In a serene refurbished teak homestead once part of the Borneo Trading Company’s headquarters, 137 Pillars House is one of Chiang Mai’s most awarded hotels. Now, the group has opened a city-slick sister, on the top eight floors of a sparkling skyscraper in Bangkok.
The brand’s 18th-century heritage is kept in rocking chairs on each of the 34 suites’ private balconies, the ground-level Bangkok Trading Post café, and the handsome Jack Bain’s bar named after one of the Company’s most distinguished managers. Louis Leonowens, who established the original headquarters, is also immortalised in an old London cab named Louie that totes guests around town with backseat champagne.
But this is a decidedly modern escape, with walk-in wardrobes and five-fixture marble bathrooms, a spa and wellness centre offering aerial yoga and reiki classes, a Japanese hair salon, and an exquisite pan-Asian restaurant with dishes like cinnamon-smoked korobuta pork belly and chilled silk oolong cream with coffee bean soil.
Not one but two sky high infinity pools may feel far removed from the city, but a glass floor looks dizzyingly down to the private driving ranges on the sixth-floor terrace, cleverly linking the hotel to the world below.
