Is this the world's most luxurious hotel? Inside the
Baroque-inspired palace that cost £1 BILLION and comes with retractable marble
floors, Rolls-Royce Phantoms for guests and a butler for every room.
At the startling cost of $7 million per room, Macau’s The
13, with its 200 baroquely crafted suites, fancies itself as the hotel for the
one percent of the one percent. This ridiculous exercise in excess, which
reportedly cost in excess of $1.4 billion (divide this by 200 and you get the
per room cost above), was spearheaded by the infamously flamboyant Stephen
Hung, the hotel czar with a taste for the highly decadent who earned his
fortune from investment banking and real estate.
To provide some context here as far the price goes (because
this story is frankly unbelievable), the 13 Hotel is not the most expensive
hotel in Macau even. The hotly anticipated Wynn Palace Cotai cost a reported
$4.1 billion but, at 1,700 rooms, the per room cost there is a mere $2.4
million. The secret sauce here is clearly exclusivity. Just a look into the
premises already calls to mind visions of Brian De Palma’s Scarface, just with
more gilt and less gunfights.
The Internet seems to be divided about what this Louis XIII
Holdings Ltd (yes that is the name of Hung’s company and the reason for the
hotel’s name) property means for humanity. Stunned disbelief is probably an
adequate summary. In our opinion, Hung seems to be on a determined goal to
minimize the energy expenditure of the guests as far as he possibly can. The suites
are accessed by private elevator. A 24-hour butler service staffed by
professionals (trained by MCM Palace Consultants in Paris and certified by the
English Guild of Butlers) is available. Red Rolls-Royce Phantoms are used as
VIP shuttles. You get the feeling that if Hung had enough resources, he would
have hired personal palanquin bearers for every guest as well.
Every inch of the hotel seems to be embellishment: baroque
inspired frescoes on the ceiling; gold-fringed drapes hanging across the room;
black and white marble checkered floors; stained glass windows; neo-classical
columns; crystal chandeliers. One might think that even aristocrats in the past
had some sense of restraint. Likewise, in the taste department, there are six
Chinese, French and Japanese restaurants & bars. The hotel even has a
private invitation-only shopping space called L’Atelier – featuring exclusive
bespoke products by high-end luxury brands.
“This was a labor of love,” Hung declared in a statement,
“The team and I put every ounce of creativity and passion we had into this
project to ensure every detail was perfect. Our guests, I believe, will find
the result truly remarkable and beyond anything they have previously
experienced.”
A new kind of experience indeed. Guests will definitely be
feeling Hung’s efforts penetrating into every inch of their senses for days to
come.
Stephen Hung (left) shakes hands with Rolls-Royce CEO
Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes at the carmaker's headquarters at Goodwood, England
Guests will access their villas via lifts which open
directly into a private lobby, like a New York-style penthouse.
Every butler was trained by MCM Palace Consultants and
certified by the English Guild of Butlers, while the Rolls-Royce Phantom
chauffeurs were trained in England.
In a statement, Hung said: ‘This was a labour of love. The
team and I put every ounce of creativity and passion we had into this project
to ensure every detail was perfect.
‘Our guests, I believe, will find the result truly
remarkable and beyond anything they have previously experienced.’
He added: ‘As the business and the brand have developed, we
felt that the name “The 13” most accurately reflected our Macau hotel’s combination
of Baroque inspiration and contemporary accents.
‘Our brand represents a unique vision of a global luxury
lifestyle based on strong bespoke traditions while embracing modern elements
that enhance these traditions.
Louis XIII Holdings Ltd, named after the French king who
built the Palace of Versailles, announced plans for the hotel back in 2013.
The 13 will take its place in the world’s gambling capital
and one of its richest cities, Macau, which is a special administrative region
on a peninsula on China’s southern coast.
Louis XIII Holdings Ltd also announced plans today to change
its corporate name to The 13 Holdings Ltd.
Hung said: ‘Thirteen is my lucky number and the new name
along with the new logo fit perfectly with my vision. There is a hint of tradition
while also suggesting a chic and fun edginess.’
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