New hotel in renovated houses captures old city
Print Edition
Ancient Chinese believed most hermits could find spiritual tranquility in mountains, forests and waters, while they believe the real hermits could find and maintain their inner peace regardless of the environment they were in.
That Taoist ideal requires a great degree of self-control, but a serene and sophisticated environment can surely help achieve a higher level more easily, even in a crowded and bustling city like Hangzhou.
Chaptel Hangzhou is one such venue where there is a division between outside noise and interior peace, through shikumen (stone-gate) houses that are rare in today’s Hangzhou and the delicately designed and recreated Art Deco interiors to go with the houses. The buildings are not only well preserved, but also full of history and stories.
They are remains of a lakeside villa built in the 1930s by a local government official. It was rented out to high-ranking officials from the Zhejiang-Jiangxi railway construction bureau soon after they were built.
Kim Gu (1876-1949), a Korean political titan, exiled himself in China in 1919, during the occupation of Korea by Japan. In the 1940s, he set up the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in one of the houses in the villa and stayed for five years.
After 1949, the villa served as a dormitory for municipal officials until the Chaptel project began in 2010. The section that was used by the provisional Korean government has also been kept and built into a memorial museum to Kim.
Chaptel is the newest Chinese member of Relais Chateau, a hotel association known for its choice of unique, luxurious venues all around the world. Its owner is determined to deliver something distinctively native.
“Hotels are a cross-field industry and you can bring in all kinds of twists,” Charles Liu, the venue’s owner and a veteran of the tourism business, tells Shanghai Daily.
“I wanted to build a boutique hotel because it goes beyond a physical venue. A boutique hotel’s distinctiveness comes from involving and preserving native culture and crafts. That’s something meaningful for me to do.”
Liu came to the interview from visiting a local pottery master, inquiring of him about the special features of pottery used in the 1930s so that he could design the utensils for the hotel’s rice wine, made from a recipe designed specially for the venue.
Liu has been involved in every step of the venue since the project started in 2010, from picking antique Art Deco lamps to designing made-to-order traditional-style furniture that fits the time period.
“Details are important,” he says.
Three minutes’ walk from the most central part of West Lake and the city, the newly opened boutique hotel stands out from the tall, fancy, contemporary buildings in the area. Its nostalgic gray facades, which match well with the lake and the faraway mountains, appear in different shades, just like in a traditional Chinese ink-wash painting.
The facades were re-done three times in order to get the current shade that looks old and nostalgic but also neat.
The venue, with 17 suites, provides an impressively chic atmosphere that can easily take visitors back to 1930s China, a time period when newly introduced Western culture and art clashed with traditional Chinese values, leaving behind East-meets-West architecture like the stone-gate house and Chinese examples of Art Deco style.
Most suites are two floors, while the original room structure has been kept and renovated for better functionality.
Every item in the 90-square-meter-plus suites is well-designed and well-placed to re-create the atmosphere and style of the 1930s. Straight lines, symmetrical patterns, a palette of various loud and contrasting colors — all such typical Art Deco motifs are seen on the boxes, lamps, carpets, closets and other items in the room. Copper, common in furniture and interiors of the period, is blended into details of the interior design from the light switches to the wash basin shelf.
The tall, wooden gable roof was once converted to a flat roof when the houses served as government dorms, but now the original roof has been rebuilt and antique-style fans hang from it above the large wooden beds.
The restaurant is named Xike, or lake’s guest, which refers to lotus plant. Xike Hall offers authentic local Hangzhou breakfast, classic British afternoon tea and cuisines featuring the Chinese style in the first half of last century.
“To me, the ultimate good hotel is a tourist destination itself. People will go to the city for the hotel and that’s my highest pursuit for Chaptel,” the tourism veteran says.
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