Hotel Andra Seattle - MGallery

Though it’s the hotbed of a certain kind of entrepreneurial creativity, and one of America’s centers of new technology, Seattle has always been slightly conservative in terms of design and visual arts. It’s a delight, then, to come across a hotel like this one, not just another high-design boutique but a highly original one to boot.

Hotel Ändra plays off Seattle’s Scandinavian roots, bringing a bit of Swedish style (the upmarket kind, not the flat-pack) to the city’s Belltown district, an industrial-turned-artistic neighborhood that has quickly become Seattle’s hippest. The interiors are sleek and cosmopolitan, conveying a certain Nordic austerity without lapsing into tiring minimalist exercises.

Furnishings tend to dark woods and brushed metals, with rich colors like khaki and charcoal blue set against patterned upholstery, itself something of a revolution in the era of modern monochrome hotel design. There’s more here than just surface, of course; 300-thread Egyptian linens and goose down comforters are not merely eye candy. Brand names aren’t everything, nor are Tivoli clock radios and Frette towels strictly essential, but attention to the little things, like bath products by Face Stockholm, is key to the Ändra’s charm.

Alongside the Aalto and Jacobsen chairs of the lobby, a Scandinavian restaurant might be a bit much. Instead, the Ändra is home to a Greek and an Italian restaurant, though surely somewhere in Belltown there’s a place that will serve you some herring if you’re determined enough.