Hoteliers Recycle the Industrial to the Penal Into Lodgings; 'Kind of Spooky'
SALA, Sweden—London's Savoy Hotel is synonymous with swankiness. The Ritz in Paris gave its name to luxury. Now, Sweden's Sala Silvergruva is taking sterling service to a new level for guests who want to stay someplace less ordinary.
The establishment's mine suite is a high-style bedroom more than 50 stories underground, in a 600-year-old silver mine dug through solid marble. Guests, whose only link to the surface is a four-minute elevator ride and a special radio, can lounge in silver-colored leather chairs and sip champagne beside a silver candelabra. (click below to read more)
The vaulted chamber is ideal for busy couples who want to escape life's distractions, says spokeswoman Sofie Andersson. "I don't recommend sleeping there alone," she adds. "It gets kind of spooky."
Sala Silvergruva is one of several oddball lodgings creating a new niche in European hospitality. Others include a dock crane, former prisons, grounded airplanes and oil-rig escape pods. Some accommodations are cheap, others pricey. The common thread is putting old structures to very new use.
The Malmaison Oxford Hotel, in England, mixes history and recycling. "It's difficult to think of a better use for an old prison," says Malmaison operations director Mike Warren. The stone compound, part of which dates to 1071, jailed residents until 1996. It became a boutique hotel in 2005.
Turning relics into fine lodgings isn't new—the Ritz occupies renovated townhouses. But Europe's new wave displays whimsy more expected of American kitsch meccas like the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, Calif., where rooms are decorated in themes such as jungle and caveman. At Sala, guests also can sleep in wooden dormitories built for miners a century ago, for only about $60 per person. The mine suite costs about $600 per couple, including dinner and a subterranean tour.
Tourists seem eager to sleep in obscure corners of history. Stockholm's Långholmen Hotel was fully booked on a recent evening, even though many rooms are "very tiny" and have bunk beds, said Louisa Benk, a student from Stuttgart on vacation with her family.
"The gray walls still give the impression it was a prison, but I think they've made it nicer than it was," she said, standing outside her wooden cell door. The jail, which carried out Sweden's last execution in 1910 and closed in 1975, opened for guests in 2008. Detailing includes mirrors that look like guillotines and gray sheets striped like prison garb.
Unusual challenges can arise turning oddments into hotel rooms. One problem: connecting plumbing and electricity to the cab of a 44-year-old harbor crane that can still be made to rotate. "A lot of things had to be invented," says Carla Comello, who with her husband manages the one-room inn in Harlingen, Netherlands.
The crane, which stands 56 feet up on four legs, originally hoisted cargo. It now has a double bed and bathroom with a toilet and shower. Large windows command panoramic views. Guests preferring a different vista simply push a joystick to turn the 143,000-pound steel room.
"They want to go round and round all day," says Ms. Comello, but the motor stops automatically for half an hour after 20 minutes, to avoid overheating. Between spins, guests can relax on the rooftop patio. Day rates range from $570 to $857, during holidays.
Dutch "garbage architect" Denis Oudendijk, who specializes in reusing building materials, was shopping for a boat when he found four oil-rig escape pods for sale. He snapped up the orange capsules, which resemble flying saucers, and opened them for lodging in 2003, moored at the Hague.The units were built to seat 28 oil workers abandoning a doomed platform. Mr. Oudendijk put a big hammock in each for sleeping. Recently, he snazzed up one pod with a bed, silk sheets and a disco ball.
"The only problem is that if you're in the water, you roll out of bed. So you need the hammock," says Mr. Oudendijk. "Half our guests say it's their best sleeping experience ever and half say it's their worst. "He charges about $86 for a night in the pods. Bathrooms are outside.
Swedish hotelier Oscar Diös simply gutted and rebuilt the inside of a Boeing 747 when he turned it into accommodations at Stockholm's Arlanda Airport in 2009. The jumbo jet once flew for Pan Am but was grounded in 2002. Now it has 27 rooms, most with bunk beds and cabinets made from original luggage bins. As in the air, guests share lavatories along the corridor, but they now have showers and porcelain toilets.
Suites in the plane's nose and tail offer double beds and bathrooms. The most popular, Mr. Diös says, is the cockpit, which retains some original equipment. Guests have curtains to close. Prices range from about $60 for a bunk bed to $500 for the cockpit suite.
Even more luxurious is a Soviet-built Ilyushin 18 from 1960 that once belonged to East German's government. For $500, one couple can sleep in the remodeled propeller plane, now parked an hour from Amsterdam.
At Sala, opening the mine suite required warming the space above the tunnel's year-round temperature of 36 degrees Fahrenheit. Thanks to a new partition and electric heaters, the suite remains at 64 degrees. The bed has a down cover and extra blankets.
Showers are above ground, but there's an unheated portable toilet outside the suite for urgent use. Visitors are advised not to wander down the labyrinthine tunnels or swim in the frigid underground lakes.
Sometimes history presents hoteliers with new opportunities. The mine suite started with only basic furniture when it opened in 2007, but last year managers installed the baroque silver furniture, to evoke Sala's glory days.
Says Mr. Andersson: "We wanted to bring the silver back to the mine."
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