HOTELier 85
It’ s no easy task to take a century-old hotel already leased by a chain company and turn it into a world-class yet timeless boutique property the likes of which the city has never seen. But to do it in just 24 months? It takes a special kind of partnership.
When Marc and Mia opened Klaus K, Finalnd’ s first design hotel, it became a living monument to sustainability and narrative-driven design. Marc, whose father’ s military career afforded him a peripatetic childhood spent globe-trotting between Europe, America, Asia, and even such farflung corners as Ethiopia, met Mia at a hotel school in Strasbourg, France.
After continuing their studies in the US, they traversed the country, living in 11 cities in 15 years as they forged careers with some of the nation’ s finest hotel brands.
It was New York, however, that truly captured Marc and Mia’ s affections and sensibilities, and the city continues to inform their choices as hoteliers. Throughout Klaus K, there are hints of New York with design elements very reminiscent of the city, particularly in the hotel’ s ground-floor Italian
By Charly Wilder
restaurant, Toscanini, and in the sleek black and white Ahjo Club.
Despite the sporadic touch of Brooklyn or Soho, Klaus K is incontrovertibly Finnish. The building was constructed in 1882 and served as a German girls’ school, a music institute, and a printing house before it was bought by Mia’ s family and converted into a hotel in 1938. One of the few large hotels in Helsinki’ s small centre, it once played host to a revolving set of visitors and even occasionally provided a stage for political intrigue.
“ There are stories about Russian spies staying here,” says Mia, who grew up in an affluent suburb twenty minutes outside Helsinki.“ Lee Harvey Oswald stayed here before he decided to move to Russia.”
During the inception of Klaus K, Marc and Mia noticed a gap in Helsinki’ s hotel market. The city had one large luxury property, a clutch of tiny family-run businesses, and the rest were all chain hotels.“ Our idea was that we’ d come and create a new hotel category for Helsinki,” says Marc.“ There was really nothing in between this one luxury property and a lot of high quality but rather mainstream hotels. Nobody ever really dared to go in between these.”
Photos by Kerstin zu Pan www. jetsetter. hk