• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

Colours that form a landscape...

Anjali Prayag

It's not without reason that they have called it The Park.hotel. Located at the heart of Bangalore, the dot in the hotel signature gives one an idea of what the hotel stands for. For the young, independent and seeking a new experience.

Lemuel Herbert, the hotel's General Manager, calls it a boutique hotel. And before you can pop the next question, he explains the concept, ``It's a term referring to hotels designed with the same attention to detail that one would find in a specialised s tore or boutique that offers customised service.''

A boutique is small, intimate and luxurious. And so is The Park.hotel. With 110 rooms, two banquet halls and two restaurants, you would think it is like any other hotel in the city. But wait, the interiors are based on the landscapes of the country, clai ms Babita Sharma, the Sales and Marketing Manager of the hotel.

The four themes that inspired the interiors of the rooms are the four predominant landscapes of the Indian subcontinent: jungle, desert, sea and mountain.

The `jungle' rooms are extravagant with lush-green raw-silk furnishings giving the entire room a wild look. (Don't miss the pug marks on the carpet). Well-defined furniture with minimum fuss is the order of the day. ``We have emphasised on the linear des ign to suit the corporate traveller,'' says Babita.

The work-desk matches the design of the rest of the room. Stark, dark and leather topped, the oak desk speaks of comfort for the businessman on the move. The hotel offers a speakerphone with two lines, a data port offering Internet connectivity and a fax line to take care of all the communication needs of the guest. There is an electronic safe that can be coded by individual guests and ensures absolute privacy. And going one step further in personalised service is the Dial One Service, where the guest c an dial No. 1 for any service. ``It's unlike other hotels where you have different numbers for room service, laundry, housekeeping, etc.''

Next, Babita insists we look at the bathrooms. What's so different about a hotel bathroom, you wonder! There is a secret nightlight just behind the glass door of the bathroom that creates an intimate ambience throughout the room and a dimmer switch allow s one to control the brightness of the light. ``If our guest wakes up at midnight, he should not grope in the dark for the lights,'' they say.

The other floors are similar, with the colourscapes varying with the landscape theme. The `desert' rooms have orange furnishing, the `sea' rooms have blue and the `mountain' rooms have Iris-coloured furnishing.

`Being a boutique hotel, we believe in offering an experience, not a product,'' says Babita. At a boutique hotel, a traveller would never wake up wondering which city or hotel he or she is in. Each room has a distinct personality and they offer personali sed service. Babita claims very often these are converted older properties resurrected by designers, combining the charm and character of the old building with modern design.

The building housing The Park.hotel, was previously a hotel too. ``But we have changed the entire design making it one of the most distinctive hotels in the city,'' asserts Lemuel.

The Park has two restaurants now. A series of gazebos, form a neat little cafe and is right on the driveway, giving guests the outdoorsy feeling. The gazebos lead to the unusually oblong-shaped swimming pool that is temperature-controlled (for the first time in Bangalore). ``The lap pool is for the serious swimmer,'' says Lemuel.

The lobby is called `The Silk Box' and is designed like one. There are aqua-blue raw-silk curtains covering all four walls giving one the feeling of being encased in a silk box. An angled table peeps through the curtains and draws one into the dining are a. Called the sharing table, it encourages socialising among guests.

The 24-hour restaurant `Monsoon' has interiors suggestive of the shower season that influences the landscapes of the country. The menu is a spread of coastal cuisines from South India and South East Asia. ``We have picked recipes from those areas where m onsoon hits the hardest, such as Bangkok, Kerala, Coorg, Mangalore, Karwar and Goa,'' explains Babita.

The executive chef, Abhijit Saha, is a culinary artist. A firm believer in the importance of presentation of food and subtle use of flavours.

The hotel design by UK-based designers, Conran & Partners, echos the attitude and ethos of The Park Hotels, ``that of providing first class service with Indian hospitality,'' says Lemuel.

Picture: One of the `jungle' rooms of the hotel.