On March 16, as France announced its COVID-19 lockdown, the C.O.Q. Hotel in Paris closed its doors. Thing is, not every hotel is meant to be closed. A city hotel like C.O.Q. is meant to welcome guests day and night through the workweek, weekends, and holidays. There was no precedent. “We aren’t supposed to cut off the water or electricity,” explained manager Florian Bitker. “We don’t even have a secure front door.”
In the 1870s, a group of German expats built an athletic club in the Texas Hill Country. In the current century, the property is home to Camp Comfort — a relaxed, rustic, and rural boutique hotel that’s ideal for the current moment.
The Hoxton hotels have taken the best bits of the best boutique hotels that came before them and crafted a group of properties that appear poised to stand the test of time. They represent the new normal of boutique hotels. And normal ain’t what it used to be.
The story of Belgium’s Indrani Lodge is the story of a tech titan unimpressed with the status quo. Philippe Brawerman has always done things differently, a quality that took him from being the “crazy” president of Cisco Systems to the proud owner of a yoga-centric hotel and organic farm. As you’ll see, Brawerman’s is the kind of crazy that makes you wonder why anyone would want to be sane.
When Charles Mallory decided to buy the Four Columns Inn and bring it back to life in 2015, he knew the Vermont hotel was historic. He just didn’t know the extent of it. This place — one he’d driven by countless times — was home to what might be the first farm-to-table restaurant in America.
You don’t get a piece of land as spectacular as Big Sur without a lot of providence. And you don’t get to keep it that way without a lot of protection. Big Sur is a success story in many ways, but not without cost.