Dermot AsIs Sha’Non is the horticulturalist and beekeeper tending to the three hives of bees (around 30,000 little individuals) that supply the honey for Hotel Hotel. The hives are located in the wetlands at the back of Kingston, across the lake from Hotel Hotel. The bees foraging for natives, blossoms and blackberry flowers are making a paddock honey that is extracted using the centrifugal approach (without heat) to retain the beautiful wild flavour and health benefits of raw honey. Honey from the three hives is bottled separately to allow the individual personality of the hive to be preserved.

Don Cameron (along with Ken Neale) helped Nectar Efkarpidis (Hotel Hotel founder and creative director) curate many of the spaces at Hotel Hotel.

Don started out as a music video and advertising director. His method is one of staging for meaningful experience.

The revivalist approach to the Hotel Hotel room interiors coupled with the conviction not to compromise on detail has meant that where objects weren’t available or were nonexistent they were then purpose designed for Hotel Hotel and fabricated as editions by craftsmen and artisan companies.

Nectar and Don worked together on a fundamental re-appraisal of what a hotel room could be. The basis of the approach was not to focus on luxury or precedents created by other successful boutique hotels; but instead to focus on how best to convey authenticity, narrative relevance and a curated experience that is personal rather than distancing and intellectual.

The carefully chosen 20th century furniture (many collected by Ken) combined with primitive art, found objects, antiques and vintage design, and the material and aesthetic polarities of these elements have generated compelling narratives in each space.

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On paper, Phill is the director of sales and marketing at Molonglo Group…

But really his business card should read ‘that nice guy that thinks a lot about people and place and is involved in the operation of everything”. He’s the guy that gets things working.

Phill has been working on Hotel Hotel since day dot. He is particularly involved in Hotel Hotel that he sees as a place that can help those people that travel for work to re-remember that they are human even if they have to wear a tie during the day.

Brothers Johnathan and Nectar Efkarpidis are the founders of Hotel Hotel.

To break down their roles in simplistic terms; Nectar’s brain will periodically explode with a creative and challenging concept after which Johnathan will patiently and fastidiously collect the pieces, turning them into a plausible and workable business venture.

Johnathan has a fierce insistence on sustainable projects (environmentally and in terms of community), Nectar a passion for all things artistic, and both have a love for the curious, the well made and the considered.

They pursue a collaborative approach to the development of new ideas that help support the global sustainability movement, local artists, designers and small industry.

They love hotels for their transience, for the way that they create a public space that can connect people and ideas. They see the hotel as a vessel for delivering culture, art, a rejuvenation of the artisan and importantly a place for all kinds of people to meet and mix it up.

The brothers looked to re-consider their hotel with a meaningful and relevant typology for its location, Canberra. They see it as a starting point that will evolve organically over time and with the input of guests, staff, visitors and loafers.

Johnathan, Nectar and their family of collaborators at Molonglo Group have conceived of and directed every aspect of the creation of Hotel Hotel. From the design of the building it sits in, to the design and curation of the interiors spaces, right down to the selection of refurbished mid 20th century Australian made chairs placed in each room.