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Jul 09, 2023

In Praise of a Truly Glamorous Bathroom

By Nicole Kliest My interest in immersive bathrooms was ignited early on. Having been raised along the central coast of California, visits to the historic Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo were

By Nicole Kliest

My interest in immersive bathrooms was ignited early on. Having been raised along the central coast of California, visits to the historic Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo were commonplace when I was growing up (particularly for adolescent milestones like prom night dinner, where I was known to order a virgin piña colada or two). A late 1950s-era hotel, the property is fawned over on Instagram for its flamboyant interiors of unapologetic pink and gold—but the main attraction isn’t the 110 individually-themed rooms or the 1,000 sprawling acres of rocky terrain it sits upon. Instead, it’s the bathroom; the men’s bathroom, to be more precise.

Upon entering, one is greeted by giant clam shell sinks and large natural stone boulders, which enclose a motion-activated waterfall urinal. (A grotto garderobe, if you will.) It’s outlandish and it’s brilliant. For those like me who consider an immersive bathroom experience something worth traveling for, sneaking into the Madonna Inn men’s washroom is a pilgrimage.

Perhaps the explanation for why Madonna Inn has garnered its cult status among us loo lovers is because, up until recently, it wasn’t so easy to find out about this sort of amenity. “For a long time the powder room was an afterthought to the main restaurant or bar, but I think people are now realizing it’s an opportunity to experiment and enhance the overall experience,” Martin Brudnizki tells me. He’s the globally-recognized designer behind the much-lauded bathroom in Annabel’s in London, which was introduced to the private members club a few years ago. “We created a Barbara Cartland pink palace for the ladies with fabric-tented ceilings, flower walls, mother-of-pearl doors, and pink loos—and the members loved it so much they had to hire a lady to stand inside and tell them not to take photos,” Brudnizki adds.

But beyond all the photo opportunities a lovely bathroom presents, it’s about so much more than a fleeting selfie. If executed immaculately, it also provides an escape—albeit a brief one. “Restaurant bathrooms are often the places where people go to quietly reset after a barrage of social activity and an overwhelm of the senses,” AvroKO principal and co-founder William Harris says, whose projects include SingleThread in Healdsburg as well as the restrooms at Momotaro in Chicago. “If the bathroom is designed especially well, this is the time we subconsciously get intimate with the details. This may mean experiencing a mono statement of floor-to-ceiling pink marble or an explosion of content that we can now see in the quietude of what is mostly a solo journey for five to ten minutes.”

This is the mood at The Hermitage Hotel in Nashville, where the men’s 1930s-era Art Deco bathroom is distinguished by the lime green-and-black striped tile work. Its recently-introduced female counterpart, meanwhile, comes complete with variegated pink marble walls and floors with arched doorways, rose gold-framed mirrors, and powdery pink fixtures. Both of these are worlds away from the Beaux-Arts style of this 112-year-old hotel, meaning a quick trip offers some (very atmospheric) respite before you return to the chatter of the dining table.

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The real sweet spot for a designer creating a bathroom space? When it transforms into what they refer to as the “jewel box” of a hotel or restaurant. “Bathrooms are such a fun opportunity to design because they offer the only truly private zones in very public spaces,” explains Oliver Haslegrave, the founder and creator of Home Studios, the firm behind the surreal marble flooring and mirror strips of Elsa in Brooklyn. “As a team, we tend to ask ourselves a series of provocative questions before starting a project: Should the experience be whimsical? Trippy? Elegant? Traditional? A hospitality bathroom is almost always a small space so you can really be ambitious with the design to elicit storytelling and feeling.”

Sometimes, that story has already been told. Just take Mister Paradise in New York City, where the bathroom hallway is painted crimson red and an eerie green light glows from inside—all intended as a nod to room 237 from The Shining. Or the iconic (and now sadly closed) Mission Chinese in the LES, where the bathroom was designed in the style of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.

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On the other hand, a well-designed bathroom can be all about continuing the narrative of the dining room “Proper bathroom design should reveal a surprising subplot to the design in the main dining rooms,” AvroKO principal and co-founder Kristina O’Neal says. “Up close, details become magnified… These moments are sometimes where the most intimate and thoughtful details come alive, introducing you to the micro-world of the macro-story being told in the louder, more activated dining room.”

Ultimately, the mark of a memorable bathroom lies in its ability to transport the guest and leave an impression. “They should feel glamorous and otherworldly, experiential and an elevated extension of the concept,” designer Bryan O’Sullivan says, who counts Miami’s Dirty French, CoCo in Paris, and the now-shuttered Four Seasons Restaurant by Mies Van Der Rohe in New York City as a few important examples of this. “The old grand dame hotels in London have also always done this well,” Brudnizki adds. “The Ritz has jungle murals inset into pink paneling with faux curtains, which always make me smile.”

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Even for Haslegrave, this is the case. “I worked at Pastis in 2002, right after I moved to New York,” he says. “The restaurant’s design made a big impression on me and the bathroom was really well done. The communal sink was smart; it added to the fun, convivial energy.” Perhaps it’s as simple as that: Creating a space that encourages you to take that extra moment to linger—and relish in that fleeting feeling of escape.