Nantucket’s Newest Boutique Hotel Is a Delightful Mix of Vintage and Botanical Details

It’s a delicate process to remake a piece of history. It’s often more challenging to restore an old structure than to build anew, and to replicate the aura that comes with a building that’s welcomed visitors for nearly 200 years—like the recently opened boutique hotel Life House Nantucket.

Life House is the newest chapter of the island’s oldest continually operating hotel, an 1830s mansion that has been carefully revamped to "celebrate the coastal Federal-style architecture and pay homage to the island flora," says Rami Zeidan, founder and CEO of Life House. 

"Historic buildings have a lot of nuances," notes Zeidan. "In this particular house, every room is different. You can’t just design one thing and replicate it across every room. Each room has its own unique qualities."

But that varied, historic character is part of the attraction for Life House, which currently has three other locations in Miami, the first of which opened in the Little Havana neighborhood in 2019. These buildings come with stories, and Life House aims to honor them.

In Nantucket, the landscape plays a significant role in the design, in part because of the island’s rich history of conservation, but also because native flora has been part of the building’s character for decades. The previous innkeepers, who ran the hotel for 35 years, named each of the guest rooms after local foliage and flowers—black dahlia, white narcissus, sweet pea, and thistle, to name a few. The original brass room name plates are now used in the custom key cabinet used at check-in.

Opening amid a global pandemic was certainly not the plan for Life House Nantucket, though it’s a hotel well-suited to operating in a socially distanced world, as technology is core to the brand. While the company’s proprietary software is largely invisible to guests—it’s used on the back end to make operations more seamless and cost-effective—there are modern touches throughout that enhance the guest experience. 

There’s an app that allows for contactless check-in, and any requests during your stay—from extra bath towels to booking a dinner reservation—can be arranged via text: services that, because of coronavirus, most travelers are happy to see and will continue to want.

"People want to interact less and have less physical contact with other people," says Zeidan. But it’s a delicate process to introduce technology into a centuries-old house. So you won’t find an airport-style touchscreen kiosk here. Instead, the check-in iPad is built into a vintage desk in the hotel’s living room. "It doesn’t dilute the experience," Zeidan adds.

To that same point, the in-house design team opted to keep the manual key locks on guest rooms. "It felt wrong to use electric keys in this type of a building," explains Zeidan. Each key is instead attached to a silken tassel in dandelion gold or blue-green, earthy colors core to the hotel’s botanical- and sea-inspired palette.

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The 14 guest rooms each have a different layout, several with fireplaces and many with king beds. Half of the rooms have a color scheme built around a reddish-purple shade that comes from the beach plum that blooms on the shoreline, while the other half feature a jade green that pulls from the Atlantic Ocean. Both hues complement the raffia writing desks and wicker and natural fiber beds.

Special touches like linen pendants, hand-painted with wild roses and yellowroot by local Nantucket artist Kwan Baudam, and brass coat hooks in the shape of a hand holding a flower make the spaces feel like they’re part of a carefully curated, private home.

Throughout the hotel, the molding has been painted as a way to celebrate and highlight the architecture. In the guest rooms, it dons the plum and jade hues, while in the public spaces, it’s a glossy black.

Designed with seating groups that are more open, rather than cordoned off, the living room is a space for guests to interact. While that may seem less desirable amid a pandemic, Zeidan notes that during the first few weeks of operations, guests often lingered here.

But it’s the hotel’s outdoor space that guests were most drawn to, and it’s easy to see why. The courtyard, with its fire pit, wicker sofas, and fringed umbrellas, embodies chill island vibes.

Another small terrace tucked beneath trees evokes a secret garden with intimate seating. "People love that garden," says Zeidan. "The chairs toward the end are rather close together, so you can’t help but engage in conversation."

Aside from a delayed launch, the pandemic’s impact on Life House Nantucket has been surprisingly minimal, though there are some noticeable COVID-19 additions: hand sanitizer at the entrance, an option to opt out of housekeeping, and twice daily sanitizing of all public spaces. The kitchen, designed as a communal space for guests, is currently limited to just staff. And of course, everyone must wear masks in all public spaces, with the staff donning Zambolo-design face coverings.

This isn’t the only outpost Life House plans to open during the pandemic: Denver will welcome guests in October, followed by another Miami location on Ocean Drive in November. And Brooklyn and Chattanooga, Tennessee, are on the docket for 2021.

"Our beautiful designs serve a greater purpose than just their aesthetic appreciation," says Zeidan, "and exist to inspire positive energy and behavior and help us discover our universal belonging. Our growth plans stem from this mission, and it’s important that we grow so our community can rely on us wherever they travel."

Rooms at Life House start at $255 a night.

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