With walls of calfskin and Chinese onyx, a cascading waterfall and a
tycoon’s-eye view of Manhattan, the Four Seasons Ty Warner Penthouse, which
opened last month, will hit you for a cool £15,079 for a single night.
It’s a cardiac-inducing price. But get your doctor on speed-dial, because it
doesn’t come close to being the most expensive suite in the world. Our
inaugural survey reveals that the costliest kip requires another £11,000 a
night. Do not adjust your sets. That is £26,000. For a single night.
These, of course, are no ordinary suites. They come with bulletproof glass,
rare antiques, designer interiors and 24-hour butlers; golden furniture,
midair spa baths, epic views and top-notch limos. They’re the product of a
new era of luxury in which wealth is counted in billions and the highly
mobile super-rich, along with Hollywood’s big hitters and international
statesmen, flit across continents, demanding high comfort and higher
security.
Here’s where they find it. Call the bank manager, take out that second
mortgage and join us for the priciest sleeps on earth.
Prices include local taxes and charges, and, where applicable, are based on
high-season rates
£26,450
Royal Penthouse Suite Hotel President Wilson, Geneva
Are you sitting down? This stratospheric price tag doesn’t include breakfast,
but it does buy you a night in a four-bedroom penthouse suite bristling with
surveillance cameras, bulletproof windows, armoured doors and bedside panic
buttons – as well as a butler and views across Lake Geneva to Mont Blanc.
Perfect for UNbound heads of state and paranoid antiques collectors, it’s
littered with period pieces, including a 1930s billiard table and a Steinway
grand – a tricky one to snaffle “accidentally” in your washbag.
Having just expanded to 17,000 sq ft – plus a roof terrace – it’s also perfect
should you recklessly shout “All back to mine” after that stressful UN
debate. It has the private elevator, the intimate dining room seating 26,
and six bathrooms, two with hammams and spa baths.
But the hotel claims you’re buying service, not just statistics. Each guest
arrives to favourite magazines, cocktails and children’s treats, along with
the Wilson’s famed flower arrangements. When a VIP demanded a special bed,
which wouldn’t fit in the lift, the hotel hired a crane to deliver it
through the window.
00 41 22 906 6666, www.hotelpwilson.com
£21,681
Hugh Hefner Sky Villa Palms Resort, Las Vegas
You can’t afford the faux-baronial Playboy mansion, but with one lunatic Vegas
splurge, you can have the next best, or perhaps tackiest, thing. Short of
improbable breasts, the Hugh Hefner Sky Villa, high in the Palms’ Fantasy
Tower, is supplied with everything Playboy: artwork selected by the Hef
(voluptuous and female? Quelle surprise! ), a vast rotating circular bed and
an indoor pool, artfully branded with the bunny logo, leading to a hair –
and libido – raising cantilevered spa bath high above the Strip.
This two-storey, 9,000 sq ft, two-bedroom pad for swinging bachelors also has
an orgy-sized bathtub, a bar and poker table, an indoor waterfall, pop-up
plasma televisions and a fully equipped gym. Should sir require a heavier
dose of Hef’s lifestyle, the Playboy Club’s hostesses are just upstairs. The
price doesn’t include breakfast – or bunnies.
00 1 702 942 7777, www.palms.com
£21,642
Penthouse Suite Hôtel Martinez, Cannes
You are movie royalty in Cannes, desperate to escape the paparazzi prowling
the Croisette. Where to go? The answer is up. Seven floors up, to the
Penthouse Suite of the art-deco Martinez, a cocoon of serenity, taste and
decadent space. Its vast roof garden, with a discreet sunken spa bath, is
book-ended by 100-year-old olive trees.
The Martinez hasn’t skimped on the interior, either. Amnesiacs could be lost
for days in the maze of white, gold and cappuccino luxury. The suite has two
living and dining rooms, two kitchens, two saunas and four bedrooms, each
with its own Turkish bath and whirlpool bath. Designer satin curtains brush
teak floors. Past guests, including Francis Ford Coppola, Jodie Foster and
Monica Bellucci, all paid extra for breakfast.
00 33 4 92 98 73 00, www.hotel-martinez.com
£20,351
Presidential Suite Hotel Cala di Volpe, Sardinia
Designed for sun-kissed networking, the Presidential Suite overlooks the
translucent briny of the Costa Smeralda. Modestly billed as “one of the most
famous suites in the world” – our straw poll found that nobody had heard of
it – the three-bedroom pad perches above the rambling towers and pantile
roofs of the luxury Porto Cervo resort.
By these suites’ OTT standards, the Presidential Suite is an understated blend
of contemporary Mediterranean style and sensational bay views. The bling
kicks in with the pool on the private roof terrace, next to your alfresco
gym. Should you tire of the land-based dolce vita , the local marina is the
ideal spot for rubbing hulls with the Agnellis.
00 39 0789 976111, www.luxurycollection.com/caladivolpe
£17,625
Royal Penthouse The Dorchester, London
Few people except heads of state know about the Royal Penthouse. The
Dorchester has a Howard Hughes-style shyness of publicity about the
four-bedroom duplex – formerly the Sultan of Brunei’s London pad.
Occupying the eighth and ninth floors above Park Lane, it’s decorated in
empire and classical 18th-century style, with a scenic trompe l’oeil and a
master bathroom of 24-carat gold plate and black marble. It has two dining
rooms, two drawing rooms, a hairdressing room and a cinema. The vast terrace
overlooks Hyde Park and Mayfair – though, if you’re staying here, you
probably own chunks of that already.
As in the other suites, exotic materials are an obsession: rare marbles,
Italian drapes and a New Zealand wool carpet with more than twice the normal
number of tufts and a design picked out in 22-carat gold threads. The sultan
would surely approve.
020 7629 8888, www.thedorchester.com
£15,079
Ty Warner Penthouse Four Seasons, New York
It may not be the world’s most expensive suite, as its early publicity
boasted, but the new Four Seasons Ty Warner Penthouse, occupying the whole
of the 52nd floor, has strong claims to top spot on the interior-design
podium. Whether it’s to your taste is another matter. It oozes opulence:
hand-lacquered walls inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a master bedroom with
25ft-high bay windows and a towering cathedral ceiling, cantilevered
balconies over the Manhattan skyline.
There’s no escape for aesthetic philistines in the bathroom, all Chinese onyx
with underlit rock-crystal sinks, or the vast library, with its grand piano.
By the time you caress the dressing room’s calfskin walls and meditate next
to the Zen room’s cascading waterfall, you’ll crave Ikea.
Perhaps a little ostentation is to be expected in a suite named after the
Beanie Baby tycoon, who moved into hotel ownership. It’s a voyeuristic
glimpse of a billionaire’s life, with unobstructed Big Apple views,
unlimited spa treatments, a designated table in the Joël Robuchon restaurant
and a chauffeured Rolls.
00 800 6488 6488, www.fourseasons.com/newyork
£14,925
Villa La Cupola Hotel Westin Excelsior, Rome
Need inspiration for the £3.5m refurbishment of your prime suite? Via Veneto
isn’t a bad start. Villa La Cupola, five floors above its elegant
pavements, has a domed living room with a 39ft-high, hand-frescoed cupola.
There’s a study with walnut panels, a dining room with a Murano glass and
gold chandelier, and a wine cabinet that holds 200 vintages.
Take your private lift up to the sixth floor and you’ll find a gym, a sauna
and a Pompeii-style spa bath – grapes available on request. The frescoes
synch perfectly with the city horizon through the window, which is either
breathtaking or remarkably confusing. Oh, yes, you also get a surround-sound
cinema and a sprawling roof terrace with outside bar.
If you have a large entourage – the butler and chef will have to stay
somewhere – you can add six more bedrooms on the fifth floor.
Congratulations: for one night, you are the proud owner of Europe’s largest
hotel suite.
00 39 064 7081, www.westin.com
£14,048
Penthouse Suite The Setai, Miami
Every account of hotel-suite excess should include a tale of lunatic celebrity
behaviour – and the Setai happily obliges. One anonymous Alister recently
demanded that the fourth bedroom be converted into a gym, with all equipment
and clothing colour coordinated – including exercise balls. Still, if you’re
going to act like a princess, the Setai’s 10,000 sq ft penthouse is the
place, with a 24-hour butler at your disposal.
The 40th-floor suite – past occupants include Madonna and Beyoncé – has two
gargantuan master bedrooms, two smaller ones, five living rooms and a
serious wine cellar. Its 4,000 sq ft of balconies and terrace include a
rooftop lap pool, a whirlpool and panorama views of the Miami skyline. All
you need is Roger Sanchez on the decks, and a few models, then your sunset
party can begin.
00 1 305 520 6000, www.setai.com
£13,612
Security Suite Hotel Adlon Kempinski, Berlin
Despite nightmares about your bank balance, this should be the soundest sleep
of your life. Installed under the scrutiny of the German security police,
the suite has bulletproof walls and windows, your own armoured entrance,
private lifts to an underground car park for assassin-free departures, an
independent telecommunications hub and five BMW limos for the bodyguards.
It also claims to be the most luxurious suite in Germany, with European and
Asian furnishings, a ladies’ lounge with a four-poster, and a vast bathroom
incorporating a whirlpool, a sauna and a fitness area. It has exquisite
antiques, a private safe room, a conference room and a 24-hour butler – who,
no doubt, has been vetted, frisked and psychologically profiled to within an
inch of his life.
00 49 30 22610, www.hotel-adlon.de
£12,602
Bridge Suite Atlantis, Bahamas
Prepare for a gilt trip. This 10-room suite has gilt mirrors, chairs, lamps
and vases, and so many occasional tables, they’ve become regular. They sit
alongside gold sofas, cushions and bedspreads punctuated with blacks and
reds, all of which Atlantis believes creates “an altogether appropriate air
of regal majesty”. Anyone with minimalist tendencies may have other
descriptions.
But there is no disputing the shameless glitz. The grand foyer boasts an
elaborate floor in four kinds of marble; there is a 50ft living room with a
baby grand; a vast entertainment centre with a full-service bar; and a king
bedroom – no “master” nonsense here – with a 10ft-high four-poster covered
in hand-painted linens. Throw in the eye-popping balcony views, and a
butler, and this is no ordinary kip. Of course, whether you want to blow a
fortune to straddle a pink wedding cake of a tropical resort is another
question.
00 1 242 363 3000, www.atlantis.com
Additional reporting by Jasmine Gardner
