It’s not easy to do art well. Especially in a hotel. Generally, the artwork hanging above our borrowed bed for the night is barely worthy of notice, let alone lust inducing. Ace hotels have gradually built a reputation for locations that sensitively reflect their locations, through their interior design, programming, menus, and most poignantly for Ace Hotel and Swim Club Athens, their art collection. As soon as you walk into the hotel chain’s newest location you’re greeted by a work by Berlin-based Athenian cabinetmaker Ilias Lefas. The heavyweight builder works in marble, metal, and wood, carving out refined volumes that perfectly suit his client’s needs. His work appears at The Breeder as well, a contemporary art and design gallery with a robust roster (Elle Décor favorites Objects of Common Interest show with them). At Ace Athens Lefas designed and installed a marble check-in desk with perfect cut outs for you to rest your weary passport as a friendly concierge fills you in on what the hotel has to offer.
Ilias Lefas’s checkin desk. On the right is a photo print by Alexandra Masmanidi.
There is a lot on offer. There is the Swim Club for one, where guests can enjoy a David Hockney-inspired mural by Claire Manent in the pool area (harkening back to the days when this neighborhood was referred to as “Athen’s Riviera”). There is the restaurant, Sebastian, with it’s many salad options, healthy and delicious breakfasts, and perfect little Greek dips. There is the intimate bar with its excellent cocktails. Throughout these spaces and everywhere else there is idiosyncratic, surprising art to deepen your Athen’s experience further.
Bregje Sliepenbeek’s work Summer Sowing above a vintage settee.
Past the entrance to the hotel is a small lobby where a vintage settee sourced by local dealers Back To The Future sits beneath a hammered aluminum mobile tapestry by Bregje Sliepenbeek. All the built-in seating and furniture in the hotel, of which there is a great deal, in true, traditional Greek fashion, was designed by Ciguë, the hotels architecture and interior design partner. (The architect of record on the building was Georges Batzios Architects and all signage and wayfinding was managed by Ogust.) Almost every other functional item in the hotel is vintage and was sourced by Back To The Future. Around the corner Eleni Psyllaki’s paintings hang above plump white vintage chairs. Psyllaki is also Athenian. Notice a pattern?
A painting by Eleni Psyllaki hangs above vintage furniture sourced by Back To The Future.
The hotel’s arts program specifically privileges artists from or working in Athens, reasoning that the best way to communicate a sense of place is to actually engage in the place itself. The mundane details that are usually overlooked in hotels – room numbers, wall sconces – in Ace Athens are an opportunity for refinement and partnership. Every room is outfitted with a wall light in the shape of a stylized Harpy (very Greek indeed!) by Panos Profitis,. So successful was this design intervention that several guests in one weekend asked if they could buy a version.
Panos Profitis’s custom harpy sconce hangs in one of the guestrooms.
Before you even enter your room you notice the handwoven flags that carry your room number. Above your bed there may be a collage by Theo Michael, whose work appears in large scale in the lobby’s elevator bank, or you might find a drawing by Aristeidis Lappas, Zoe Paul, or Alekos Fassianos. From your balcony (which most rooms have) you might see the large-scale mural by Profitis overlooking the pool. The hotel’s collection is so robust as to challenge that of an actual gallery. It was curated with the help of Mare Studio, Aliki Lampropoulous, and Matthieu Prat.
A seating area on the ground floor.
The art that greets your eyes at Ace Athens prepares you for the beauty that bursts forth once you step into the city center a 40-minute drive away. In town you could visit Eleftheria Tseliou Gallery, whose program includes some of the most exciting and experimental contemporary artists in the city. Perhaps afterwards dinner at ΛΙΝΟΥ ΣΟΥΜΠΑΣΗΣ ΚΑΙ ΣΙΑ (also referred to as “LS and SIA” for the non-Greeks) is in order, where you can enjoy sweetbreads with the most delectable pull-apart buns, a fish roe dip (a classic in affluent Greek households), bean and chickpea stews, shrimp langoustines, a fresh cheese and honey that has no business being as good as it is, and if you’re pinched for souvenir, beeswax candles and candlesticks from the store that was there before the restaurant.
A seating area with vintage lighting sourced by Back To The Future.
Around the corner Wine is Fine mimics New York’s Dimes Square on a micro scale. A fifteen minute walk away Seychelles serves up amazing Greek classics (their tomato salad with brown breadcrumbs is wildly satisfying) and just five minutes from their tables is The Breeder gallery. Of course there are the historic sights (to go to Athens and miss the Acropolis is a crime and the Stoa of Attalos is much less frequented and almost as important), but to properly understand what it is you are seeing you must first stop by a few of Athen’s amazingly robust museums, like the Acropolis Museum, the Museum of Cycladic Art, and the Benaki Museum. Jewelry lovers adore the Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum. On the quirkier end is the Museum of Ancient Greek Technology, a hit with the Left Brainers. Ever wanted to know what the ancient lyre sounded like? Here’s your chance to find out. Once you swirl around all the beauty from past times and the present, Ace Athens provides the perfect, pleasant, plush place to rest your head and dream of the Greeks.
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