Mirror-like Japanese lacquer is a bold thing to bring to a Cheshire country estate, and Bergman Design House has brought it alongside handcrafted zellige, coloured cement tiles, beaten metals, expressive stone and figured timber veneers. It is a long list for a hotel with a golf course attached, and a studio with less nerve would have trimmed it. Materiality is the signature at Fairmont Cheshire – The Mere, and Bergman Design Studio has committed to it.
The design studio spends its days on hospitality, residential and yacht interiors, all disciplines that live or die on foundation and finish. Soliman says the lake came first. “Every material decision was tested against that lake view,” she explains. “When a space has this much natural character already, restraint is the harder skill – knowing what to leave alone matters as much as what you add.” Confident talk from a studio with this much lacquer to its name, though the logic holds. Lacquer gives a room a surface that behaves a little like water, and timber and stone take their cue from the woodland and the ground.
The public spaces take their cue from mid-century hospitality: sculptural forms, layered lighting and richly textured materials. It is a well-chosen reference for a house this old, glamorous without turning into period pastiche. Sculptural forms also do useful work, giving a room presence without leaning on ornament, which suits a hotel with a lake outside to do the decorating. The bars are built around Fairmont’s Classics Perfected cocktail programme, and proceed on the sensible premise that a guest who orders a perfected classic will want somewhere good to sit while it arrives.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on Hotel Designs.
