It is becoming increasingly common to see that many of the new, smaller, hotels are describing themselves as a “Boutique Hotel”. Across the city of London, the capital city of England in the United Kingdom, there are now a small number of superb boutique hotels but what exactly is a “Boutique Hotel” and where did they first appear? Below you will find the answers.

More often than not a boutique hotel is owned, run and maintained by one family, a couple, and in some cases, small hotel chains specializing in this type of accommodation. However, there has been a recent trend for some of the larger hotel chains to build hotels to meet the specific demand for these hotels so this distinction may not hold true for much longer! One thing that has to be true is that they are unique in style and decoration and often based upon a theme. Such themes can range from a hotel decorated and furnished in the 17th Century style to one which is focused on chocolate for avid chocoholics. Sometimes a boutique hotel may feature rooms which have different themes to each other with no overall theme but this is rare.

Where Was The First Boutique Hotel?

Boutique hotels first appeared in the late 1980s in New York USA. Although some hotels claim to have been boutique hotels as far back as 1981 in places such as London UK and San Francisco the first hotel to be described as such was the ‘Morgans’ hotel, New York, in 1984. These earlier claimants were, therefore, subsequently described as such and can not, realistically, claim to be the first.

‘Morgans’ hotel  was owned by Steven Rubell and Ian Schrager who had commissioned the Parisian designer Andrée Putman to create a unique, highly stylized, hotel in New York.  Putman created the hotel in what has become known as an “America meets Europe” fashion. When promoting his Morgans Hotel large hotel chains wanted to make his hotel stand out from, what he thought were, the mundane hotels owned by the large hotel chains. He described other hotels as “department store” hotels and his own as a “boutique hotel” to show the distinctive difference - thus the phrase entered the English language for the first time.

Interesting Boutique Hotels in the United Kingdom

42 The Calls (hotel) in Leeds claims to be one of the first to appear in the UK. The Calls was a hotel built in the carcass of an old corn mill and used that as the overall theme. Adding interest to the hotel is the fact that they have retained some of the original corn mill machinery but the hotel is also known for its wonderfully crafted hand made beds which appear in each room.

The Blake’s Hotel in South Kensington, London, is often quoted as being one of the first boutique hotels in the world but, although this appeared before Morgans in New York, for the reasons outlined above this claim is often dismissed. Ever since the first boutique hotels appeared they have spread across the United Kingdom until they recently reached the remote island of Harris, where a boutique hotel recently opened in the small village of Tarbert, however the vast majority are to be found in London.

If you are planning a trip to, or a vacation in, London and you are considering booking a boutique hotel you may wish to check out the listings of boutique hotels in London at http://www.londonhotelhelper.com/