I’ve always had a really strong desire to travel. From a very young age, I knew that I wanted to get out and see the world, experience other cultures, and learn other languages. These feelings of wanderlust disappeared slightly when I had my kids though, probably due to the maternal instinct of wanting to create a safe little nest for your offspring. Recently though, my dreams of embarking on a travelling adventure have come back with such force.
Part of me wants to put all our stuff in storage, rent out our flat, buy a motor home and spend a year or so travelling around Europe with the kids. I’d love to take them to a new country every few weeks and let them see and experience all that Europe has to offer and how different each country is.
But there is also a part of me that thinks this is insane. I regularly question whether I could even handle a few weeks cooped up in a tiny motor home with two small children. Perhaps what I’d really like to do is travel the world whilst staying in luxury design-led hotels. Maybe that’s more me?
And when I see beautiful hotels like the Calile Hotel in Brisbane, Australia, I definitely sway more towards the latter option. I mean look at this place! Is this not every Instagrammer’s dream? According to the blurb on the website, Hotel Calile is “designed for people who know what they want – people who’ve seen average, but don’t plan to settle for it.”
“Designed for people who know what they want – people who’ve seen average, but don’t plan to settle for it.”
The Calile hotel was designed by Brisbane-based architecture studio Richards and Spence who took their inspiration from the Brisbane’s balmy climate. Whilst the hotel is situated in an urban area, the designers were keen to forgo the usual colours and materials often found in urban hotels instead opting for a much more tropical feel for the venue.
“We looked to other hot weather cities with a resort focus to inform our design…Miami, Palm Springs, Rio De Janeiro and Mexico City,” said Richards and Spence Co-Director Adrian Spence.
The idea was actually to create a hotel in Brisbane that has a sub-tropical resort feel to it. “In our opinion, there is no other city-based Australian hotel conceived as a resort. City-based hotels in our country are pitched to a corporate market, focussed on the conference, rather than on the pool and the hotel’s surrounds. The Calile will change that,” said Spence.
The hotel consequently has a 1950’s Miami feel to it created through its white exterior, many palm trees, cabanas and pastel colour palette. Subtle sage greens, muted blues and dusky pinks are the main colours of choice and these feature alongside a variety of natural materials including marble surfaces, cork floors and walls, sisal matting and oak and brass trims. The materials chosen all celebrate the local Queensland environment.
In total there are 175 rooms at Hotel Calile, nine of which are suites (two are premier suites), and many benefit from balconies overlooking the pool. There are a host of top facilities including a spectacular pool deck, the buzzing Hellenika Greek restaurant, the lobby bar, a small library room, and the Kailo day spa.
This is definitely a hotel I would like to stay in. I love the fact that the walls are half panelled with cork that extends down onto the floors. After my trip to Portugal a couple of weeks ago to watch the cork being harvested in the cork oak forest and learning more about this amazing natural material, I’m even more of a fan than I was before. Keep your eyes peeled for my Portugal post next week. For now, I’m going to leave you with more pictures of this beautiful hotel in Brisbane.
All images by photographer Sean Fennessey.
So what do you think? Could you stay here? What’s your favourite aspect of Hotel Calile?