The big sleep
"I think it needs topping up," says Gerhard Schaller, general manager of London's Montcalm Hotel, bouncing on the water bed in suite 226. Schaller had always fancied the idea of a suite with a water bed. Since the bed was installed nine months ago the room has been occupied almost constantly.
Whether guests think it's sexy or just novel, he is unclear, but the hotel's promotional literature carries the claim "London's only hotel room with a water bed" for extra marketing muscle.
The bed should always be the focus for a hotel bedroom, claims interior design supremo and queen of the canopy Nina Campbell. The beds in Paris hotel Le Parc Victor Hugo, recently given the Campbell treatment, lie expansively under Frette linen and extravagant eiderdowns. A chocolate truffle balances among the goose down pillows.
Campbell has firm views on exactly what a bed should be. "A bed must be generously proportioned, comfortable and inviting - with soft enveloping cushions so I can sink into them while I read before falling asleep," she says.
One thing is certain - size matters. The National Bed Federation says that although we are buying the smallest beds in the world, we have grown bigger - half an inch for women and more than an inch for men over the past 30 years. In a report commissioned by the NBF, participating couples testing a standard double (4ft 6in) and a larger 5ft bed over a period of several weeks slept better in the larger bed.
But some hotels are still cramming customers into a standard double when they should be thinking big. Peter Rogers, hotel bed expert at manufacturer Dorlux, has spent the past 20 years advising hoteliers on their bedding requirements. He says: "There is nothing more incongruous and disappointing to a guest's expectation than entering a very attractively-styled bedroom, grandly decorated and with all the latest accessories, to find ithas a small, standard double. For two people sharing, this gives each guest little more than the size of a baby's cot to sleep in. If guests do not sleep well, they will remember that experience and may not return."
Sales figures at Dorlux reveal that the number of single beds sold has fallen by 30% in favour of larger beds.
Contract orders for larger beds are also on the increase at bed manufacturer Mattison's. "We'll make anything up to 7ft," says managing director John Mattison, "but we are selling more 5ft and 6ft beds."
"The bigger the better", is how Peter Jewkes, proprietor of the Toxique "restaurant with rooms" in Wiltshire, likes his beds. The rooms in his stone farmhouse on the edge of Melksham have four separate themes created with help from wife Helen, an interior designer when she's not cooking for the guests.
The bed is the main feature in each room. Lipstick red walls set off a black and cream four-poster in the Rococo suite. Saris are used for cushion covers on the beds and on bedside tables. "You can achieve a real richness without much expense," says ex-architect Jewkes.
The two have also gone to town on the decor of the bathrooms. "Baths must be big enough for at least two," says Jewkes. The Rococo has a 5ft round bath. "If a family stays here with their children they can all pile in the bath together!"
Lighting, next on his list of priorities, must be subdued - flickering night lights are positioned around each bath.
"Creating a nest" is how interior designer Sioned McLean describes her work. She is responsible for the interiors at Sir Clough Williams-Ellis's grand folly, Portmeirion, built on a secluded peninsula in Gwynedd. The hotel, now run by McLean's former husband Robin Llywelyn, has 14 rooms in the main house, individually designed by McLean. The peacock suite boasts a bed covered with raw silk, hand- embroidered with a peacock feather design. Another room has an iron and brass Irish half-tester bed.
The Indian room has a four-poster constructed from hand-painted Indian table lamp bases joined together by a local carpenter - the tent-effect canopy is the roof of the "nest".
"The more drapes the better," says McLean, who has a strong dislike of hotel bedrooms with a uniform look.
Roaring fires are Mary Bowe's thing. The "State Rooms" in her hotel, Marlfield House, County Wexford, have fires (gas-aided) burning at full blast to greet guests. "Instant atmosphere," says Bowe, who puts Lux flakes by the bathroom sink "to wash your undies" and sends up a glass of Champagne to newly-arrived guests.
She describes her beds as the "biggest and most expensive you can buy" and opts for the King Koil brand. You can sleep at any angle in the bed and still be dwarfed by the mattress.
In her rooms, quilted bedspreads match the double-lined curtains, Egyptian cotton sheets and a pretty cotton damask cover protect the bedding, and home-made shortbread sits in a tin by all beds.
"Men love the little fussy things more than women," says Bowe, pointing to the heart-shaped pillows scattered on the bed. "They go overboard on these feminine things." She is currently working on a lighting arrangement inside her four-posters: "lighting annoys me, you must always have a decent light to read by."
Last year, The Times invited readers to nominate their favourite hotel bedroom. The things they liked best about a room tended to be the view out of the window or the bathroom. The hotel that garnered the largest number of readers' votes was Amberley Castle, near Arundel, West Sussex. One reader eulogised: "The four-poster bed (in the Arundel room) stood proud in the centre of the room, with its twisted oak arms draped with tapestry-like fabrics in the palest shades of eau de nil."
Owners of Amberley Castle, Joy and Martin Cummins, aim to top that with The Bloody Tower, due to open this May. This turret room comprises a 6ft 6in four-poster carved by a local man, and links up with the adjacent cell and a 21/2-tonne working portcullis.
"The Americans will go ecstatic," says Martin Cummins.
