Colombo Court Blog The Hotel
What makes a boutique hotel, and what makes this one
The word gets used for anything under a hundred rooms. Here is what it should mean, and how Colombo Court measures up against it, honestly.
“Boutique hotel” has been used for so long, by so many, that it has nearly stopped meaning anything. We use it about ourselves, so we owe you a definition. A boutique hotel is small enough that the people running it know who you are, individual enough that you could not mistake it for anywhere else, and considered enough that the details have been thought about by someone. Here is how that works in Colombo 3.
Small enough
Thirty-one rooms, fifteen of them suites. The front office recognise returning guests by name, and the reasons that is possible are arithmetic rather than sentiment. It also means that when you ask for something, the person you ask can usually just do it.
Individual enough
The hotel was made from five old office buildings on Alfred House Avenue, so no two rooms are the same shape and the corridors turn where the old walls were. The art is scrap metal, the lamps are bicycle parts, the fountain was a cement mixer. Every window faces a planted garden rather than the road. You could not mistake it for anywhere else, and guests tell us this is what they remember.
Considered enough
Considered means that someone thought about the pillow menu, the glass water bottles, the reading light and the fact that the pool is long enough to swim in rather than just look at. It also means thinking about what the hotel costs the world beyond its walls, which is why Colombo Court became South Asia’s first CarbonNeutral® city hotel, and why we say so quietly rather than on every surface.
The rest of the definition
A boutique hotel should feed you well. Amber Poolside does breakfast, lunch and high tea beside the water; Cloud Café & Bar does the evening on the roof. It should have somewhere to switch off, which here is The Court Spa, the jacuzzi and the plunge pool. And it should be somewhere, rather than anywhere: Galle Face, Gangaramaya, Independence Square and the design shops of Colombo 3 are all a short ride or a walk away.
Honestly
There is no sea view; the rooms look into the garden. There are stairs to the rooms and a lift to the roof. The rooms have corners that a new building would not have. We think each of these is part of the point, and we would rather you knew before you arrived. The rooms are here, described the same way.
