Stay Cool in Colombia

The super-chic Tcherassi Hotel and Spa in Cartagena, Colombia, is the result of a fortuitous creative collision between a 250-year-old colonial mansion and one of the country’s biggest fashion designers, Silvia Tcherassi, lauded for her opulent, colorful and extravagant ready-to-wear collections. “The border between fashion design and interior design is transparent, invisible,” says Tcherassi, whose trademarks are smattered through the hotel: a cool, muted green lounger here; a striking blood-red wooden flooring there—all contrasting with the exposed stone walls and the building’s 18th-century wooden beams. Inspired by Morris Lapidus’s Di Lido Hotel on Miami Beach (where Tcherassi often stayed as a child), the hotel brings elements of the Miami modernist movement to Colombia, with a stark vertical garden and checkerboard patio to boot. Featuring just seven high-ceilinged guest rooms (each named after a luxury fabric Tcherassi has used in her fashion creations), it’s a pretty exclusive spot, with amenities on site including a restaurant headed by Chef Daniel Castaño (previously of New York’s Lupa and Babbo), and a full service spa and roof deck with a 360-degree view of the historic city. It’s also located just moments from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s home, now a UNESCO world heritage site, and the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá. “Cartagena is a real and invaluable living treasure,” enthuses Tcherassi, “and the hotel is an oasis in the middle of the city.”