We spoke to Olivia Byrne, the director of Eccleston Square Hotel in London about her experience about working with Minotti London to redesign the public area of the hotel with the help of our Trade and Retail Manager, Zoltan Halasz.
Eccleston Square Hotel opened in July 2011 to international acclaim for being one of the most technologically advanced hotels in the world. At that time Olivia was just 23 years old, some say she was Europe’s youngest hotelier. In this interview, she shares the details of how we helped her to create a stunning design for her exclusive hotel:
Olivia told us: ‘I grew up in hospitality from a very young age, so my father had two hotels in Paris. We decided to open a hotel in London. We found a beautiful Grade II listed building in Victoria, and we completely renovated the building and made it into a luxury boutique hotel.
We opened in 2011, and we were known as one of the most high-tech hotels in Europe, which was very exciting. We’re now nine years down the line, and we’re looking to amend slightly the look of the hotel, especially the furniture, because we want to create something a bit more stylish and unique for our clients.
We approached Minotti a couple months ago because we wanted to redesign our public area. We spent a lot of time with Zoltan picking fabrics and ideas. He gave us a lot of inspiration as well.
We actually chose Minotti because we were very familiar with the brands. We also love the comforts of the furniture. So it’s not just a beautiful furniture. It’s actually a very comfortable furniture that you want to live in and use. We thought that Minotti was a fantastic brand to work with and would really create a unique aspect to the hotel.
My favourite part of the project is definitely working with Zoltan. He’s been so helpful. We already came with a lot of predisposed ideas.
We looked at the website several times, and we thought we had a clear picture of what we wanted. But I think Zoltan gave us a different aspect and way of seeing things, and he definitely pointed us in different directions. But I think the outcome is going to be even more spectacular than what we envisioned.
I think the biggest challenge for us was picking the right fabric. In the hospitality section, the fabrics are quite different because they have to be harder wearing and fire-resistant as well.
I thought working with Minotti London was very easy. We approached them and literally a couple days later, we had a meeting in the showroom, managed to get my father involved as well. We took a bit of time to go through all the fabrics with Zoltan. He had unlimited time for us, and it really was great to really take the time to pick the right fabric.
What I really appreciate about Minotti furniture, it’s definitely the design, the fact that it’s timeless, it’s very chic, but it’s not bling-bling either. I think a lot of people can appreciate the design and also the comfort. It’s not just a beautiful furniture, it’s actually a furniture that you can live in. So we found pieces that were really functional for the room that we had envisioned. For example, we’re using these swivel chairs, which are great because it means clients can get up and sit very easily onto the chairs.
Also, one of the reasons why we chose Minotti furniture is the fact that we can take off the fabric and send it to dry cleaning. For a hospitality, it’s actually very unique and very exciting, because it means we don’t have to reupholster the furniture every couple years. It means that it’s a long-lasting piece of furniture.’
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