As the daughter of hotelier Lord Charles Forte, hotels and design are in Olga Polizzi’s blood. Since cofounding Rocco Forte Hotels with her brother Rocco in 1996, Polizzi, the company’s London-based deputy chairman and director of design, has put her bold yet classic imprint on each of the 11 properties in the collection, including the Villa Kennedy in Frankfurt, Hotel Amigo in Brussels, and Assila Hotel in Jeddah, as well as two of her own, Hotel Tresanton and Hotel Endsleigh, in England. Here, she shares her love of shopping, her upcoming twist on an art hotel in Shanghai, and the ever-evolving meaning of luxury.
After graduating art school, how did you get your start in hotel design?
When my father asked me to join his hotel company, there was a big design department and that was the area I was interested in. I stayed for 12 years. We had a hostile takeover of Forte Group, and my brother and I started Rocco Forte Hotels. I probably designed more hotel bedrooms than anyone alive. I’ve done so many because in the old company we had about 800 hotels—from Travelodges to the Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris.
One of the brand’s most famed properties is Hotel de Russie in Rome, and now you’re opening Hotel De La Ville in the city very soon. How will this be different?
Having two 5-Star hotels in the same city isn’t always easy. We weren’t looking for another hotel in Rome, but it fell into our laps and it’s a wonderful position—a lovely hotel—so we thought, ‘Let’s go for it.’ It’s at the top of the Spanish Steps, and we’re doing it in the theme of the grand tour, so more classical and a bit more colorful. The beige, gray, and dark modern furniture have gone away, and everything’s more comfortable and warm now. It’s amazing how you think it’s never going to change, but it’s very much like fashion design—it changes a lot. I haven’t used wallpaper for eight years, and then suddenly I’m putting wallpaper everywhere. In the old days, no one would have said, ‘I want my house to look like such and such hotel,’ but now we get many people asking us, ‘Where did you buy that?’
What is your process for making each hotel feel distinct?
I suppose I have a house style of sorts because I do repeat myself in colors and certain materials, but every hotel is different. We try and make our hotels feel like the city they’re in, so I always look at the history. When people wake up, I want them to feel they’re in Berlin or Brussels or Rome. Berlin is a bright, brash, young city, and the Hotel de Rome is done more in that style, while Munich is more of a grand lady, so the Charles Hotel is softer. We always buy local art because that immediately gives you a sense of where you are.
Everywhere I go, I’m always moving furniture, changing things around, buying extra bits, so it’s in the blood. I always start minimalist and then it goes by the [wayside] because every fair I go to, every city I go to, I’m always buying, buying. I’m a great buyer.
You do some projects in-house and then also work with great designers like Martin Brudnizki, Tommaso Ziffer, and Muza Lab. What do you look for in such collaborations?
We are a very small [team]. There are six of us, that’s our nucleus. But we bring people in when we need them. It’s lovely having somebody really good who comes in with new ideas and shows us something different. I hate when someone comes in with a design that’s set in stone. You’ve got to keep looking at it, tweaking it, changing it as you see things develop.
You’re in the midst of several renovations: the Hotel Savoy in Florence, the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh, and Brown’s Hotel in London. What updates can you share about those?
For the Savoy, we’re knocking two rooms into one and making big bathrooms with separate showers. Last year, we [renovated] about 50 rooms at the Balmoral, and this year we’re doing [an additional] 45—all the best ones, with views onto old Edinburgh—and the bar and the restaurant. It’s a rather beautiful Victorian building, and we’ve used Scottish materials and colors, and a little bit of checkered [patterns]. We’re also redoing Brown’s bit by bit, including the ground floor with a new restaurant and a much bigger bar, which is a nightmare for me because our offices are just around the corner, so all the directors go there every day. Everyone has their own opinion.
Shanghai is also on the horizon, your first property in Asia Pacific, part of a mixed-use development in the West Bund. Can you give us a sneak peek?
It used to be the airport and, unlike most of Shanghai, where they’ve knocked everything old and interesting down, they’ve kept a lot of the buildings and hangars on the site and are turning them into various museums. They’ve also planted thousands and thousands of trees, and there are a lot of artists’ studios. The hotel will be sort of an art hotel, but rather than paintings, we are using pottery. The triple-height entrance will be like a library with bookshelves but filled with pots. I’ve only just started [looking for them] by going to art colleges and final-year shows, because we need thousands of pieces.
How has luxury evolved for you?
Luxury keeps upping its game so now we’re all more spoiled. But good service is really the first thing that people look for. You can have a beautiful hotel and if you get rotten service, you’ll never go back again. If you get good service and the design is mediocre, you’ll still go back because they’ll look after you. Luxury isn’t gold and mirror everywhere. You can’t really define it. It’s just a feeling, a comfort, a bit of glamour.
