This week, I have been residing in the city of angels after an intense (in a good way) time in NYC. Who doesn’t need touching grass in the form of an Erewhon smoothie after five days in the Big Apple? 🍎

In the tPH universe, NYC represents the grunge-y, rockstar glam, anti-wellness side of hotel lore. LA is, in many ways, part of that same continuum, as it has historically been the scene of some hardcore rock n roll and movie star action – although the vibes are vastly different.

So without further ado, let’s continue to immerse ourselves in glamour, motorcycles, hidden bars, city sights, and neon lights, this time on the West Coast, including my stay at the Sunset Tower Hotel.

Welcome to Turndown Service, where we immerse ourselves in an experiential detail or sentiment.

In this letter: Overheard at the Sunset Tower Hotel, room service mac and cheese, and the Sunset Strip.

Oh LA, where do I even begin?

Palm trees around me and a rental Jeep underneath, it’s easy to buy into the romance of a city where so many people come to make it.

I am here to do some serious boots-on-the-ground journalism, which in this case means a) familiarizing myself with the vastness of what LA hospitality has to offer, and b) tracing the steps of yet more jet-setting rockstars of the 70s and beyond.

For my latter goal, I did not have to look further than my hotel room balcony, where I could see the Sunset Strip, home to an insane concentration of legendary music venues such as the Whisky a Go Go (played by The Doors, Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, and Mötley Crüe to name a few), The Roxy Theatre, and rockstar-approved hangout Rainbow Bar & Grill.

Let me tell you, just being in the vicinity of such history can make your own life feel cinematic.

I <3 world building and historical hotels

We have previously discussed how a hotel can almost be an alternate reality where you are free to reinvent yourself and make good use of the liminal space that is not-home.

The argument I made before is that what makes this reinvention possible is the anonymity of the hotel space, and that it belongs to no one in particular. However, I think my experience at the Sunset Tower made a missing piece click for me:

For a hotel to be able to offer a legendary stay fit for rockstars, it needs to not only offer its guest anonymity, but also successfully embed them into an almost cinematic world of wonder by the means of world building.

Case: the Sunset Tower Hotel

The Sunset Tower Hotel occupies a 1929 Art Deco tower that used to be luxury residences, with residents including John Wayne, who used to live in what now is the hotel gym (and kept a cow on his balcony to always have fresh milk for his morning coffee), Marilyn Monroe, and infamous mafioso Bugsy Siegel, whose old apartment is said to be today’s Tower Bar.

While the address was prestigious in the beginning, its reputation started to deteriorate when hippies and other free-spirited, anarchism-oriented groups (such as rockstars <3) took ownership of the area.

Finally in the early 2000s, hotelier Jeff Klein brought the place back to life, and, I must say, did so with utmost taste and attention to detail.

There are certain house rules that really differentiate the Sunset Tower universe from the rest of the world: no photos, no phone calls, no laptops in the restaurants and common areas which was, firstly, very refreshing, and secondly, gave the whole place a secret society air to it.

Without screens, the golden light and the low murmur of the terrace become the whole world, and I overheard many interesting stories shared over those pool terrace tables (direct quote I noted down in my journal: “he just buys everything with daddy’s card and takes girls out for dinner at the Chateau [Marmont]”)

In a place like this, you can’t help but feel like you could be anyone and do anything, which I think is the magic that occurs when you combine anonymity with a setting (a world) in which to re-piece yourself together.

Below, as is becoming tradition after legendary stays, my experience in bullet points:

The Sunset Tower Hotel, West Hollywood, California

• Valet worked like a dream, seat was always adjusted back to my settings when I got the car back

• Golden lighting in and out of room

• Complimentary mini bar

• Mac and cheese from room service was amazing (trashing the hotel room once again)

• The pool area had a view over the city

• Staff was incredibly friendly, hospitable, and attentive, but still laid back in a way which I read as very Californian (disclaimer: coming from a non-Californian)

• Fantastic robes and nicely branded slippers (no one has wowed me with slippers yet)

• Staff uniforms were very fitting, with valet and terrace restaurant personnel in (of course branded) piqué shirts, and reception suited up

• Saw an influx of glam people every evening (while I for contrast walk in with my VS Pink shopping bags and Erewhon hot bar dinner)

• $5 poolside iced coffees

• Super mattress and bed linens

• Excellent leaning into the history of the property. There was a little booklet on my bedside table with the story of the place which I loved because I would have searched for that information anyway.

Absolute cinema

If NYC hotel lore is about grit, LA hotel lore is about excess and tan babes, and nobody did excess quite like Mötley Crüe.

The most famous story is how in December 1987, Nikki Sixx was reportedly declared clinically dead for around two minutes at the Franklin Plaza Hotel (which no longer exists) before a paramedic brought him back with adrenaline. As the story goes, he left the hospital, went home, and wrote ‘Kickstart My Heart’.

With this, I leave you. After a bicoastal tPH tour, I feel like I came close to touching something eternal when it comes to the world of hospitality, if not archetypal.

The archetype of the outlaw is described as one of revolution or change, with the attitude of ‘rules are meant to be broken’. While this can tip into destruction without purpose, which is the shadow the rockstar has to carry, I believe so much beauty and LIFE!!! can come out of leaning into our rebellious fantasies.

I hope you enjoyed your stay, dear reader. Coming up soon: more LA stories (more Erewhon, Santa Monica Proper, and Korean Spa, less adrenaline rush) - hope to see you here again next week.

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Yours truly,

🌴 Emma

"The uncanny is that class of the terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar." – Sigmund Freud

Dear guest,

you know what I’ve always loved? The trope of the hotel room trashing rockstar.

I don’t know what it is about it. Perhaps the allure for me is the required level of no fucks given that I could never even begin to reach as the quite nervously wired polite young woman that I am.

This, however, hasn’t stopped me from being enthralled with leather, riot, rudeness, glamour, and mess.

What’s great for us considering the setting we are in today (a.k.a your favorite grand hôtel of the internet) is that the backdrop of rockstar extravaganza is often the hotel.

I got to live out these dreams, if only in spirit, during my recent stay at the Bowery Hotel. Get the scoop below.

Welcome to Turndown Service, where we immerse ourselves in an experiential detail or sentiment.

In this letter: rockstar hotel lore and my experience staying at one of the most iconic NYC hotels

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The hotel has always been an extension of the stage, where entertainment and hubris can go on well after the last sounding notes of the encore.

The hotel room is the perfect alternate reality that exists outside your regular life. It’s an anonymous space in the sense that it belongs to no one in particular, and at check in, you are free to shed your name, responsibilities, and good judgment.

You could argue, however, that this used to be the case more than it is now. There was a time, not too long ago, when excess in antics was expected and a hotel would not hesitate to fulfill any odd (or illegal) wish at any odd hour of the day.

While we have arguably moved on from the era of the true, reckless rockstar (did our ultra-surveilled, flattened, and smoothness-obsessed society kill them?), there are still properties out there that encapsulate that naughtiness and allow us to live out fantasies of heedlessness.

One such scene: 335 Bowery

The Bowery Hotel was born into this lineage, and feels much older (in a good way) and authoritative as a property than its actual age of 19 years grants it. I personally have been obsesseddd with the place for a long time. It has a very distinct identity, and they do fantastic merch and branded amenities.

I share the love for the place with my queen Addison Rae, who sings the following lines in her song titled ‘New York’:

Black car, pick me up from the airport
Drop my bags at The Bowery Hotel

Same, Addison, same.

Before we get into the vibes, first some history for context.

The hotel is located in an area of Manhattan that used to be filled with the taverns and brothels of Irish and German immigrants, but that had by the 1900s evolved into a full-blown skid row of gang warfare and opium dens that Martin Scorsese drew from for Gangs of New York.

In the 1970s the cheap neighborhood started to draw in artists and creatives, such as Ramones, Patti Smith, Keith Haring, and Basquiat (if you are an NYC neighborhood history enthusiast, I recommend this piece for more info on the Bowery).

In 2007, Sean MacPherson and Eric Goode opened the Bowery Hotel on the site of the former Dry Dock Savings Bank, with a Salvation Army shelter and a city-run methadone clinic across the street. So while the Bowery neighborhood is considered chic and en vogue today, that was not the consensus when the hotel first opened.

My favorite hotels in the world are ones that are almost mythical in the stories and people they host. A Bowery favorite is how Florence Welch, Lykke Li, and Kanye West had a night there in 2012 aka a crazy music history mashup and the hotel room caught fire. The doors of the Bowery are also a celebrity favorite paparazzi backdrop.

Atmosphere fit for a rockstar - me!

The Bowery Hotel is built on my favorite rock n roll star -esque interior staples, including velvet sofas and curtains, dark surfaces, antique Persian rugs, dimmed lights, tassels, and leather. Despite all this, it does not have a nightclub vibe to it. There is no music in the lobby (refreshing!!!!) and service is quiet and understated.

A journalist said the property “feels a little bit naughty, even if you are just there for a work meeting.”

The Bowery in my opinion fully embodies the energy of the neighborhood with its vice, art, danger, glamour. Here are my takeaways in bulletpoints:

• Heavy tassel key handed to me

• Doorman wears uniform with Chaplin-esque bowler hat

• Hallways and elevators are dark

• Room is light and airy, a stark but welcome contrast to the moody hallways

• The stationery is fantastic - thickest notepad I’ve ever seen and a branded letter set and table calendar

• Charmingly rough around the edges service

• Incredibly comfortable bed, extra points for a cuddle with Bo the bear

• I felt like I lived at the hotel and never wanted to leave

• One night as I was getting ready to grab a drink at a Japanese whiskey speakeasy with a friend I think I peaked in life

• Felt like a rockstar day in day out

• Was BRIMMING with creativity and wrote down book idea after article idea after poem

• Newspaper delivered to hang at your door each morning

• Warm, no-nonsense hospitality, completely unbothersome

• Fantastic lounge mostly reserved for guests with the menu from the adjacent Italian restaurant, everything I had was bomb

• All guests were cool and were on missions of their own. I saw a jaw-dropping jewelry collection

Rock n Roll hospitality and hotel mythology

We talk a lot about care in hospitality (and I do too constantly, as you’re well aware). Presence, being seen, being looked after are all near and dear topics to me. But the language that is not often used in this business is the language of permission: permission to be who you are or someone else entirely.

People come to hotels to be released from their routines and reputations, and the carefully curated versions of themselves, and nothing is more fitting for this need than a hotel that is not too serious or pristine or monitored. It is perhaps the inherent uncanniness (remember Freud at the top?) and strangeness of the anonymous space that also makes us allow ourselves different identity and behavior.

I’m a fan of the trashed hotel room and throwing the TV out the window, but as I don’t dare to do that, I find my routine of ordering truffle fries at 2am and writing down poems and novel ideas on the stationery to do the trick. For all this room knows, I’m a legend.

I think we could use a little more recklessness in our lives in general, and I do think we are now seeing the pendulum swing the other way from the pressures of perfection and optimization ad absurdum (re: anti-wellness hotels).

I hope you enjoyed the journey this week, dear guest. If you vibed with this, you’re in luck, because tPH has gone bicoastal and you will receive the LA version of this next Saturday.

Before you go, comment who your favorite band or rockstar is (my forever favorites are Guns ‘n’ Roses, Dire Straits, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin):

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Stay tuned 🎸

Emma

I hope you have had a fantastic week.

It’s finally September, a.k.a girl new year, where we reorient ourselves toward routine and lock in on our goals for the rest of the year.

While the standard approach may be to reach higher and dream bigger, I’m here to offer an alternative perspective à la Audemars Piguet.

Hôtel des Horlogers

Welcome to Turndown Service, where we immerse ourselves in an experiential detail or sentiment.

In this letter: Watchmaking meets hospitality, and why would a 5 star property willingly downgrade its star rating?

Hôtel des Horlogers (literally: hotel of the watchmakers) is a hotel owned and operated by Swiss luxury watchmaker Audemars Piguet.

It’s located in the Vallée de Joux near AP’s Musée Atelier to which expectant watch lovers journey to immerse themselves in the AP world and often leave with a (obviously preordered) AP watch.

The brand was founded in 1875 and has in its over century-long history become associated with prestige and excellence, and is considered to be part of the ‘holy trinity’ of Swiss watchmakers next to Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin.

Just to give you a ballpark, an entry-level AP watch costs around $18,000, and ambassadors include elite athletes by the likes of Serena Williams, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and LeBron James.

So surely, the hotel must be a 5 star, right?

Well, it’s not, and I think it’s super smart.

Luxury standards belong everywhere

It was during my first semester of studies at EHL when I met André Cheminade, the general manager of Hôtel des Horlogers.

He presented the property, showed its biophilic architecture that blends into the valley’s landscape, talked about the hotel’s not one but two Michelin-starred restaurants, as well as the Alpeor spa with personalized treatments and proper Finnish sauna.

The property pays attention to experience down to the most seemingly minuscule detail, such as weighted shampoo and body wash bottles so that they still feel substantial even as they empty (nothing unsexier than an almost-empty body wash, am I right?)

So you can imagine my shock or audible gasp, rather, when Cheminade said that the property is officially a 4 star.

First thought: something’s wrong with the property

Second thought: but nothing is wrong?? It’s literally perfect?

Hôtel des Horlogers easily ticks all the boxes of a five star property in Switzerland, a country which has a standardized list of criteria to qualify for a specific star rating (which is not the case in all countries or markets).

Despite this, AP chose to be stamped as a 4 star property. People come in expecting a 4 star experience, which makes the 5 star experience feel even better.

The pressure is off to be perfect and the baseline is set lower, which makes exceeding expectations much simpler and surprised guests a daily occurrence.

Staying at a 5 star and having the GM come personally greet you? Lovely but almost expected.

Staying at a 4 star but having the GM go on a bike ride with you showing you around the valley? Off-the-charts service, core memory made.

How AP avoided the luxury hospitality trap

Audemars Piguet owns this hotel outright, meaning that it’s a fully owned brand extension. Very crucially, the hotel doesn’t need to be the company’s profit center, as AP’s revenue comes from watches that are significantly more valuable than the hotel’s rates (starting from around $400 a night).

The hotel exists for the sole purpose of deepening the brand world and to give clients the opportunity to fall in love with it.

When your hotel is not chasing profit margins or competing on visibility, you can operate on almost another plane of existence. You don’t need the 5-star stamp or to signal luxury through a rating because the brand already is almost synonymous to luxury.

Instead, you get to underpromise and overdeliver, which creates immense loyalty in the clientele. Most hotels are doing the opposite by overpromising and then underdeliver when the experience doesn’t match the polished branding or inflated star rating.

This is the luxury hospitality trap: when you sell perfection, anything less than perfection is a failure.

So, why be a 5 star when you can be a 4 star?

That’s all for this week’s letter.

What do you think? Does this approach resonate with you, or is there another property that you know that does the same?

Can’t wait to hear your thoughts:

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See you in the next one,

🔑 Emma

Greetings from Sweden!

The gist of the hospitality industry is arguably guest experience, that is, the journey the guest takes when they decide to book a stay at a given hotel.

This journey starts way before the guest sets foot on the property. It’s the sum of all the touch points they ever come in contact with, including the digital ones.

This week I stayed at a hotel that has won the title of best guest experience in Sweden, and I approached the stay like a researcher on the field (for what else am I?).

What I learnt was that a truly exceptional guest experience is deceivingly simple, and that perhaps its something akin to the x factor - you either got it or you don’t.

I hope you enjoy.

Welcome to Turndown Service, where we immerse ourselves in an experiential detail or sentiment.

In this letter: the building blocks of a world-class guest experience, and a return to the basics.

Welcome home

“More at home than at home” – a guest review

It’s afternoon when my friend and I arrive at Hotell S:t Clemens in the medieval town of Visby on the island of Gotland in Sweden. We are greeted at the front desk by Helene who is standing in front of a hanging array of room keys.

“Welcome!”, she exclaims, with such sincerity that it’s hard not to feel like our arrival was awaited. She asks about our journey there, if we’ve been to the island before, if we have plans for the day.

And allow me to get woo-woo for a second: the good energy of the property was palpable. It’s made up from a few conjoint buildings from different eras, and a courtyard that’s attached to both the 13th century ruins of the church of St Clemens and the town’s botanical garden.

Moreover, everyone seems at ease: guests, staff, passers-by, and yours truly.

All I can think of is how is this atmosphere created?

I decide to chat to Agneta, another staff member, about what it is that guests love so much about the hotel, and what makes them return again and again (a significant portion of the hotel’s guests are returning customers, which is the best stamp of approval you could get).

“Many guests feel like they’re coming home. We have 30 rooms, so we’re small enough to recognize our guests. We have a very personal relationship with them. So, if we know that you’re going to Fårö [an destination in Gotland) today, we can remember that you’ve been to Fårö and pick up on that later. A large hotel can’t maintain that level of personal connection, but we can.

We have a significant number of returning guests and…”

Our chat is interrupted (and rightly so) by a guest who comes up to Agneta and asks if it’s possible to get a beer. ”Absolutely,” she says, and makes the guest feel just as attended to as she made me feel just now.

”Emma,” she says endearingly while ringing up the guest’s drink. ”I’ll meet you in the garden in a bit, ok?”

Hospitality is a reciprocal act

There is no direct translation for the word hospitality in Swedish, which is also the case in the Finnish language (read my thoughts on Finnish hospitality in this edition of S.P.A), but that hasn’t stopped Hotell S:t Clemens from embodying its essence fully.

We are now sat in the garden. Agneta is visibly cold (late-summer evenings in Sweden are no joke), but at no points does she make me feel like we are in a hurry to end our chat.

She points out that the ruins used to have bees in them, and that a couple of centuries ago there was a lady who lived in the vicinity and sold cigars, which is why today the hotel has its own locally produced hand-rolled cigar (hotel merch done well).

She takes her time, making me feel like we’re old friends and that I belong here.

“I often think that I wish everyone could experience what I experience during a working day, because I get such a boost from the guests,” Agneta explains. “It’s the interaction with guests that makes the job, and when you’ve built a great connection with a guest and then they check out, you get so much appreciation in return. You just walk around feeling happy—it’s such a wonderful job.”

“My colleagues who work in housekeeping and other back-of-house functions, they don’t always get to hear all of this, so it’s up to us, the front-of-house staff, to pass on the joy and gratitude we receive from our guests.”

The mutual respect between colleagues is apparent from the way she speaks. “We are like a big family. We really enjoy working together, and I think that is, then, mirrored to the guests, as they can see that we truly enjoy being around each other”.

Two sides of the same coin, indeed. You can just hear the devotion for the task at hand.

Great guest experience is deceptively simple

Our stay had nothing to do with the extravaganza that is luxury hotel guest experience today, but it felt far more impactful. It is astonishing what the emotional presence of the hotel staff does for one’s nervous system.

At no point did I feel I was anything but a pleasure to the property. I saw the unhurriedness of other guests, sitting in the locally-crafted garden chairs sipping on locally-crafted beverages, enjoying the last slivers of summer sun, and felt an exhale of bliss escape my lungs.

This is it, I thought. This is what (ultra-)luxury is trying so hard to replicate.

Presence, time, attention, personalized interactions, but all coming from the soul rather than a checklist. Standard operating procedures can absolutely help, and I would even go as far as saying that they are necessary for consistency and good service, but nothing will ever beat the genuine care from another human being.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s quite different edition of tPH. I want to clarify that this post is absolutely not sponsored content, and has sprung out of my own awe from coming in contact with what I feel is true hospitality.

I can’t but recommend visiting Visby on the island of Gotland in Sweden, and when you do, you know where to stay.

I would be so glad to hear where in the world you have felt most welcome or felt something similar to what I tried to describe above.

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I’m working on a more analytical look at the hotels that are named to have the best guest experience in the world, so stay tuned for that.

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Goodbye and see you again,

🔑 Emma

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

- Søren Kierkegaard

Dear guest,

In order to see what’s ahead of us, we must understand where we come from.

Hospitality is one of the longest-standing industries in the entire world, and you can tell. The industry has its quirks and is often deemed slow to innovate, but at the same time, it stands on a rich and multifaceted history filled with incredible stories and juicy details.

Now, I’m not a historian; just a philosopher who happens to be neck-deep in hospitality, and who is still very much trying to figure out what it is and means (if you have been here for a while, you know that we keep tackling the question from any and every direction).

History is never a bad place to start; alas, join me on this journey over millennia.

★★★

The mysterious history of the hotel

★★★

Welcome to Turndown Service, where we immerse ourselves in an experiential detail or sentiment.

In this letter: 5,000 years of hospitality in one sitting. Buckle up!

Knock knock. Who’s there?

When we talk about hospitality, we are often referring to one of two things: 1) the moral notion of hospitality, or 2) the transactional notion of hospitality.

The first commercial inns appeared in Mesopotamia around 3000 BC, and they were best described as stripped-down-bare-essentials. This was a purely transactional configuration of a place to not die on the road.

To contrast this dynamic of you give me coin, you get roof over your head, there is the understanding of hospitality in its moral and sacred sense, that far predates the understanding of hospitality as a transaction

Some traditions that came to the same conclusion independent of each other:

• Ancient Greece: xenia, the sacred duty to welcome strangers under the protection of the big guy Zeus. If you violate it, you get struck by lightning or suffer an equivalent divine punishment.1

• India: the principle of atithi devo bhava declared that the guest is god.2

• Middle Eastern philosophy: diyafa as a law mandated three days of unconditional hospitality for friend and foe alike.3

• Norse culture: guest-right was so sacred that violating it was considered worse than murder (also discussed in my piece on medieval hospitality).4

With this in mind, let’s look at some of the most important events and eras in the history of hospitality.

The Roman Empire

Along their imperial roads, the Romans built a network of hospitae and mansiones, dedicated accommodation for travelers, that became the first wider network of hotel-like establishments.

By all accounts, this system also happened to be utterly dreadful. The reputation of Roman inns was in fact so bad that Cicero, who was one of the most well-travelled men in the entirety of the Roman Republic, completely refused to stay in them, preferring to do the historical version of couch surfing instead.

The poet Juvenal complains about the noise, the smells, the company, and stolen belongings in his records. He writes:

"The sick die here because they can't sleep... For when does sleep come in rented rooms?" - Juvenal

Yet these establishments were a completely necessary development, and for the average merchant or soldier on the road, it was the best option.

The world’s oldest hotel

In 705 AD, a hot spring inn called Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan opened in Hayakawa in Japan’s Yamanashi Prefecture to serve traveling samurai and officials – and it’s still very much in operation today!

Not only is it the same location but the same family (passed along over 53 generations), which means over 1,300 years of continuous hospitality.

The hotel room with a lock (a revolution)

The modern hotel didn’t really exist until someone very brave and someone we are gravely indebted to dared to ask: what if the guest had their own room?

Before the late 18th century, sharing a bed with a stranger was pretty much standard, and you would just sleep where there was space and hope for the best. Privacy was not yet a real consideration.

The City Hotel in New York opened in 1794 was the first American building designed for the sole purpose of being a hotel, and it already carried loads of resemblance to hotels as we understand them today. There was a ballroom, a bar, a library, and public parlors.

And yet, NO LOCKS 🚫🚫🔒🔒

It was only in 1829 when the Tremont House (also called America’s first luxury hotel) opened in Boston that you could lock the door behind you.

The birth of the luxury hotel: enter Mr. Ritz

César Ritz was born in 1850 in Switzerland, the promised land of hospitality (I’m biased as this is where I got my hospitality education).

He was the youngest of thirteen children of a farming family, and wasn’t very successful in the myriad of endeavors he undertook (he was almost like Barbie in that there was no career he hadn’t tried).

In 1867, at seventeen, he left Switzerland for Paris on the eve of the Universal Exhibition, which was a move that ultimately landed him in the world of hospitality.

By 1877, at twenty-seven, he was managing the Grand Hôtel National in Lucerne, and by 1889, he was running the Savoy Hotel in London which was arguably the most important hotel in the universe at that time.

The Savoy was already revolutionary in that it was the first hotel entirely lit by electricity (the Tremont House was partly so), the first one with lifts running on electricity, and the first one with private bathrooms.

But there is a tier above revolutionary, which is legendary.

Ritz partnered with Auguste Escoffier, the father of modern French cuisine, and together they ended up rewriting the social rules of London. Before Ritz, public dining was a big no-no, a disgrace, embarrassing, especially for women.

Because of Ritz’s influence, it was no longer scandalous, as he introduced after-theatre dinners at the Savoy and made it normal for couples to eat together in public (one of the greatest joys of life, imagine not being able to do that).

He is the godfather of cosmopolitan London nightlife, thanks to the Savoy dining room.

A fun fact

In 1897, a young Italian named Guccio Gucci arrived in London worked as a bellhop at the Savoy. The unprecedented level of luxury he witnessed there inspired him to found his namesake brand.

Or rather, there’s this story of how he ran the elevator at the hotel and had loads of time to study guests’ luggage, and decided he could do better.

(In any case, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, fashion loves to take from hospitality.)

The first Ritz is opened

Right before the turn of the century in 1898, César opened his own hotel: the ever so legendary Hôtel Ritz in Paris on Place Vendôme.

He raised the bar of luxury hotels to an unseen level with en-suite bathrooms and telephones in every room, and it was without a doubt the most luxurious hotel in the world.

As with many success stories starred by men, there was a very clever woman behind it, who in this case was César’s wife Marie-Louise Ritz.

She designed the staircases to be wide so that women in gowns and heels could descend gracefully, implemented indirect lighting because direct light is harsh on faces (genius), she created a shopping gallery inside the hotel so that guests never had to leave (the mother of brand extensions), and just generally thought about all the seemingly minute details which ultimately make up exceptional experiences.

And she was obviously the one who chose the iconic peach-colored towels for the hotel, because peach flatters the complexion of the person drying their face (I bow down to this lady and aspire to her level of aura).

Marie Louise seemed to understand one of the golden rules of hospitality: all touch points at a hotel, whether they be staff interactions or objects, directly communicate whether you thought about the guest or flat out ignored them, and there is no in between.

When César suffered a nervous breakdown in 1902 and never fully recovered, Marie-Louise took over the management of the Ritz hotels in a world where she was sometimes excluded from her own business meetings for the fact that she was a woman. She continued to run the empire until and after César’s death in 1918.

The Ritz name entered the dictionary, and “ritzy” means ostentatiously luxurious.

The birth of the hotel chain

The 19th century came with a slew of big structural changes for the industry. Names such as Conrad Hilton, Kemmons Wilson, and J.W. Marriott emerged as the American hotel chain pioneers with the greatest promise for hotels yet: predictability.

Before the standardization that chains brought about, you would never know what you were getting into when checking in. A family inn (let alone a roadside motel) could either be clean and comfy, or an absolute hell hole. Naturally this risk still exists, but it’s mitigated by public reviews.

In 1952, Kemmons Wilson founded Holiday Inn after a family road trip where he was so appalled by the inconsistency of American motels that he decided to make every room identical, with the same bed, same towels, always affordable, and before all else, predictable.

Now travel accommodation was democratized, and people who couldn’t afford the Ritz would know what to expect from their stay, and be able to count on not having their shit stolen.

At the same time, a snowball of standardization started rolling downhill as brand guidelines and SOPs slowly became the baseline. This foreshadows what we know as the great beige-ification that’s happening in the hotel world today.

This is when the hospitality industry in the way we understand it today was born. And if not before, now is when it had finally drifted far, far away from the devoted and sacred.

The boutique hotel and return of love

The pendulum must always swing the other way.

In 1984, the men behind the legendary Studio 54, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, opened Morgans Hotel in New York – a very demure establishment sans signs on the building, with interiors by Andrée Putman. You could never confuse this place with a Hilton.

This, ladies and gentlemen, was the first ever boutique hotel, which was the counter-movement to the already-rampant sameness in the hotel world. Schrager saw that the hotels in Europe were still non-uniform (that also often had way longer histories behind them than American hotels), and wanted to rage against the machine. A hotel should feel intentional, and a hotel should surprise you, he proclaimed.

More births of icons ensued: Adrian Zecha founded Aman in 1988, which has become known as the epitome of luxury hospitality (and that is currently under some media scrutiny – there has been many takes on this already, let me know if you want me to discuss it too).

In any case, art and intention started re-entering the space, and with that, the essence of hospitality.

Places like Ett Hem or any of Belmond’s properties are not descendants from the Holiday Inn, but part of the same lineage of the monastery guest houses and ancient ethical pacts.

What has even changed?

And here we still are, lifetimes later, asking the same question: is the guest a transaction or a responsibility?

For the past hundred years, propelled by globalization, the industry has undergone very consequential structural changes, and in no way do I believe that the winds of change are done with.

With AI, even more functions in hotels can be automated, and consequentially, stays can become even more impersonal (and to be clear, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, not every hotel has to be a shrine of devotion).

At the same time, humans are craving experiences of care and belonging, and luxury hotels that succeed at building worlds that resonate are in more demand than ever.

The transformation economy, which we have talked about before, is asking us whether hospitality could be more than an experience, and if it can change people (I think you know my answer is absolutely). Wellness (the bad W-word that no longer means anything) questions if hotels can be vessels for healing. Moreover, could hotels be the solace in a world where third places are dwindling and people feel lonely?

There is also a conversation to be had about the almost mythical status of luxury hospitality, which is what now enables hotels to command over $2,000 nightly rates (entry level), which used to be unheard of. Now that even Aman’s facade of perfection is starting to crumble, can anyone live up to those expectations? Especially at scale?

To me, the hotel has always been more than a building with beds or a roof over your head. At its simplest, it’s safety and life support, and at its best, it’s a complete rewiring of identity and a refocus towards the beautiful.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s letter, which is an undeniably reductive account of a 5,000 year-old industry (and tradition!!!!). But I happen to believe that the details that stick out to us and storylines that pique our interest are always worth exploring.

If you love nerding out over hotel history, I recommend listening to the !

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts and any fun stories or important turns I may have missed (I know there are many).

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Stay ritzy,

🔑 Emma

I am pleased to welcome you to this letter, which is the 400-subscriber special of the Philosophy of Hospitality.

This piece started when I was listening to this podcast episode, where talks about what attracts her to hospitality:

I felt this on a visceral level as I, too, find endless beauty in hospitality. But, then again, what is beauty?

Is there a difference between beauty, aesthetics, and harmony?

Join me on this attempt to articulate the philosophy of beauty as it relates to our world (and obviously, hospitality). I also have a special guest join us at the end.

⋆⭒˚.⋆ The philosophy of beauty ⋆⭒˚.⋆

Welcome to Turndown Service, where we immerse ourselves in an experiential detail or sentiment.

In this letter: why beauty is a necessity, what it is and is not, a conversation with a creative, and a warm, warm thank you.

Beauty is not frivolous, nor is it a luxury

What is beauty?

We have a tendency to treat beauty as something that is nice-to-have; an upgrade to the mundane, the cherry on top, the finishing touch that is handled only after serious things are sorted.

I happen to think that this, very functionalist and modernist approach that favors rationality and efficiency is not in alignment with what human flourishing entails.

In her book On Beauty and Being Just, philosopher Elaine Scarry argues that beauty performs a specific and fundamentally irreplaceable function in human life: it decenters us and our individual human existences.

When we encounter something beautiful, whether that’s a view, a room, a gesture, a face, we are momentarily pulled out of our own singular point of view.

As this newsletter is called the philosophy of hospitality, allow me to pull an example from that realm.

Imagine you are arriving at a hotel after a long flight, your inbox is swamped, you’re exhausted… imagine the relief you could get from being able to decenter yourself and your regular life for a moment.

At its best, a beautiful lobby can interrupt the drama that is human life. We become attentive to something outside of ourselves and surrender our importance.

According to Plato, beauty is the most accessible form and the only transcendent quality of the universal and fundamental Good™, as we can perceive it with our senses. We cannot see or touch or taste virtues such as truth or justice, but we can directly experience beauty which, then, can lead us toward those higher things.

A beautiful hotel is far from frivolous, as it is making the invisible and often abstract qualities of care, attention, intentionality (that also happen to be the constituents of hospitality) visible and tangible.

Beauty ≠ perfection

Another frequent misconception about beauty is that it is equal to flawlessness or perfection.

The Korean-German philosopher Byung-Chul Han writes in Saving Beauty that contemporary culture has reduced beauty to smoothness; everything is frictionless, filtered, optimized for the screen.

Han argues that this smoothness is actually the enemy (if not the antithesis) of beauty. True beauty requires what he calls “negativity”, which is the unknown factor of texture, mystery, resistance, even grit.

If a space is designed to be instagrammable, meaning every angle is considered for the camera, design choices tend to become as inoffensive and palatable as possible to as many people as possible.

This results in borderline ominous spaces that could be anywhere. Both and have talked about the great beigefication in the hotel world, where algorithms and mass-market design have flattened what used to be diverse spaces and brand into a uniform palette of beige, cream, and taupe.

Even if it’s not neutrals and, instead, neon signs and green plants as is the case with lifestyle hotels, the same issue is present – and so is notably also the absence of beauty. For a space geared for hospitality (hotel, bathhouse, spa, restaurant, members’ club), embracing life and grain communicates authenticity and realness to the guest, whereas overt smoothness evokes distrust (we all know this now through our lived experience with AI slop).

What is it then? Attention!

Simone Weil wrote that “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

Beauty commands attentiveness (as opposed to the frantic, dopamine-driven vigilance we have towards a notification for instance). The attention beauty sparks in us is more spacious and vigilant.

Putting attention into the design of a space or an experience also means producing attention and presence in the guest.

Aristotle said that beauty is order, symmetry, and definiteness, and it always results from intentional arrangement. Often the places we find most beautiful are the result of a thousand small, intentional choices that were all made with the guest in mind.

(Side note: many beautiful things are that precisely that because they happen in an unprompted, completely kismet way. However even in these cases you could argue for an underlying organizing intelligence that is geared towards order and harmony).

In conversation with a creative

I wanted to hear from someone who thinks about beauty and harmony professionally but from outside the hospitality industry.

is a New York-based creative and art director who’s embedded into the fashion scene.

He approaches spaces and images with what I would call a philosophical intuition, and we spoke about beauty, harmony, the death of Instagram hotels, and what he would do if someone gave him a hotel.

What does beauty mean to you?

“Personalization. Beauty means your camera roll. What do you find beautiful? Personal beauty is the denial of what is considered objectively beautiful.

You kind of get to edit and control the construct of what the word sees beauty. So you’re not just reduced to the idea of what has been driven into the normalcy, but the expression of subjectivity in a beauty is in the eye of the beholder kind of way”

When you walk into a space and something feels off, what’s usually wrong?

“It’s always the absence of culture. You should always consider, how do you put the spirit of the city you’re in, the energy of the place, onto the experience you’re offering? When that connection is missing, you feel it immediately. You can’t fake cultural resonance.”

Everyone talks about taste (*joint eye-roll*) right now. Where does yours come from?

“Reading the room. And reading, period. Document Journal, Wallpaper magazine, YouTube. Not reels, not TikTok, not whoever says you need these things to be chic. Because those people go do research from someone else and repurpose it. You’re listening to a copy of a copy of a copy. My fluency comes from primary sources.”

What do you think about the Instagrammable hotel epidemic?

“Everyone is bored of Instagram. That’s the issue. And here’s the thing: if the vibe of a place is that no one is on their phones, and you’re the only one scrolling, you feel it. Put down the phone. The best places make you want to do that. It’s always the worst places are designed for you to pick it up.”

What’s missing in the wellness and hospitality space?

“Life. Everything is so fictionalized. You can’t over-polish everything. You need to humanize and connect people. At the end of the day, you’re servicing people, not curating a set.”

Three tips for someone designing a hotel?

“One: find the Gaia Repossi of your world (someone with real taste and cultural fluency) and invite them to live in your hotel for a month.

Two: read the city you’re in. Find the young emerging artist and connect them to the property.

Three: remember you’re designing for two audiences, people who travel and people who live in the city. The best hotels become a place of belonging for locals as well.”

If you could create one experience that no hotel currently offers, what would it be?

“A photographer who travels with the guests to document their day-to-day. The guests are off their phones because someone is capturing the memories for them. When they check out, they get the photographs. Because once you’re checked out, it’s all memories, which is what a hotel actually sells.”

To all NYC people: make sure to catch ’ exhibition starting from 8th of August.

Beauty is ethical

The aim of this letter was to communicate a) the necessity of beauty and b) what beauty is and is not.

It was Nadine’s words that made me realize I was also drawn to hospitality because I love beauty, and its allure is what makes me reminisce over a hotel years later.

Scarry writes that when we encounter beauty, we want to reproduce it and to bring it into the world again. When we leave something we found beautiful, we carry it with us and want to recreate that in our lives.

This is why beauty is also an ethical choice – by creating beautiful things and atmospheres, that attention compounds and goes on to create even more beauty in the world.

Happy 400, dear guests. Thank you for being here, this is truly my happy place and it’s because I get to hear from you each week and talk about my favorite things.

And as promised, a snippet of my DJ set coming soon!!!

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🔑 Emma

“Make an inventory of your pockets, of your bag. Ask yourself about the provenance, the use, what will become of each of the objects you take out. Question your teaspoons.”

– Georges Perec

Dear guest,

You may or may not know that I’m not a huge fan of listing (the format of writing also rampant on this platform), whether that’s hotels or restaurants to visit or new openings, in hospitality writing.

Perhaps I feel this way because it’s almost what most of hospitality media is comprised of. The Philosophy of Hospitality was, in a way, born out of my attempt at being contrarian – be fun, GenZ 🤪, thoughtful, and make more unexpected connections and observations about the industry and its role in culture.

However now I find myself thinking that I’ve had beef with the listicle format for no reason, and that even this format could be fun and intentional.

So without further ado, please enjoy the continuation of the conversation on hotel merch that begun last week.

Welcome to Turndown Service, where we immerse ourselves in an experiential detail or sentiment.

In this letter: some really good pieces of hotel merch from chic to whimsical to outrageous plus tPH readers share some of their favorites!

But first, what makes hotel merch good?

The criteria to end up on this list are not groundbreaking. However, now that everyone is doing merch, the simple things can make the greatest of difference.

• Originality (put some intention into the objects please)

• Functionality (usability of the object always grants bonus points)

• Locality (if it’s somehow nodding to the surroundings, the uniqueness of the property… we love it)

• Wacky (surprise me!)

To note: all of these examples, save one (point 16), are things you can purchase, so I have left out the items that hotels gift to guests. However, I want to hear about those too; drop your favorite in the comment

20 pieces of hotel merch that make me go ahhh

The following list is non-exhaustive and not in an order of superiority. If I missed something, call me out in the comments.

1. The Bowery Hotel’s sold out Privacy door sign: it’s sold out, and no wonder. It’s so quintessentially hôtel.

2. Bowery duvets: inspired by the hotel’s iconic red-accented bedding for when you want to bring Lower Manhattan dreams home.

3. The Chateau Marmont keychain tassel: the Chateau still uses physical keys and guests infamously pocket them as talismans of Hollywood glamour, and this is the tassel (made in Italy) hanging off of them.

4. Grand Hotel Tremezzo’s fibra di legno bed linen: just shared in her newsletter’s chat that her astrologist advised her to sleep in percale sheets; but have you heard of wood fibre satin? Grand Hotel Tremezzo is run by the De Santis family (who also own and operate Passalacqua) have made merch a core business pillar, which makes sense considering that their hotels are world-renowned for the collections of objects they host. And, they do bedding very well.

5. The Airelles mattress: French luxury hotel group Airelles does opulence like no other, and this mattress collaboration with Tréca is a testament to the extravaganza. Best sleep of your life?

6. Grand Hotel Tremezzo's coral-striped pool parasol: what’s the best part about being poolside on Lake Como? The parasol hanging over you.

7. The Beverly Hills Hotel wallpaper: nothing more iconic than the banana leaf (by CW Stockwell specifically) that designer Don Loper plastered on the walls of the hotel for its redesign.

8. Passalacqua and Grand Hotel Tremezzo signature scents: named 1910 and 1787 after the respective birth dates of the two properties.

9. The Rosewood candles: with a base of dried patchouli, created by the founder of L’Objet, Elad Yifrach. These can be bought but are also frequently gifted to guests.

10. Claridge’s Christmas bauble: few items are more sentimental than those attached to Holidays, which is why I weep at the thought of collecting Claridge’s annual Christmas baubles, that are naturally featured on their lobby Christmas tree.

11. Clothing-wise, anything that Le Sirenuse does: like these mulberry silk boxers and shirt that are the incarnation of la dolce vita.

12. The most beautiful jacket by Airelles: another signifier of good merch is the if you know you know -feeling, which is at its peak with objects sans logo. For instance, I would gladly introduce this piece into my closet even if it had nothing to do with Airelles.

13. The Setai Miami Beach slippers: if you know me personally, you know I have huge beef with hotel slippers. Most of the time, they suck, and if we think some are good, they’re still usually objectively bad, because the bar is in hell. So when a brand decides to do slippers well (here in collaboration with the American slipper brand Brunch), I bow down.

14. Le Bristol Paris Cluedo: the classic, but instead of someone being murdered in the kitchen of the manor, the hotel’s cat goes missing! Michelin-starred restaurant Epicure is featured, obviously.

15. Hôtel Costes CD collection: to still see a CD the lord’s year of 2026 just does it for me. Mixed by Stéphane Pompougnac, it’s like being translated to an early 2000s Parisian hotel atmosphere. Having a CD player is a flex (and I’m biased, I probably grew up around the largest CD collection in Northern Europe thanks to my dad).

16. Mont Cervin Palace bookmark: earlier this year, during ski season, I was staying at the Mont Cervin Palace in Zermatt, where they placed a magnetic leather bookmark (technically Michel Reybier -branded, which is the company that owns the hotel) between my book during turndown service. The gesture was small but I remember being so delighted, and I still am, to the point where I’m sharing it with you.

    

17. This entire physical shop by Trunk Hotel Tokyo: their Harajuku concept store is inspired by a konbini (convenience store) and it’s filled entirely with locally made things in food, fashion, bath, beauty… and I think this still counts, even if the items are not Trunk branded. The in-store experience becomes the brand extension, and the products you buy become part of the Trunk universe by association.

18. Aman monogram swimsuits: see, functional and beautiful, nods at Aman without being like in your face AMAAANNNN if you know what I mean.

19. Fogo Island Inn furniture: this regenerative hospitality property in Canada is so drool-worthy in general, and like everything else, they take their brand extension seriously. The furniture that adorns the hotel is also available for purchase, all pieces sustainably made by artisans of the island (there are also these insane quilts).

20. Hotel Byblos Porsche: I’m sending you off with a banger. This Saint-Tropez hospitality gem takes the cake with a restored Porsche 911 Targa in full-grain beige leather and a sound system inspired by Les Caves du Roy which is the nightclub in the hotel’s basement.

And there we have it

My current picks from the hotel world that I would adorn myself, my home, and my life with.

I want to hear what you think I missed. I already got some great notes from you last week:

Please share your favorites in the comments!

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I hope you enjoyed this week’s letter, I had so much fun writing it.

Until next week,

🔑 Emma

I have fallen deeply and unexpectedly into a medieval rabbit hole.

I don’t exactly know what prompted this (perhaps my recent visit to the outskirts of the Scottish Highlands), but it I can now see that it has been brewing all along (my favorite movie ever is the notoriously medieval Shrek 2).

This newfound love for the Middle Ages culminated with a visit to a medieval fair in Hämeenlinna, Finland, where I met fellow enthusiasts.

So, I thought what better thing to do with this obsession than to find away to extend it to you! And as a matter of fact I have gotten some requests to dig a bit deeper into the history of hospitality, so I feel like this is a win-win-win situation.

Alas, join me on this quest to find out about hospitality of ole yesterday.

(Some music to set the tone)

🌞The tavern is open🌞

Welcome to Turndown Service, where we immerse ourselves in an experiential detail or sentiment.

In this letter: Monasteries, caravanserai, early taverns, the grueling story of the patron saint of hospitality, and Derrida.

⚔️ Medieval hospitality ⚔️

Monasteries, the most hospitable of them all

Around 530 AD, Benedict of Nursia wrote a rulebook for his monks. Chapter 53 opens with the following:

Let all guests who arrive be received as Christ.

Any stranger at the gate may be God in disguise, therefore, you treat every stranger as if they are.

Monasteries had a dedicated role in receiving travelers, washing their feet (the abbot was supposed to do this but apparently often ended up delegating the task to the monks) and feeding them.

The monks would break their own fasts when guests arrived hungry because the guest’s needs were seen as far more important than the monks’ discipline and monastic routines.

There were entire systems of guest houses, kitchens, and stables… all this trouble because caring for a guest was seen as a sacred duty, no matter who they were.

The Middle East, on the other hand, had the caravanserai (from the Persian karwan, caravan, and saray, palace) that were rest stops built along the Silk Road and major trade routes from North Africa to China. They were paced roughly between a day’s journey by camel, and sheltered anyone on the road, mostly merchants and pilgrims.

These places too were completely free, funded by sultans and philanthropists as acts of piety.

Hospital, hospice, hotel

Chaucer opens The Canterbury Tales (a 14th century text) at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, where a knight, a prioress, a merchant, and a miller all share the same roof and the same ale. The medieval inn was rough and crowded to the extent where you would likely share a bed with a stranger, but it was also the most democratic space in medieval society.

Hospital, hospice, hostel, and hotel are all derived from the same etymological root of hospes. A medieval hospitale took in travelers, the sick, the poor, pilgrims, under the same roof, as they were all strangers in need of shelters.

The Great St Bernard Pass in the Alps still has a hospice that’s been receiving travelers for almost a thousand years, and pilgrimage (such as journeying through the Camino de Santiago) was the first mass travel market, where the houses along the road made the journey possible to begin with.

While this early form of hospitality was based on moral obligation, medieval hospitality was also very hierarchical and self-interested. A noble guest would be seated at the abbot’s table (hosting the powerful was very political), and the poor would be given the almonry.

Furthermore, monasteries complained constantly about freeloaders, which led to most of them developing an informal cap of days after which you were expected to either move on or pick up a rake. The ideal and the practice argued with each other, the way ideals and practices do.

But nonetheless, the ideal was there, and guest-right was close to sacred across medieval Europe, beyond the Church. Violating it for instance by harming someone you had fed under your own roof was one of the few things that disgusted everyone despite social class or region.

There’s a reason the red wedding is the most upsetting thing in Game of Thrones (I haven’t been able to revisit that episode since) or maybe in TV history ever, and it’s because we still feel the taboo of the violation in our bones.

The patron saint of hotels has a terrible backstory

Earliest renditions of this legend date back to the 12th century.

St. Julian the Hospitaller was a nobleman cursed by a prophecy that he would kill his own parents, and he fled across the world to escape his destiny.

Years later his parents tracked him down, and his wife, welcoming the elderly strangers warmly, gave them the master bed to sleep in. Julian came home, saw two figures in his bed, assumed the worst, and fulfilled the prophecy with his sword.

He built a hospice at a dangerous river crossing and spent the rest of his life ferrying travelers across it and sheltering them, and in his martyrdom asking for nothing in exchange. One night he carried a leper over the freezing water and gave him his own bed, and the stranger revealed himself as a messenger of Christ. Julian was forgiven and later granted sainthood.

Exit the monk, enter the innkeeper

Gradually, and for understandable reasons, the guest became a customer and the act of hospitality a transaction, and the holy status of the guest was long forgotten.

As trade grew in the 12th-13th century, roads started to fill with merchants which led to commercial inns appearing to serve people who could pay for the roof over their heads. By the late Middle Ages, many towns had proper hostelries with signage (okkkk branding) and even some kinds of reputations and reviews. The Reformation dissolved the monasteries in many parts of Europe, which furthered the disappearance of the charitable layer of hospitality.

Hospitality becoming more transactional was also a liberation in a way, because paying for your stay meant no gratitude was necessarily involved, nor did you have to depend on anyone’s virtue. The customer has a right to a certain product they are paying for, whereas the guest could only rely on the host’s goodness.

What we gave away in exchange was the idea of receiving a stranger as a moral act, and I think we are still phenomenologically and viscerally able to tell the difference between being treated as a transaction and being the subject of true hospitality.

Medieval virtues, modern reality

Derrida spent a lot of his late career arguing that true hospitality is unconditional (i.e., welcoming a stranger no matter their name or business or whether they can pay), but that hospitality in its truest form is also virtually impossible, because every act of hospitality comes with conditions.

This Derridean understanding of hospitality as a willingness to let a stranger disrupt your world was practiced in monasteries and caravanserais, and going against this, i.e., violating guest-right was a crime worse than murder in Norse and Germanic traditions. Are there even whispers of this left in today’s dynamic pricing algorithms? (Rhetorical question, we know the answer).

I’m not saying we should go back to washing each other’s feet and sleeping on straw (although if a hotel offered this as a wellness experience I’m certain it would be a hit), but I just love thinking about how the hospitality industry sprung from what used to be a radical ethical commitment.

The medieval world was dark and violent, but that doesn’t stop me from yearning for it.

Fare thee well,

🗝️ Lady Emma of tPH

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P.S.

I spent a lovely, steamy few days at the World Sauna Forum in great company such as (and Mr. Spa) and (I want this sauna hangout thing of ours to be a weekly occurrence) – more on this coming up next week because we are long overdue for a new edition of THE LOBBY.

Kippis ja kiitos <3

Greetings from Scotland!

I’m here on a very special trip featuring a bunch of bagpipes and kilts and steak pies.

Today’s letter is something I wrote a while back, and maybe something a bit more frivolous than what you’ve gotten used to here at tPH.

Without further ado…

Welcome to Turndown Service, where we immerse ourselves in an experiential detail or sentiment.

In this letter: why hotel uniforms are sexy and important, the tPH formula for building a signature uniform, and brands that do it right.

A couple of months ago I was approached by a designer whom I admire regarding my thoughts and feelings on hotel uniforms.

Prior to him reaching out, I did not even realize that this was a subject I have an opinion on (but turns out, I sure do).

I whipped out my archives and pulled out some of my favorite examples of well-executed signature styles that go beyond basic scrubs or what you immediately think of when thinking of hospitality workwear.

Because you are here and I really like you, here’s my curation and some véry important tips, as well as the tPH signature uniform formula™.

Why should I care about hotel uniforms?

I’m glad you asked!

Seriously, staff uniforms are an extremely pressing matter that is too often overlooked. I promise I’m not exaggerating. The comfort and aesthetics of hotel uniforms impact not only how easily guests are able to buy into the particular fantasy that a hotel (or restaurant or any service-inclined establishment) is selling, but also the confidence and pride employees take in their role.

Don’t worry, I have sources. Nelson & Bowen (2000)1 found that employees are more self-confident when their uniforms look the part, and furthermore, exude more credibility.

Also, I went to EHL (the number one hospitality school on the planet), and if there’s one thing that is instilled into us from day one, it is that you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Research confirms this, as customers form lasting impressions within 7 seconds of interaction, and visual cues account for 55% of that initial judgement.

TLDR; there is a real business case for investing in hotel uniforms and guests will find you sloppy if you don’t.

Now that we have the concrete stuff out of the way, let’s dive into the vibes.

The signature hotel uniform formula

(Ah now we’re in the vibes section. I love it here.)

I love fashion and visually interesting things, and I always find it a let-down when hospitality does not lean into this. Global chain brands naturally have their brand standards with more run-of-the-mill outfits, but in my humble opinion, boutique and independent hotels (or any property in the luxury segment) have no excuse to slack in this department.

And there is no need to! The process of creating a signature hotel uniform is at the end of the day rather simple, and consists of combining three features:

The signature uniform™ combines the following:

1. Local elements: a nod to the where the hotel is located creates a sense of place and bumps up the authenticity score

2. High-quality materials: fabric must be breathable and made from natural fibers. Polyester is unforgivable.

3. Functionality: uniforms should work with the employees and make their job easier

There are many great examples that hit all of these areas in a fantastic way, and I have handpicked a few of them for you below.

Polo shirt, jeans, and Gucci sneakers

Casa Maria Luigia, Modena

A while back I wrote about the incredible experience I had staying at Casa Maria Luigia. This hotel does world-building like no other, and every detail is thought out, down to the staff shoes which are just quintessential Italian luxury.

The simple but fresh combo of a white polo with quality denim creates a casual but still chic atmosphere.

Monochrome

Kempinski

A signature uniform can create an aura or even a character. Kempinski’s Lady in Red is a good example of when a uniform becomes something more. The brand’s hostesses are dressed in red, signifying ambassadorship.

While the red is always red, the silhouette of the dress varies based on where the property is located (✔local elements).

High-end fabrics in locally-rooted silhouettes

Mandarin Oriental, London Mayfair

Speaking of local elements and brand authenticity, few examples hit the spot more than Mandarin Oriental’s London uniforms.

The materials and cuts are just luxurious to look at, and the uniforms incorporate both British influences (a gesture to the London location) and Asian ones (a gesture to the brand’s Hong Kong roots).

If your employees feel sexy your hotel will be sexy

Hospitality is an act of play and the creation of a fantasy, and staff need to play their part for that bubble not to burst.

A uniform that fits well, breathes well, and looks considered tells an employee that they were considered, that their experience is important too, not just the guest’s.

An employee who feels dignified in what they’re wearing will extend that dignity to the guest. An employee stuffed into a polyester polo two sizes too big will give you microplastic-discomfort-energy. I know which one I prefer.

I firmly believe that how you dress your team is part of the hospitality you extend to the world, and no one can convince me that it isn’t a serious matter.

Send outfit pics,

🔑 Emma

A recent What the Luxe interview with design pioneer Stephen Bayley centered around the general disintegration of design, and how its sentiment of “effort and care beyond what is necessary” is now seen as frivolous.

Anant Sharma, the host, stated that:

“It has become so irrational to take the more charming path that it’s almost unjustifiable”

Yet, the converse is probably closer to the truth.

It is precisely through attention to detail and making said detail charming that we can unlock the most value and impact. This applies to both design of physical spaces and products, as well as experience design, no matter the industry.

When interacting with an offering is made as intuitive and emotionally resonant as possible, it will turn consumers into spokespeople.

Why are details so important?

How you do one thing is how you do everything.

This is a phrase often attributed to Zen Buddhism, but it is also one that Will Guidara mentions frequently in his book Unreasonable Hospitality. For Guidara, the phrase became a guiding principle in bringing his restaurant Eleven Madison Park from a great restaurant to the best in the world.

Translating this phrase into practice meant putting an unreasonable amount of effort into each detail in the restaurant; from silverware to coffee beans to placing the plate in a way where the guest has an easier time checking who manufactured it.

This purpose of this letter, however, is not to relay what Guidara has written. Instead, it is a curated list of details we find incredibly chic impactful, courtesy of two self-proclaimed hotel enthusiasts.

In this letter: a big boy list of absolutely life-changing details in hotels, curated by and , the tasteful mind behind The Other HAFH (a hospitality newsletter you do not want to miss)

Read The Other HAFH

50 details that make a hotel (or service experience) so f****** good

The following list is non-exhaustive, and includes examples from other areas than hotels, such as wellness experiences. Enjoy.

1. Handwritten notes from the hotel

2. A chic ‘do not disturb’ sign. Imagine a leather tassel hanging off the door instead of a flimsy plastic one.

3. A velvet tray where you can place your jewelry and watch during a facial, instead of having to throw them in your bag or on the table. This is the standard experience at Biologique Recherche.

4. High-quality stationery, such as a heavy-duty pen and envelopes (obviously in addition to a notepad).

5. Real, fresh flowers in the room or around the property(and preferably also strange or whimsical).

6. A signature fragrance that reminds you of the property forever and ever when you come upon it again. However, with nuance (see point 31)

7. Fresh newspapers with an intentional selection. I like to have FT Weekend at hand.

8. A REAL Finnish sauna, where you are actually allowed to throw water on the stones (Note from Emma: Yes, I’m a snob, I’m Finnish, this is my culture. I’m available for sauna consultancy).

9. When you are brought a beverage and your coat is taken for you at the very moment you set foot on the property.

10. Nice hotel slippers. I’m so over the flimsy, white, Temu-quality slippers. I’m calling it: the baseline expectation for luxury hotels from now on is high quality slippers that can be worn comfortably throughout the hotel, from the room to the spa to breakfast.

11. When they don’t ask: “Is this your first time staying with us?” (because they should already know, especially at luxury properties)

12. A Polaroid camera in the room because why not! (Bob W. has one in every room) Surprise your guests, they will tell their friends.

13. Thought-through staff uniforms, whether they are somehow unexpected or charmingly traditional. More important than the style, however, is that they are high quality and made from breathable, natural matierials.

14. Small keepsakes to take with. Belmond has a collectible sticker for each property. The Goring gifts kids a stuffed animal.

15. Little pockets of shared spaces, or a favorite, an in-hotel library.

16. Books that can be borrowed and read, that have something to do with the storytelling of the property. Rosewood Amsterdam has a shelf of books that were gifted by collaborators and friends of the hotel.

17. Quality merch. Brand extension galore when you can live your favorite hotel’s aesthetic beyond the stay.

18. A proper hair dryer. Firefly in Zermatt has a Dyson in every single room.

19. Mini bar stocked with local goods, and hot take: the mini bar should always be complimentary at luxury hotels! (Note from Sanchita: YES! Don’t give me coca cola or sprite. I want to know the regional soda that nobody outside a fifty mile radius has heard of. I also want to know the local chocolatier, the small-batch preserve. Let me in on the surrounding area, and I’ll stop resenting the upcharge.)

20. Heated bathroom floors.

21. Turndown service and a refill of the aforementioned complimentary minibar.

22. A complimentary spa treatment. Mont Cervin Palace offers a 30-minute facial for all guests (Note from Emma: it rivaled a Biologique Recherche treatment, no joke!)

23. A tea, coffee, and snack station in the common area. Bonus points for (branded) takeaway cups so you can zoom out for a coffee walk.

24. Plug points where you actually need them. That could be next to the bed, near the desk, not hidden behind the wardrobe or requiring furniture rearrangement.

25. A room with one overhead setting and no bedside dimmer is a room designed to be photographed, not slept in. A reading light that doesn’t need the overhead should be non-negotiable.

26. Blackout curtains that actually black out. The gap down the middle. Always the gap down the middle. A design failure so consistent it might as well be intentional.

27. Mirror placement. The hotel that gives you a full-length mirror somewhere with decent light has understood my psyche.

28. Enough drawer space to actually unpack. The wardrobe rail with four hangers expects you to live out of your suitcase. Many of us just accept this, but we shouldn’t.

29. Speaking of hangers, they need to detach from the rail. I don’t know when the fixed anti-theft hanger became a thing, but I would be mortified if I found them at a so-called luxury destination. The hotel is essentially saying they don’t trust you.

30. The bathroom counter. Surface area. Most boutique hotels sacrifice it for the stone slab aesthetic and leave you balancing your toiletries on the edge of the sink. Like the one below; plenty of surface area.

    

31. I don’t mind hotels with a signature scent. That’s encouraged. But I don’t want it in the room. The room should smell of nothing, and a neutral scent is surprisingly hard to achieve.

32. The shower pressure. Temperature, too. Both need to be consistent but variable.

33. Towel quantity. Rule of thumb: stock rooms with more towels than necessary.

34. Also, bath sheets, not just bath towels. The size distinction is notable.

35. The bedside table surface area. Similar to the bathroom counter, the bedside table should have room for miscellaneous objects. Phone, water glass, reading glasses, trinkets, etc. (Note from Emma: and the 5-6 journals and books I’m always carrying with me)

36. Pillow choice. Firm or soft, offered without being requested. Hotels that do this have understood that sleep is a core product.

37. Water. Always. A full carafe, refilled at turndown, without it appearing on the bill. Charging for still water in a four-star-or-more hotel is abhorrent.

38. Adequate task lighting at the desk. The number of hotels with a desk that can’t actually be used for work after dark is an indictment of who they imagined was staying.

39. More lighting woes: wardrobe lighting. A dark wardrobe in a dark room requires a phone torch to locate dark trousers. Solved by a motion sensor costing less than the soap amenities.

40. A printed neighbourhood map or city guide. I love the Orso Guides that Orso Hotels print and leave in each of their hotel guest rooms in Paris.

41. Similar to this, a note about what’s happening in the city that week. Curated and dated.

42. Portable umbrellas. I appreciate that hotels can provide those massive ones when needed, but sometimes you just want one that slides into your bag when you’re heading out.

43. A proper shoe horn. Long-handled. The detail is so small and so cheap to get right.

44. Breakfasts that can be taken at an actually reasonable hour. Not 6:30 am for early flights or 10 am as the outer limit. Give me breakfast until noon on weekends.

45. A stocked needle and thread kit. I don’t know why a lot of hotels stopped providing this, but they’re great to have just in case.

46. Learn the name of the guest and use it correctly. The recovery from mispronunciation isn’t to abandon the name and replace it with ‘ma’am’ for the remainder of the stay (Note from Sanchita: this has happened to me and is worse than the original error).

47. A bath that fits a human body comfortably. It sounds absurd to even have to say it, but so many are sculptural first and functional second.

48. The exact placement of the bedside lamp switch. If I have to lean past the lamp to find it, I’m out.

49. Tissue boxes that aren’t deeply recessed into stone or wood that you have to dig for the first tissue.

50. Curtain tracks that don’t catch halfway. The uneven glide is a mood kill.

It is simple to applaud, congratulate, and thoroughly enjoy a property that gets these details right.

And luckily, oftentimes great details are free (or cost the same) to execute, but make the world of a difference.

What did we miss? Hard agrees or disagrees? We’re dying to know!

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We hope you enjoyed your stay,

🔑 Emma and Sanchita

You know how many hotel experiences fall flat? The rooms may be beautiful, even kind of contemporary, but the experience feels hollow. You never quite forget that this is a hotel and last night there was someone else occupying this room. And tomorrow it will be someone else.

But then again, there are the hotels that could only be described as transcendent. And I have found that the common denominator in these hotels is that they are able to make you feel like home.

I’m on a mission to crack the code behind hospitality that makes you forget the outside world. Turndown Service™ is a tPH letter dedicated exactly to this endeavor of mine.

And while we will be discussing the finer, softer, experiential things, that doesn’t mean we don’t have a methodology. We are approaching hospitality in a phenomenological way, meaning that we believe we can arrive at truth through lived experience.

This means we will also take a look at what some of the most chic properties on earth are doing, and dissect what makes them so great.

So voilà, I hope you are tucked in nicely (this is turndown service, after all), and ready to dive into why I think dwelling is the secret sauce to home-like hospitality.

Welcome to Turndown Service, where we immerse ourselves in an experiential detail or sentiment.

In this letter: Heidegger on dwelling, chilling at Massimo Bottura’s summer house, and the only hotel in Stockholm

An extremely short history of the origins of the hotel

The word “hotel” comes from the French hôtel, which originally meant a large private residence; a townhouse for aristocrats and their guests. Many hotels today have omitted this part of the history of the industry from their modus operandi, and focus on offering a run-of-the-mill guest experience that’s neither memorable nor personal.

But the hotels that never did away with the private residence sentiment are some of the best in the world, and the reason is quite simple: they are able to offer guests a dwelling.

What is dwelling?

“To dwell means to belong to a given place.”

- Martin Heidegger

German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) wrote that to dwell is not simply to occupy a space, but to be at peace in it, and to be “spared” from hurry and harshness.

He distinguished between, on one hand, buildings we merely use, and on the other, places where we truly reside. Dwelling indicates lingering presence and the opposite of hurry, something that Heidegger argues to be central to the human condition.

But how often do we dwell in our day-to-day? Perhaps our busy lives keep us in a perpetual state of passing through, which is the antithesis of this desired state.

Hotels have always promised escape, but the ones that leave the strongest impressions offer a place to dwell, creating a sense of belonging.

Now if you allow me, I’ll take you on a small journey to two of my favorite hotels dwellings. (These two are so good I borderline want to gatekeep them).

Dwelling #1: Casa Maria Luigia, Modena, Italy

Michelin-starred chef Massimo Bottura’s summer estate slash boutique hotel, Casa Maria Luigia, is a masterclass in authentic hospitality.

There are options of rooms… or you could stay in Bottura’s literal summer house. Sure!

The house features a few bedrooms, a pool, a fridge stocked with little amuse-bouches and, my favorite, Chef Bottura’s vinyl collection. It’s like he personally invited you, and just happens to be running errands at the moment and will return at any time to discuss music and what’s for dinner.

Naturally, dinner and breakfast are à la Bottura featuring many of his world-famous dishes, such as the Parmigiano a million ways plate.

If you’re lucky (and I was!), the man himself may pop up out of the kitchen mid-dinner. This induced a mild freakout in yours truly and a major one in my sister, who proceeded to cry into her food.

I can hardly think of a more intimate hospitality experience than inviting guests into your literal home. I’m already a fan of small family-run bed and breakfasts where heart and soul are poured into every detail. Casa Maria Luigia was like that but on steroids.

Dwelling becomes simple and intuitive when you are trusted with personal collections from art to music to furniture, in a space that hints at a person’s real interests and everyday life.

Dwelling #2: Ett Hem, Stockholm, Sweden

A Scandi example is Ett Hem, a Stockholm hotel made up of three private houses, where you get to cosplay a Swede with extremely good taste.

Guests are made to feel they belong by being treated as friends and family, and the chefs create in the open kitchen right in front of you, from local produce.

Everything from linen to art pieces has been curated to the max, with full-sized products for an entire skincare regimen in your bathroom, which makes it feel like you’re sleeping over at a gallant friend’s house who just really loves the brand Mantle.

In a way, details like beauty products in the size you would find them at home and an abundance of gathering areas create opportunities to dwell. We move differently in spaces where we feel at home than in unfamiliar ones. Full-sized skincare is something that one associates with home, not with a hotel stay.

TLDR: everything simply feels purposeful and a feeling of dwelling can be induced through detail.

Why your hotel should be dwell-maxxing

We spend so much of life in transit. Passing through airports, meetings, cities, and rarely do we stop long enough to actually be somewhere.

Hotels could be yet another place we pass through, and many of them are. Check in, sleep, check out, forget, repeat.

But hotels that are crafted for dwelling and understand the deeper intimacy of hospitality offer an increasingly rare encouragement to stop, linger a little longer over breakfast, play a record, and just exist.

Casa Maria Luigia and Ett Hem are fantastic examples of how a hotel can, through intentionally creating a home-like environment, become a universe of its own where guests get to live differently (completely oblivious to the fact that there was someone before them, and there will be someone after them).

Heidegger and I would call that dwelling.

Thank you for taking the journey with me, dear guest. You are in great company here at tPH.

Yours truly,

🔑 Emma