Hollis Hart dresses The Marlowe hotel in ink blue and wax seals
A London townhouse hotel gets stationery worth stealing and a monogram stamped into everything from key tags to soap.
The Marlowe is a 22-room hotel spread across two Georgian townhouses in Bloomsbury. Its owners wanted guests to feel like they were staying with a well-read friend, so Hollis Hart started with the writing desk.
Every room has a drawer of letter paper, envelopes and postcards, all set in a crisp serif and printed in a single ink blue. Guests are encouraged to write, and the hotel posts their letters for free. The studio designed a wax seal for the back of every envelope, and the same monogram is debossed onto key tags, embroidered onto robes and pressed into the soap.
Restraint as hospitality
“A small hotel can’t shout,” says Hollis Hart partner Daniel Hart. “Everything had to feel discovered rather than announced.” The signage is limited to brass numerals and a single plaque by the front door, and the website reads like a short story about the street rather than a list of amenities.
