Design
which adds a rich, deep red colour to them; the wooden headboards, bedside tables and worktables are made from Bubinga, a sustainably grown hard wood. Meanwhile, the large metal doors on most of the Post Ranch rooms are refurbished old schoolhouse doors that were stripped and finished. “All of our guestrooms have upcycled lamps made by [the designer] Jim Misner,” adds Freed. “We have his work in the Sierra Mar restaurant and in the spa, too.” Furthermore, the bar top in Sierra Mar is made from quilted mahogany that was retrieved from the bed of a creek in Honduras. The hotel also made use of timber from an old bridge to craft the pathway connecting the restaurant to the reception, as well as other paths around the estate – and any trees that fall on the property are retrieved from the forest and made into benches. When it comes to refreshing the interiors, the
team behind Post Ranch Inn looks to new eco-friendly materials, such as mushroom-based leather and biodegradable seaweed-based fabrics, to replace pieces that have worn out. “We are focused on materials that are based on a regenerative economy,” says Freed. “We have the good fortune of having an eco-reputation and innovative companies come to us with their concepts.” However, the challenges Post Ranch faces are always around lead times and availability of quality items. “Products must stand up to repetitive use,” he says, “so we source and test them to ensure they are made to last.”
Make do and mend the planet Emma Stratton, the director at Scarlet Hotel in Cornwall, which she co-founded with her sisters Debbie Wakefield and Rebecca Whittington, did so with the intention of creating a business that was “deeply sustainable”. “My interest has always been to campaign for the environment,” she explains, revealing that this began with the location of Scarlet. “It’s a real thing for hotels to rush to build on completely unspoiled bits of coastline. We made a specific choice
to say, ‘We can’t keep doing that, because there will be no beautiful places left.’ Therefore, what we needed to do was build a hotel that replaced an unattractive disused building, to preserve the places of beauty where you can go and leave no footprint.” Scarlet was designed to have half the carbon
footprint of a similar luxury hotel, built using sustainably-forested woods; but Stratton notes that it was a challenge to find a builder in the UK who could meet the specification. “It had to be airtight,” she says, explaining that the only firm that could implement her and her sisters’ vision was from Germany. “We approached the design of Scarlet painstakingly – there was a year and a half of planning before we started to build. It was really complicated, down to small things like the screws we used to try and minimise the carbon footprint of the building materials.” Soft furnishings brought different challenges – curtains, for example, are easily damaged by the sun if they are made from cotton or linen, so their lifespan at a hotel is typically less than a year, says Stratton. “We’ve got curtains made out of Provera, which is a manmade material, but it’s a lot better than some of the natural fabrics. They can still look good after 20 years,
Above: The Scarlet Hotel’s curtains are made from Provera, a manmade material that lasts longer than the more classic, natural options.
Below: A view out to sea from the Scarlet Hotel’s retreat terrace.
Opposite: The natural materials used for the Post Ranch Inn allow it to blend seamlessly into its Big Sur surrounds.
Hotel Management International /
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Scarlet Hotel
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