OKKO Nantes Château puts me in mind of Brigitte Bardot in her heyday: beautiful to look at, but one would imagine a bugger to keep clean. Luckily maintaining the brilliant finish on this palace of white is someone else’s problem; all the guest has to do is sit back and enjoy it. Paris designer Patrick Norguet is responsible for torturing the housekeeping department with his super-minimalist guest room interiors – he went a bit crazy with the pink on the writing desk, and the use of grey stops the dazzling décor becoming disorientating. For all that disciplined design, it’s still an inviting place to be.
The hotel is a four star affair, and opens at the end of this month. Our pictures are very much a sneak preview, but the public spaces are shaping up to be equally as impressive as the accommodation. OKKO head honcho Olivier Devys tells us there will be a whole lot of services included in the competitively price, such as video on demand and WiFi, and that the hotel is organised around The Club, a multi-purpose meeting room, lobby, breakfast room and business centre. Speculation that the hotel will be staffed entirely by albinos is however utterly false.
Photography, Frank Hülsbomer
