Client: Experimental Group
Architect & Landscape design: Henry Martinet
Interior design: redesigned by Dorothée Meilichzon
Furnishings: custom-designed
Lighting: Ingo Maurer, Anthony Dickens
Graphic design: Studio L’Etiquette
Photo credits: Mr Tripper
Neo-Basque inspirations, Art Deco tributes, colorful touches, and the perennial call of the sea – or, more exactly, the ocean – opening before us. The experience of entering the Regina Experimental, a masterpiece in the Belle Époque style on the Biarritz waterfront, is dazzling. In the 15-meter-high foyer lit by an Eiffel-tower-style glass roof, the architect-landscape designer Henry Martinet had built the hotel in 1906. History and contemporary style converse in an elegant, sophisticated aesthetic created by Dorothée Meilichzon, the designer behind the style revamping for the new owners, the Experimental brand, founded by Olivier Bon, Pierre-Charles Cros, and Romée De Goriainoff.
Meilichzon, who has won many awards for hotel design, took on the legendary hotel (the Regina is the second oldest hotel in Biarritz) by rendering tribute to its genius loci. This is based on its Basque identity and references to Art Deco style, which left its legacy in the Belle Époque era in beautiful architecture deeply rooted in the local place. This city on the Bay of Biscay was the preferred destination of nobles and royalty.
She avoided being trapped in the past and looked to distant lands such as Japanese culture, expressed here throughout the interiors in red and black lacquers, rice paper, and fabric panels. The rounded lines of the custom-designed furnishings are inspired by the coastline and the ocean, such as in the bottle green, ultramarine blue, and coral sofas in the foyer sitting rooms. They are placed next to each other without divisions, lit by Ingo Maurer and Anthony Dickens lamps hanging along the columns.
With the silhouette of a steamship, the monumental 1920s-style cocktail bar counter is inspired by Eileen Gray‘s modernist style. Its contemporary, ultra-colorful guest rooms (72 rooms on the ocean or the famous golf course) suggest the cabins of cruise ships. The colors go from white to dark green, Basque red to diaphanous delicate Japanese paper, livened up by rope frames on several mirrors, sailor stripes of the armchairs, and plaster frescoes with aquatic motifs.
The Basque restaurant features a stoneware floor, Japanese lacquer coffered ceilings, and again white and red stripes on the seats. The arches of the niches along the walls are also red as are the many tables for dining outdoors on the terrace for breathing in the fresh ocean air.
