Nicole Trilivas Contributor Travel Author of GIRLS WHO TRAVEL.
I write about luxury travel and high-end food and drink.
There’s much to be said about the virtues of a small boutique hotel. With a charming neighborhood feel and a warm intimacy that’s almost impossible to reproduce in larger properties, these new boutique hotels prove that bigger doesn’t always mean better. Add this selection of the 15 best new small and chic boutique hotels to your travel wish list in 2021.
Palacio Provincial, San Juan, Puerto Rico – Opening Q1 2021
With views over the colorful and cobblestoned streets of Old San Juan and the sun-blasted San Juan Bay, Palacio Provincial is the new 43-room boutique hotel where modernity and history meet. Nineteenth-century architectural touches remain (see: double-height ceilings and wrought-iron Juliet balconies), while the rooftop pool is all contemporary Caribbean cool.
Vico Milano, Italy – Opening Q1 2021
With just seven bedrooms, Vico Milano on Milan’s fashionable Corso Genova looks more like a gorgeous family home than a standard hotel, which is no surprise considering that founders Carlo and Aurora Baccheschi-Berti (of the Castello di Vicarello hotel) have deep ties to the famed fashion city. In fact, the new boutique hotel was formally Aurora’s fashion showroom, and its high-design past has certainly influenced its present-day style. (Website forthcoming.)MORE FOR YOUWheels Up Continues Acquisition Spree Buying Mountain AviationThe 12 Best Treadmills For A Home Gym In 2020Amex Unveils Limited-Time Benefits For Platinum, Business Platinum And More
Hirado Castle, Japan – Opening Q1 2021
In 2017, Japan’s historic sixteenth-century Hirado Castle open its doors for a special, one-night-only stay, and the experience proved so popular that starting early this year, two rooms will be available for overnight stays on an ongoing basis. Groups of five can book both rooms with three people staying on futons on first floor and two people on the second floor in a double bed. (Website forthcoming.)
Elcielo Hotel, Colombia – Opening Q1 2021
Star Colombian chef Juan Manuel Barrientos is the guiding force behind the new boutique bolthole, Elcielo Hotel in the affluent Medellín neighborhood of El Poblado. The first hotel by the gastronomic giant, Elcielo Hotel will have 28 rooms; two restaurants (including a relocation of the famed Elcielo restaurant); and two bars: a subterranean speakeasy and rooftop pool bar.
Airelles Château de Versailles, Le Grand Contrôle, France – Opening Q1 2021
The first hotel to be stationed on the grounds of the impossibly opulent Palace of Versailles, Airelles Château de Versailles, Le Grand Contrôle is slated to be the buzziest new opening for 2021. As the new offering from the ultra-chic Les Airelles brand, this new boutique hotel will have 14 keys; a restaurant by Alain Ducasse; a spa by Valmont; and unparalleled access to Versailles.
Columns, New Orleans, USA – Opening Q1 2021
Built in 1883 and just recently meticulously renovated, the historic, 20-room Columns hotel is set in the heart of New Orleans’ famous moss-drapped Garden District. With private garden, rooftop sundeck and a new southern-style restaurant from the team behind the James-Beard-awarded Coquette restaurant, Columns will officially open in January 2021.
Paradero Todos Santos, Mexico – Opening Q1 2021
A high-design boho hideaway in Baja California Sur, Paradero Todos Santos has 35 well-dressed rooms with handcrafted Mexican furniture and varied views of the desert landscape, rolling farmland and sparkling ocean. Book one of the Rooftop Suites, which comes with your very own “star net,” an oversized rooftop hammock.
Casa di Langa, Italy – Opening Q2 2021
New sustainable boutique hotel, Casa di Langa, will be opening in spring of 2021 with 39 rooms and endless views of Piedmont’s rolling hills. With 42 hectares of vineyards, hazelnut groves and gardens to explore on the estate, there will be no shortage of fine food and wine at this new Italian boutique hotel.
Azumi Setoda, Japan – Opening Q2 2021
When legendary Aman-founder Adrian Zecha announced the launch of a new hotel brand with Japanese hospitality group Naru Developments, it sent the travel industry into a tizzy of delight. The new Azumi brand will be a reinvention of the traditional Japanese ryokan experience and will launch on Ikuchijima, one of Japan’s Setouchi Islands, in spring 2021. The harmonious and hospitable Azumi Setoda is slated to have 22 rooms with cypress bathtubs and some with private gardens.
The Woodward Geneva, Switzerland – Opening Q2 2021
Extolled for their faultless properties all around the world including Paris’ Le Bristol and London’s Lanesborough, the Oetker Collection do not do things by halves. Case in point, the new Pierre-Yves Rochon masterpiece, The Woodward Geneva with 26 marble-bedecked suites; restaurants by L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon and Alain Verzeroli; and a spa by Maison Guerlain with a nearly 70-foot indoor pool—the longest in Geneva.
Beaverbrook Townhouse, London – Opening Q3 2021
Coming to London’s upscale Chelsea neighborhood in the summer of 2021, Beaverbrook Townhouse will be the city outpost of the famed English countryside hotel, Beaverbrook. Housed in two Georgian townhouses, Beaverbrook Townhouse will be home to 14 rooms, a modern Japanese restaurant overlooking the private garden square, and plenty of style—just like its older sibling. (Website forthcoming.)
Revīvō Château de Fiac, France – Opening Q3 2021
Revīvō Wellness Resorts first launched in Bali in 2018, and this year, a second property, Revīvō Château de Fiac, will be opening its doors in France’s southern Occitanie region in July 2021. The new 16-room, five-star temple of wellbeing will be stationed within a romantically refurbished château on three hectares of provincial parkland. The superlative wellness brand will also be introducing a third property, Revīvō Wellness Club Niseko, Japan in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Ambiente Sedona, Arizona, USA – Opening Q3 2021
Surrounded by the dramatic scenery of the Coconino National Forest, Sedona’s new and sustainable Ambiente hotel is opening in summer 2021 with 40 modern guest “Atriums,” which have been elevated to maximize the views of the landscape of red rock formations, pine forests and of course, those spectacular desert sunrises.
Gleneagles Townhouse, Scotland – Opening Q4
Scotland’s celebrated Gleneagles Hotel needs little introduction, which is why hopes are high for the brand’s new outpost, Gleneagles Townhouse in Edinburgh. Launching in autumn of 2021 with 33 individually styled guests rooms in the former home of the British Linen Company on St Andrews Square, Gleneagles Townhouse is one of the most highly anticipated hotel openings of the year.
Life House Bushwick, New York, USA – Opening Q4 2021
The up-and-coming Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick will play host to the new Life House Bushwick in autumn 2021. Set in a Beaux Arts former bank, Life House Bushwick will have 29 rooms and rooftop bar with vistas over the Manhattan skyline. The growing hotel brand has several outposts in Miami already, plus properties in Nantucket and Denver, and also has openings slated for Bali and Chattanooga in the near future.
