that was designed to feel more like a home than a hotel—and the redesign of the three Michelin-starred Copenhagen restaurant Noma.
Interior designers have found themselves fielding an increasingly familiar request in recent years. In Sydney, New York and London, private residential clients are asking for restorative bedrooms, spa-like bathrooms, restaurant-style dining spaces and, in some cases, breathtaking entrance hallways—in short they want their homes to feel more like hotels. With everything short of room service on the wish list, it would seem that these clients want to feel as if they are anywhere but home. Yet this curious trend also offers a window into the contemporary experience, reflecting how various aspects of modern life are converging and changing the way we think about the spaces we live in.
Alex Hawkins, a strategic foresight editor at the Future Laboratory, a trends intelligence consultancy, believes the “hometel” trend, as it has come to be known, has its roots in the COVID-19 pandemic. Confined to our homes, we were able to give greater focus to the routines and rituals that gave shape to our days. Formerly mundane tasks were reframed as simple pleasures: brewing a morning coffee, making the bed with fresh sheets or taking a long soak in the tub; and as normality gradually returned, some have found themselves strangely nostalgic for that quieter life.1 There is an urge to hold on to a time that allowed us to bond with family and hone new domestic skills. “The pandemic fundamentally changed how people perceive their living spaces,” Hawkins says. “People now want spaces that offer calm, comfort and a touch of luxury—essentially turning their homes into personal sanctuaries, wherever they can afford to.”
Once we would have sought this sanctuary in a hotel but the lack of access to hospitality spaces during the pandemic, and an increased focus on home life, showed us that even small design touches could create moments of escape at home, reinforcing an already growing trend that associated spatial design with self-care. “In other words, people are looking to replicate the restorative experiences they’ve enjoyed in hotels within their own homes,” says Hawkins.
“People are looking to replicate the restorative experiences they've enjoyed in hotels within their own homes."
( 1 ) According to Krystine Batcho, a professor of psychology at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, nostalgia plays a role in maintaining emotional stability. Lockdown nostalgia can be understood as a response to conflicting emotions about the end of the pandemic: relief that restrictions had been lifted, but lingering unease about the economic uncertainty it had created and the threat of catching the virus.
( 2 ) Crawford also led the design of Ett Hem’s 2022 expansion after two neighboring townhouses came on the market. As part of the project, three apartment-style suites were created for long-stay guests
( 3 ) The term “boutique hotel" was coined by hotelier Steve Rubell in 1984, when comparing the size and more intimate feel of a small hotel he had opened with his business partner, Ian Schrager, to a small boutique instead of a department store. The pair had previously opened the iconic Manhattan nightclub Studio 54.
( 4 ) Social media has been credited with making interior design more accessible and democratic, but it has also led to the rise of a “fast-homewares" industry that has a significant environmental impact; each year, Americans throw out more than 12 million tons of furniture.
( 5 ) Some of the most memorable moments from Open Door episodes include rapper Wiz Khalifa's weed bar, tennis player Maria Sharapova's regulation bowling alley in her basement and the revelation that actor Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the theremin.
( 6 ) Space Copenhagen's notable projects include 11 Howard—a Manhattan hotel that was designed to feel more like a home than a hotel—and the redesign of the three Michelin-starred Copenhagen restaurant Noma.
