Axel Vervoordt is re -regulating furniture inside a sunny pentouse like his friend, hotel Innegrit Volkhardt, watches. The space distilves the refined sense of Vervoordt’s purity, an aesthetic drawing on the principle of Wabi-Sabi, the beauties of imperfection. The walls are pigmented in terrestrial shades, wood accents bear age signs and simple, comfortable furniture are wrapped in linen. A mood of calm is set as soon as the door is closed.
This is not the inner sanctuary of a rich settlement, however, but a 350 mq suite that includes the entire eighth floor of the Bayerischer Hof of Munich. Volkhardt, the managing director and owner of the fourth generation of the hotel, has entrusted the designer, art trader and curator with the task of breathing modernity at the large address, which has welcomed guests at the city’s promenadeplatz since 1841.
Actors, politicians, academics and pop stars have all found a home from home inside these walls. Michael Jackson was a regular one and Dalai Lama stayed here, as did Albert Einstein and Queen Elizabeth II. Musician Lenny Kravitz posted a picture of himself scattered across the Penthouse sofa, a book in his hand. Vervoordt has also become a well -known face in Bayerischer Hof over the past 15 years, where he has overseen several stages of renovation. Despite “rarely doing hotel projects”, which he “rarely enjoys”, he has transformed 28 new rooms and suites on the north and south, plus the garden, Atelier and Palais Keller Restaurant, The Astor@Cinema Lounge, Palaishall and other events. He “made an exception to Innegrit”, which he met through mutual friends (he also worked with actor Robert De Niro in the Penthouse, Greenwich, his hotel Tribeca).
The new rooms, Junior Suites and Penthouse here were completed in January (joining a widespread 337 room offer, including 74 suites, 40 meeting rooms, five restaurants, a morning and bathroom, except for six bars and a nightclub, plus different shops). Eager to oversee the final touches in his new spaces, the 77-year-old sprinkled runs a tour around them. “Ah, the floor here is so beautiful,” he says as we enter another apartment similar to Zen. “Oakni 18th-century oak, from France, a very rare discovery. I told Innegri that she had to have it.” The hotel touches its heel on the floor in response. “And I told Axel, there can be a little problem,” she jokes, drawing attention to the wood of the grains and deep pits, which is great, but far from the sign. “The skate is great,” withdraws Vervoordt. “And that will get better with age.”
“Worky Working to work with Axel,” says Volkhardt. “When we first started this cooperation, I had the opportunity to see him working in his studio in Belgium, and he took me to see the place where they hold all the wood. He knows every single piece there.” Vervoordt’s eyes are lit: “I call it my Plank Museum,” he says. “Get that coffee table in the corner. Top is 18th-century walnut, from my museum. I loved round corners so much as we left it. We try to respect the material. And the ancient slap there (it points to a block of rustic butcher) -It is very old, but there is a minimalism for the part.”
Vervoordt’s passion for antiques emanates from his childhood. He remembers visits to England to stay with his family during school holidays, where he began to buy and sell pieces at the age of 14. “To date, I love English style,” he says. “The big houses, where you will find a great keyboard table with a Gainsborough painting and a pair of Wallington boots on the floor. It is all very casual: you have it, you live with it, and never looks visible.”
Vervoordt was later recruited in the Belgian army, where he sharply sharpened his entrepreneurial skills. “I told them I wouldn’t kill anyone, so they put me in the pharmacy – and there I put an aperitif bar,” he laughs in memory. “When friends came to my bar, I would ask if their families had pieces in the attic they wanted to sell. I did very well.”
His artistic career was similarly built in a smart meaning of the market. “I bought and sell my first Magritte painting in just 21 years old. I knew then I wanted to be an art dealer,” says Vervoordt. It is also a bon vivant and a smart businessman who has built an empire from Kanaal over the past 25 years, an old Belgian distiller transformed into a headquarters and an art center, where his business interests include an internal design practice, an ancient, a private foundation and art galleries in Antwerp and Hong Kong.
Volkhardt was considered new when in 26 years old she received the Bayerischer Hof hotel brakes in 1992; Her father died at the age of 75 in 2001 after a long illness. The hotel, which was originally conceived by industrialist Joseph Anton Von Maffei in King Ludwig I’s expressed desire, was bought by her great grandfather Herrmann in 1897. Build in stages when they had money. “
Bayerischer HOd gradually expanded to include a number of listed buildings (including Palais Montgelas) by extracting the original site. But the earliest memories of Volkhardt here are not from the carriages and chandeliers gilded, but with the caramel of brötchen creams and rolls. “I remember only fragments: walking in the garden and getting too excited to come for lunch because I loved the rolls,” she says. “At that time, everything I cared for was the horses. I remember I was presented for an important event in my nonhols, smelling horses.”
Vervoordt, who shares Volkhardt’s The passion of horses, enjoying a lot in its history. For many years he began his morning riding in Raio, a Portuguese Lusitano, around his castle in ‘S-Gravenwezel, near Antwerp, where he lives with his wife May. “I just stopped lately,” he says. “Sadly my horse died. I bought another, but I couldn’t go on with it. He slammed me. I said it’s that, there are no more horses for me.”
Volkhardt begins its day in a similar way to family property in Starnberg. She cares for her four donkeys before she arrives at work at 9.30am. “Luxury is spending time for myself, which is so rare for me,” she says, pointing out that her grandfather Hermann advised her to never live in the hotel. However, it has continued what began to the address, not ascending to nostalgia, but through a gradual recreation. Hers is a continuous balance between traditional and modern, but doing so, Bayerischer Hof fits different flavors, whether its guests control for swags and tails or underestimated Vervoordt elegance.
“Axel rooms have been extremely successful. He has fans all over the world,” Volkhardt says. However, she admits that it took some visitors to get used to the concept. “For the first rooms designed Axel, we produced leaflets” How to Live Here “.” That an old table is prestigious. Is such a quiet expression. So for those who do not understand, we try to show them the beauty of calm. ”
“I don’t like anything fake,” Vervoordt replies. “Everything I do should be true. I like natural materials because they are timeless, and the things you can move on: furniture and art – they bring energy. It is a balance of ephemeral and eternal.” He addresses his friend: “I find many hotels, and I will not say names, be vulgar. I hate plastic, and that everything feels plastic. For me luxury is to live with great materials: beautiful wood, but also the wonderful silk and velvet you find in the old palaces because they are true.”
But what makes a hotel special? “People,” says Volkhardt without hesitation. “The service makes all the difference.” “I don’t agree,” says Vervoordt, laughing. “Think the rooms.” His friend smiles. “Yes, it’s a mix of both, and we have plans for many more axel rooms here.”
Bayerischerhof.de
