Luxury Hotels — The Window Treatments I Study
What the best hotel rooms in the world quietly get right about drapery, and what residential design can learn from them.
I travel to study rooms. The Ritz Paris, the Bulgari Milan, the Aman Tokyo, the Hotel Bel-Air — these are working laboratories for residential drapery, and the best of them solve problems most residential projects never bother to consider.
The first thing the best hotels get right is the blackout. A true hotel blackout assembly is a sealed header, side channels, a sill-sealed bottom, and an interlined three-pass panel. The room is dark at noon and silent at night. Most residential 'blackout' fails on every single one of these specifications.
The second thing they get right is the layering. A sheer for daytime, a privacy layer for evening, a blackout for sleep — three independent systems, all concealed, all motorized, all operating from a single bedside keypad. This is the standard residential primary suites should be specified to.
The third thing they get right is the discipline. There are no afterthoughts in a great hotel room. The drapery, the lighting, the millwork, and the controls are specified as one system. I bring the same expectation to every residential project the studio accepts.
Olga Rechdouni is the principal designer of House of Drapery and a consulting specialist on custom drapery for the residential interiors of Los Angeles. She is a member of the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and works privately with homeowners, interior designers, and architects.