An Art Deco Hotel of Note
Featured in an episode of Poirot, it's now for sale
Art Deco is a style of design, architecture, and visual arts that you’ve most likely seen before.
It is short for Arts Décoratifs, and it got its name from Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes (the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts) in 1925, where the style moderne of architecture, interior decoration, furniture, glass, jewelry and other decorative arts was featured.
You’ll recognize Art Deco when you see it because of its repeating patterns, symmetry, and simplicity, usually represented as a combination of luxury and modernity, often through machines, particularly in the 1920s and 1930s.
If you’ve ever watched Poirot, the introduction of each episode has Art Deco elements, from the font to the trains and buildings.
One episode, “Evil Under the Sun” (based on Christie’s novel of the same name), features an enviable real-life Art Deco hotel and was filmed at the Burgh Island Hotel.
It is a Grade II listed building, was constructed in 1929, and features 25 en-suite guest rooms, as well as three restaurants and a number of amenities for guests who wish to get away from the weary workaday world — including a mermaid pool.
A couple of things of note about the hotel:
It is set on a tidal island, meaning that during high tides, it is truly an island, while at low tides, it is accessible on foot via a sand bar. A sea tractor, looking like a trolley on stilts, is available to ferry guests to and from the island.
Agatha Christie had a writer’s retreat there and used the hotel as a setting for her novels Evil Under the Sun and And Then There Were None.
The rooms and public areas are fine examples of the Art Deco era, have been kept up, and are in working order.
There are many more photos on the hotel’s website.
Oh, and if you’re interested, the hotel is for sale. Offers start at £15 million.
Staying there would be Classy AF.
