Hotel The Vine
The design hotel in Funchal, Madeira
Article added on April 10, 2012

Architect Ricardo Bofill and designer Nini Andrade Silva
  
Madeira's most stylish hotel is situated in an apartment and shopping center complex built by the renowned Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill Leví (*1939), with the reception on the first floor. The five-star luxury hotel is part of Design Hotels.

At Hotel The Vine, you enter a different world. It is the work of Nini Andrade Silva, an interior designer who was born in Funchal in 1962, who has worked in London, Paris and New York and who owns design studios in Funchal and Lisbon. In her approach, Nini Andrade Silva pays tribute to her native Madeira and everything that relates to wine.

Since the hotel rooms are distributed over four floors, Nini Andrade Silva came up with the idea of the four seasons and the different stages of grape maturation throughout the year. The canvas-lit ceilings are colored according to the season. For spring on the second floor, the designer chose the color green and green grapes, for summer on the third floor, she opted for burgundy and pink and ripe grapes, for winter on the fourth floor, she chose grey and trunks, for autumn on the fifth floor, she decided that brown and dried leaves were right.

On each floor, in the elevator area, screens light up, allusive to the vineyard and the season of ripening of the grape. Pillars have been transformed into lamps. Showers and taps take the form of cascades, creating waterfalls, reminiscent of Madeira's nature. Many floor areas are made of pebbles, the typical Madeiran sidewalks.



An unusual hotel for Madeira

The breakfast restaurant Terra Lounge on the first floor gives the impression of a sophisticated “parreira”, the leaves of the grape. According to the designer, Uva restaurant with Chef Thomas Faudry on the top floor should remind us of small grapes, which have matured and display their full characteristics.

The terrace pool, also situated on the top floor, is in dark purple, with the intention of giving us the impression of a wine press where grapes get crushed and squeezed. Whatever you think of Nini Andrade Silva's explanation, her design is stunning and the panoramic views over the city of Funchal and the Atlantic Ocean, with an infinity pool and a long infinity Jacuzzi, are breathtaking. The deckchairs are in round pebble or “calhau” shape. The lounge bar 360° has the color and the shape of a grape.

The Winter Garden uses sophisticated wicker, reminding us of the harvest and the baskets used to transport the grapes to the wine press. Typical Madeiran “estrelicia” flowers as well as actual grapevines grow around the balcony.

In addition to hydrotherapy, oil massage and exfoliation, the health spa of Hotel The Vine offers of course Vinotherapy in its elegant treatment rooms with products by TheraVine from South Africa, including Merlot, Chardonnay and Cabernet grape seed extracts.

Hotel The Vine offers its clients complimentary use of the gym next door called Holmes Place, situated in the same complex built by Ricardo Bofill, just 30 meters from the hotel lift away. While staying at The Vine in the fabulous Summer Junior Suite 314, I went to the gym to work out and make room for Chef Thomas Faudry's delights!

All rooms at Hotel The Vine dispose of a bathtub and a separate walk-in shower as well as of a Nespresso machine. From the Panoramic Suite 507 as well as some other rooms on the fifth floor, you have an excellent view over Funchal and the port.

Hotel The Vine offers complimentary wired and wifi internet access in all rooms and suites. All rooms are equipped with 32'' large, flat screen LCD cable TVs. The bed linens and towels are in Egyptian cotton. Deluxe Superior Rooms start at 30m2. My Summer Junior Suite 314 offered already a minimum of 55m2. The Design Suites dispose of between 73m2 and 83m2.



A design hotel

The lighting concept at Hotel The vine includes the use of coves of indirect illumination with fluorescent circuits and outbreaks of halogen fully encased in the ceiling, panels of screens and pillars of retro glass illuminated with printed photos. The pillars themselves have similar circuits to the canvas. Nini Andrade Silva is right, the effect is irresistible. It transmits an intimate theatricality.

The rooms are a the dream of any design-freak: Lights by Lola Darlings and Terzani, backup table and desk lights by Rectângulo, designed by Nini Andrade Silva and produced by Indutora, back up table room lights by Philip Plain from Paris, bedside table lights Constanza by Luce Plane, reading lights bedside by Led Atcs, VG Material by Trotty. Everything provided by atelier Esboço, owned by Nini Andrade Silva.

As mentioned above, the pebble stones, the showers and the tabs are a reference to Madeira. “Vescon” wallpapers and mircocement used in the rooms, small tiles, gris glass and acrylic with images used in the top floor pool area give the hotel a contemporary design edge.

According to Nini Andrade Silva, it is “not what you see, but what you feel”, that makes a space special. To that effect, she is working with colors. As a result, I felt indeed very special at my Summer Junior Suite 314!

A hotel with a rough start - the mudslide of 2010

Owned by the brothers António and Norberto Henriques and now directed by Norberto's son Gonçalo as CEO, Hotel The Vine had  a rough start. It opened in December 2008 in the historic center of Funchal, giving an abandoned, formerly industrial area of the old town a fresh start. Its 79 rooms and suites in a contemporary, sophisticated and exuberant, yet discrete design, had to be abandoned temporarily because of the floods and mudslides of February 2010. The low levels of the complex built by Bofill, the shopping center and the underground parking, were totally flooded with water and mud. Hotel The Vine, situated on the first floor and above, was saved from the damage, but had to be closed for several weeks until the mess downstairs was cleaned up. Luckily, since April 2010, you can again fully enjoy a design jewel in the heart of Funchal!

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The sink in a Spring Design Suite. Water pours out like from a waterfall, inspired by Madeira's nature. Photos © Hotel The Vine, Funchal, Madeira.


View from the 360° terrace, overlooking Funchal and the Atlantic Ocean. The heated swimming pool is a design jewel. Photos © Hotel The Vine, Funchal, Madeira.

The Terrace 360 on the top floor with its infinity pool, 20-meter Jacuzzi and gourmet restaurant. Photos © Hotel The Vine, Funchal, Madeira.


View of a Summer Design Suite. Photos © Hotel The Vine, Funchal, Madeira.


My Summer Junior Suite 314. Photos © Hotel The Vine, Funchal, Madeira.


A Spring Deluxe Room. Photos © Hotel The Vine, Funchal, Madeira.


View of one of the elegant spa treatment rooms. Photos © Hotel The Vine, Funchal, Madeira.


Terra breakfast restaurant. Photos © Hotel The Vine, Funchal, Madeira.


The façade of the hotel, apartment and shopping center complex. Photos © Hotel The Vine, Funchal, Madeira.