When we talk about cool hotels, we’re not talking about hotels where the cool kids stay. We’re talking about places that make you say “oh wow, that’s cool!” when you see them. Sure, they might also be hip and trendy, but it’s more likely that their sheer unexpectedness is what really got your attention.
That’s why this collection of cool hotel designs in Australia skews toward the rural, where the hard edges and hand-crafted intent of each building rubs up against the unpredictable slink and sway of nature. We’ve included urban options, too — where everything is expected to be cool — but even the design of those hotels is surprising for the city.
And we’ve only just scratched the surface. When you’re done reading, be sure to check out all of our other hotels in Australia, especially in the big cities. There’s no shortage of cool.
Avalon Coastal Retreat
Swansea, Australia
Barely a hotel at all, Avalon Coastal Retreat is a stunning modernist three-bedroom house on the east coast of Tasmania. The sea views through the house’s glass walls are extraordinary, but the interiors give them a run for their money, thanks to the fine work of local architect Craig Rosevear. A secluded beach lies at the bottom of a walking path, and wetsuits and boogie boards are available if you’re feeling brave.
Freycinet Lodge
Coles Bay, Australia
The utterly unique Freycinet Peninsula is a tiny appendage sticking off the sparsely populated east side of the island of Tasmania. So suffice it to say, if you make it as far as Coles Bay, you’ve really gotten somewhere. You won’t likely find yourself just passing through — and the Freycinet Lodge is a worthy destination. In keeping with the rugged realities of the landscape, it’s something like a luxury rethink of the classic camp cabin.
MONA Pavilions
Hobart, Australia
Australia occasionally surprises with audacious contemporary architecture in the unlikeliest of places, and MONA Pavilions, overlooking the River Derwent on the outskirts of the Tasmanian capital of Hobart, is a prime example. Its eight spectacular pavilions are named after Australian artists or architects whose works are in the accompanying Museum of Old and New Art collection, and they’re stuffed to the gills with high-end residential comforts.
The Roozen Residence
Margaret River, Australia
The name isn’t an attempt at hominess, but a matter-of-fact statement: the Roozen Residence was built as a private beach house for artist and surfer Ron Roozen, just outside of the Western Australian beach town of Margaret River. The architecture is stunning, as are the interiors, and the 180-degree ocean view certainly doesn’t hurt. It’s got all the comforts of home, if home were a fantastically luxurious three-bedroom modernist masterpiece.
The Collectionist
Sydney, Australia
Sydney’s design scene, like all of its creative industries, is world-class, so much so that top-flight design firms are apparently now sharing projects. The Collectionist Hotel is the work not of a mere one or two design firms but four, each one responsible for about ten of its 39 rooms — and every one of them, even those from the same designer, is different from all of the others, with unique artworks, colors, textures, and design inspirations.
Bamurru Plains
Point Stuart, Australia
The traditional luxury safari experience has its origins in Africa, for obvious reasons, but if you’re willing to look beyond the Big Five, you’ll find Bamurru Plains a worthy entry in the genre. Set at the edge of the Kakadu National Park, in Australia’s Top End — check the map and you’ll understand — it specializes in so-called “Wild Bush Luxury,” offering vast tented bungalows surrounding a lavishly outfitted central lodge.
Moss Hotel
Hobart, Australia
A masterful piece of historical preservation, the Moss Hotel takes a pair of 19th-century warehouses near the Hobart waterfront and transforms them into a visually arresting and utterly contemporary luxury boutique hotel. The colors and textures are inspired by the natural beauty of Tasmania, and living plants make a fine complement to original timbers, exposed brick, and masonry. Every room is unique, and all are stylish and comfortable.
Drift House
Port Fairy, Australia
It would be a missed opportunity if a Victorian seaside town called Port Fairy were anything less than magical. Fortunately for all involved, it lives up to its promise. Drift House isn’t just an architectural marvel, combining a classic Victorian house with an uncompromisingly modernist addition, but it’s owned and operated by a family with a keen sense of what really matters in hospitality.
Spicers Sangoma Retreat
Blue Mountains, Australia
You don’t have to go far from Sydney to get well and truly away from it all. Spicers Sangoma Retreat is fifty miles from the city, a little over an hour by car, but far enough into the Blue Mountains that the urban sprawl is but a distant memory. That faraway feeling is accentuated by the forest views, and by the African-inspired interiors — Sangoma is the Zulu word for “healer,” and there’s more than a little bit of a safari-lodge accent to these eight lavish modernist suites.
Little Albion Guest House
Sydney, Australia
For years the line on Surry Hills was that it was a hip residential neighborhood with more one-off shops and independent art galleries than hotels. But a hotel like the Little Albion Guest House will go a long way towards opening the inner suburbs to travelers. It’s an eclectic look, combining elements of Art Deco and Bauhaus with some Seventies styling and a fair bit of unmistakably contemporary design as well, and it’s a marriage of a listed landmark building and a brand-new structure.
Empire Retreat and Spa
Yallingup, Australia
The Empire Retreat and Spa, despite its small size, is actually more than a retreat and spa — it’s a winery as well, with twelve acres of vines surrounded by virgin bushland. The house was a private residence first, lending it plenty of personality, while its eleven suites are stylish and contemporary-luxe, furnished by Empire’s other concern, an upscale homewares brand. The spa is impressively well-equipped and visually stunning.
Longitude 131
Yulara, Australia
The name Longitude 131° refers to the precise east-west location of Uluru, the rust-colored monolith formerly known as Ayers Rock, itself the primary attraction in Australia’s Red Centre, and the reason for this hotel’s existence. Not quite the only lodging within sight of this popular tourist destination, Longitude 131° is by far the most luxurious, and offers the best view — each of the tentlike guest cabins looks through full-length windows across six miles of desert at the thousand-foot-high Uluru.
Calile Hotel
Brisbane, Australia
Brisbane’s cosmopolitan arts and nightlife district of Fortitude Valley is the setting for the Calile Hotel, an urban boutique-style hotel that nevertheless feels a bit like a beachfront resort — though its central pool does its best as a stand-in for the ocean. Rooms look out over the pool or the Brisbane skyline, and are decorated in a handsome and soothing palette of soft blues and rosy earth tones. Meanwhile the Kailo Medispa and the well-equipped Gymnasium further the luxury-resort vibe.
Bay of Fires Bush Retreat
Binalong Bay, Australia
The next step closer to nature, after an eco-lodge, is a tented camp resort. Perhaps inspired by Africa’s safari camps, Bay of Fires Bush Retreat, near Tasmania’s Binalong Bay, offers upscale, beautifully designed tents, as well as a Bunk House for a larger party and a King Room for traditionalists. Furnishings are rustic but stylish, and the outdoor setting is the primary attraction, offering opportunities for surfing, diving, mountain biking and much more.
Medusa Hotel
Sydney, Australia
Quirky, stylish Medusa is a converted eighteenth-century Victorian townhouse in ultra-fashionable Darlinghurst, Sydney’s gallery and boutique district. The award-winning design, by prominent Australian interior architect Scott Werner, is anything but Victorian; in fact, these daring, modern interiors are a large factor in Medusa’s draw, especially among the young, creative types the hotel (and the neighborhood) caters to.
COMO The Treasury
Perth, Australia
Not only is COMO The Treasury housed in a truly grand space — a series of restored 19th-century state buildings, all soaring arches and stately white columns — but the 48 guest rooms are outfitted in a manner that’s lavish by any standard. Did we mention there’s a pair of chic restaurants, a cocktail bar, and a signature spa? It’s enough to make you want to stay in the City of Light (so nicknamed when Perth’s citizens turned all the lights on as astronaut John Glenn passed overhead in 1962) for another day or two.
Ovolo Nishi
Canberra, Australia
Ovolo Nishi occupies three floors of the mixed-use Nishi building, which is by some distance the most memorable landmark in Canberra’s emerging cultural district of New Acton. The building is also home to an impressive contemporary art gallery, a bike shop, a pilates studio, a spa, and an art-house cinema — which is the long way of saying it’s the perfect location for what has to be the hippest hotel in town.