On the face of it, the idea of living in a hotel is a mixed bag: it’s the stuff of legend - with Dylan Thomas and Jimi Hendrix regulars at Manhattan’s Chelsea Hotel - but also, historically, the stuff of the poor and dispossessed, with governments now regularly putting illegal immigrants up in hotels as a form of not-so-temporary accommodation. But neither the glam nor the grime are the inspiration for a new generation of the super-wealthy choosing to buy or rent apartments - from business travel-friendly one-bed suites, to 1000 sqm duplexes - within hotel complexes.
Indeed, while it’s not a new idea - the world’s first mix of hotel suites and apartments opened at the Sherry Netherland Hotel in Manhattan in 1927 - it was arguably Four Seasons that rebooted the whole idea of, as it were, sub-letting all your domestic needs to a luxury hospitality brand 40 years ago, when it opened its first residences in Boston.
Certainly it’s an idea that’s boomed over recent years, and especially post-covid. Savills Global Residential Development expects the number of branded residence projects operating globally to almost double to 1200 by 2027. And it’s not just hospitality brands like Fairmont and Raffles driving the market: car and fashion brands the likes of Aston Martin, Armani, Missoni and Porsche have also dipped their toes into residential buildings now.
Now, to be clear, these hotel apartments are typically maybe the buyer’s third or fourth property. They’re often used as glorified holiday homes, albeit ones perfectly prepped to your needs prior to a visit. But for many others these hotel residences become home - where kids are brought up perhaps while parents work through a long-term contract (if, that is, they work at all). A duplex like the one mentioned is a purchase touching $10m in even the less than Grade A cities of the world. Like the best hotel rooms, this lifestyle doesn’t come cheap.
So what’s the appeal? At first it may seem to be a lack of imagination: why else would anyone want a hotel interior imposed on them? Actually, often residents sell off the furnishings or buy the property empty. So it’s an attachment to brand? They like luxury so much, they want to live in a label as much as they like to drive or wear one? Not exactly. A good number of Four Seasons’ residential customers have never stayed at a Four Seasons hotel before.
According to the company - which sold more than $1.5bn in real estate last year, has opened 55 residence locations to date and will open next in Istanbul, Las Vegas and Austin - it’s more about the convenience of having five star service on tap: not just access to the hotel amenities - restaurants, pool, gyms and so on - but to a menu of convenient benefits, from weekly laundry to having the chef cook for you and your dinner guests.
Residences typically have a dedicated, secure entrance and concierge and develop their own little, rather well-off community within the building. As it turns out, the hotel residence properties are also proving to be good investments, though the brands who offer them tend to put a time restriction on resale - to prevent flipping. Besides, if, as developers claim, these residences offer a kind of enhanced living - all the pleasures of a hotel stay, every day - who’d want to sell?