Witty abode

You had me at bathtub. Abode, the first boutique hotel in Mumbai, India,  boasts 20 airy rooms dressed in an eclectic design mix, from art deco-inspired custom tile floors to bedside tables repurposed from roadside chaat stands and vintage saris as upholstery. With beds wrapped in cotton linen and robes and handmade slippers at the ready, I would take a break from the Bombay bustle in this breezy jacket by Valentine Gauthier, aptly made in a small, NGO-run workshop in India.

But I digress; back to Abode. Nestled in Colaba, a historic part of town rich with landmark buildings, Abode’s own was built in 1910 as the private residence of an influential entrepreneur. Now, its stately wood-and-iron façade is augmented by a neon light installation quoting Bombay native, Rudyard Kipling. “If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs the world is yours.” Truth.

Magical Márquez

 

His was a voice at once, “classical and familiar, opalescent and pure, able to praise and curse, laugh and cry, fabulate and sing and when called upon, take off and soar…” This is how Thomas Pynchon described Gabriel Garcia Márquez in his 1988 review of “Love in the Time of Cholera.” Márquez died yesterday at 87.

Born on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, the eldest of 12 children, Márquez spent his early childhood living in his grandparents’ ramshackle house, a rambling expanse the imaginative boy populated with the ghosts who starred in his grandmother’s stories. Later in life, on the occasion of accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 for his epic “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” Márquez described magical realism with humility at humanity: “Poets and beggars, musicians and prophets, warriors and scoundrels, all creatures of that unbridled reality, we have had to ask but little of imagination. For our crucial problem has been a lack of conventional means to render our lives believable.”

Unbridled believability: the man, his words, his manner. Channeling his fastidious fashion sense – he liked wearing all white from his linen suit to his shoes and watchband – I picture Fermina Daza of “Cholera” wearing this bone shift by Billy Reid in the Aquabar at the Tcherassi Hotel in Cartagena, Colombia. Imagining her in this magical setting evokes a moment from “Cholera,” a sentiment suited to the passing of the person who wrote it. “The Captain looked at Fermina Daza and saw on her eyelashes the first glimmer of wintry frost. Then he looked at Florentino Ariza, his invincible power, his intrepid love, and he was overwhelmed by the belated suspicion that it is life, more than death, that has no limits.”

Wheel and deal

 

This mise-en-scène gives a whole new meaning to rolling out of bed. Rusty wheels, weathered wood, hand-dyed linens (the new Brooklyn Collection from The Oriole Mill) and a steel guitar waiting to be strummed. I can hear the bed creak and shift as I tip over to check the time on the vintage clock, or take a sip of the half full (or empty?) glass of water. Plenty of morning left to while away in this union suit, to unfold the paper at the foot of the bed and tuck back in.

Hybrid bird

Daylife. Nightlife. Lifestyle. This is the triad encapsulated by Fuglen, a Tokyo outpost which takes the coffee it presses as seriously as the cocktails it shakes and the mid-century finds it sells. The immaculate mix that is Fuglen – “the bird” in Norwegian – began in a decades-old coffee shop in Oslo: a barista and a curator revived the place in 2008, and two years later, a bartender joined them, hence the trifold offerings. From the get go, the trio talked about translating their concept in their two favorite cities outside Norway – Tokyo and New York City. Luckily kismet smiled on the idea and the pieces started falling into place: in Spring 2012, they opened Fuglen in their friend’s grandfather’s house in the up-and-coming Shibuya neighborhood. Not ones to rest on their hybrid laurels, the trio recently teamed up with famed artist Takashi Murakami on Bar Zingaro, a blend of Murakami’s Japanese kitsch aesthetic with their Norwegian living room vibe. With Tokyo saturated, the group is turning to New York, paving the way for a US of A Fuglen through a May showcase of Norwegian designers. I’ll welcome them stateside in this equally inventive rubber skirt by emerging Norwegian designer Christina Ledang.

Koh calm

A beach and more books than I could ever read: sounds like an ideal Saturday (as my thermometer stubbornly sticks below zero). The serene scene at The Library boutique hotel in Koh Samui, Thailand pairs the lapping sounds of waves with literary-styled amenities: the communal Library stacks tomes alongside DVDs, the beachside pool is dyed as red as the Scarlett Letter, rooms are delineated by page numbers and alabaster sculptures of figures reading pepper the property. If today I woke up in Thailand, I would pad down to the Library in this tunic by Lemlem (a feel-good brand made by traditional weavers in Ethiopia) and spend the day reading, inside the cool confines or outside in sand and sun.

Austin soul

Who knew SOUL was a partial anagram of LOUISANA? Neon designer/artist Evan Voyles deconstructed an old highway sign announcing the southern state, reimagining the letters as the SOUL that shines above the pool at the Hotel Saint Cecilia in Austin, TX. Designer Liz Lambert has transformed the old Victorian house and grassy property into a design oasis in downtown Austin. Drawing inspiration from Saint Cecilia, patron saint of music and poetry, Lambert created a rich aesthetic that DesignSponge described as “Old World European taken over by rock n’ roll decadence.” Vintage finds and a vibrant palette – cobalt walls, red Chesterfields, white leather headboards – embolden the space, and hipster amenities – every room boasts record players and bookshelves stocked with poetry, art and music titles – complete the experience. These Arielle De Pinto tangled drip earrings would suit the rockstar royalty vibe.

Hostel takeover

 

Mexico City has been on my mind, thanks to friends’ glowing reviews and the most recent 36 Hours In. And now I can picture the (bunk) bed where I’ll lay my head. Hotel firm Grupo Habita applied its high-design aesthetic to its first hostel, Downtown Beds, near the central Plaza de la Constitucion. Downtown Beds fills the servants’ quarters of a colonial palace (the palace itself is now Grupo Habita’s upscale Downtown Mexico). With innovative material use and a fresh aesthetic throughout, the group was able to create a design-driven experience for a fraction of the price of its other properties. Key details makes Downtown Beds sparkle, like the acid-green lattice brick used on bunk beds, the restored barrel vault ceilings in some rooms, and the interior courtyard with its crimson bar and café seating. With the hostel's beds costing as little as $15 per night, I can splurge on these similarly spunky Loeffler Randall sandals.

Transformative design

As the World Design Capital 2014, Cape Town will be awash all year in design projects aimed at transforming the city. With more than 470 initiatives in the works, the city will live out design as a way to reconnect, reconcile, communicate, transform, solve and inspire. An ambitious mission to be sure, every creative in Cape Town seems to have rallied behind the cause, making 2014 the year to visit Cape Town. Some hotels are helping their guests tap into the creativity coursing through the city: as the New York Times reported yesterday, the One&Only Cape Town is organizing tours of the Lalela Project’s arts education program in the Imizamo Yethu settlement, as well as curator-led tours of contemporary galleries in the city, with stops including Whatiftheworld, a gallery set in a decommissioned synagogue specializing in emerging artists. I’m going; all I needed was a deadline.

Desert transition

After hermitting most of the winter, I look for ways to transition outward, away from quiet living into the more boisterous vibe of summer. This Dome in the Desert seems like the perfect launch pad for a mellow/loud hybrid, for exploring by day and nesting by night. Sitting only miles away from the town of Joshua Tree and the national park, the dome’s interior and exterior amenities feel like a bespoke fit for me: inside, there’s a wood burning stove, board games and books, and a collection of coffee makers; outside, there’s 800,000 acres of cactus-speckled wilderness, with trails to hike and rocks to scramble. I picture coming home at night, mind full from peak climbing and petroglyph spotting, and cooking a big fresh meal in these wacky jeans, a palimpsest of patterns, like the desert itself.

Old Havana meets French Quarter

Not long ago, centuries-old Casco Viejo was a crumbling patch of Panama City. A stucco palace of luxury apartments, built in 1917, had been taken over by five drug gangs, each occupying a floor. After UNESCO deemed Casco Viejo a World Heritage Site in 1997, an intrepid development group led by the palace builder’s great-great-grandson, lawyer Ramon Arias, began preserving properties within the district – gentrification embodied by the palace’s new occupant, the American Trade Hotel, a collaboration with Atelier Ace (of the trendy Ace Hotel chain). Beyond its stately structure (arched windows, interior gardens, red-tile roofs), hip interiors (a blend of Bertoia chairs and Mexican midcentury-inspired pieces) and alluring amenities (coffee bar, jazz club, farm-to-table restaurant), the hotel lives out its community-development creed: developer Conservatorio dissolved local gangs by putting members to work on construction crews, and the hotel staff includes graduates of a rehabilitation program for abused women. “Buildings are more interesting with people,” said Conservatorio’s restoration architect Hildegard Vasquez in a W magazine article. “You can’t just fixture the architecture – you have to fix the people. And in the process, they change you, too.” A room with a view and values.