Facing the Amstel River in the village of Ouderkerk, seven freestanding structures embody the exclusivity of luxury accommodations: at Lute Suites, guests literally have it all in the form of petite, three-level gabled cottages, each with a kitchenette and living room. But what could simply be a bucolic getaway is also a design aficionado’s dream. Staying here, on the reclaimed site of an 18th-century gunpowder factory, is the closest you can come to inhabiting the studio of one of Europe’s most acclaimed young designers, Marcel Wanders, artistic director of the Netherlands-based design collective Moooi.
Renowned Dutch chef Peter Lute’s eponymous restaurant – occupying a portion of the factory with a distinctive bell-shaped gable and arches passageway – began this location’s renaissance in 2003. Rotterdam architect Eline Strijkers honoured the historic preservation orders for the designated national monument and created “satellite” spaces to accommodate a working restaurant. The result includes structures within structures, such as the glass-and-steel greenhouse dining area beneath a hayloft.
Wanders first came to Lute for a meal, but ultimately became the creator and co-owner of Lute Suites, infusing the seven adjacent structures with his playful imagination. Although the exteriors remain true to their 18th-century origins, each suite is a reconstructed wonderland filled with creations by Wanders, Karin Krautgardner, and fellow Moooi designers. Wanders jumped at the opportunity to work with Lute: “Interiors offer me a chance to look at the products I’ve designed and test their usability,” he says.
Like the river framed by the suites’ ten-foot windows, water is also an interior centrepiece, showcasing Wanders’ work with Italian manufacturers Bisazza and Boffi. Wanders’ white “soap bath” for Bisazza resembles a futuristic vehicle or prehistoric egg and even grants a river view. In other bathrooms, his Gobi line basins and fixtures for Boffi include a flower knob tap control, reminiscent of a garden hose attachment. All “wet rooms” have intricately patterned Bisazza mosaic-tile walls designed by Wanders. The suites’ architectural framework is designed to offer views of the bathroom itself, whether through smoked glass, a metal or teak spiral staircase, or a flower-patterned metal screen. The steeply pitched roofs and heavy support beams are also highlighted; in two suites, the bedroom is a tent-like nest beneath the roof, connected to the mezzanine via a ladder.
Each suite is individually decorated, some with a signature Wanders “knotted chair,” a hammock-like piece of carbon and epoxy-coated aramid fibres, a design held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Its macramé motif is picked up in a stairwell’s suspension support. Wanders’ plastic webbed Gwapa chairs, oversize lamps, an exuberantly colourful side table and prototypes created especially for Lute round out the fun, modish looks. Slim Bottoni sofas get custom-made fabric by Paul Smith, who also outfitted the restaurant’s staff. Other Moooi designer pieces include the black leather and “burnt” wood Smoke chair by Maarten Baas and Light Shade Shade lamps by Jurgen Bey. To “wrap” these collector furnishings, surfaces are composed like decoratively crafted gift boxes: wallpaper has a Baroque pattern, a ceiling is painted gold, floors are made with inlaid steel, and of course, there’s Bisazza mosaic tiling.
In Wanders’ opinion, “A hotel should offer experience, it should be exciting and surprising with a strong visual rationale that elicits a strong emotional response.” In this case, he puts his figurative message literally on the walls and conveys a sense of optimism. In one living room, multiple shelves stretching the length of the wall hold his one-minute sculptures – coral-like clay forms painted gold. It is proof of what can be accomplished when not only seizing the day, but 60 seconds. In the “boardroom” conference cottage, newspaper headlines and articles bearing good news paper the wall. Lute Suites is true to the unapologetically earnest philosophy of Wanders’ design studio: “Here to create an environment of love, live with passion, and make our most exciting dreams come true.”
