Home Series with Sanne

Hi! My name is Sanne van der Velden, owner and founder of Travel WorldClass. It started as a hobby that grew out of a passion for beautiful luxury hotels and sharing them on Instagram. It has now grown into a broad online inspiration platform for luxury hotels & lifestyle.

What is your favourite hotel? 

One of the hardest questions as a hotel addict (haha), but I think my favourite at the moment is Villa Lario on Lake Como. A new boutique-style hotel with an indescribably beautiful view of the lake.

Which aspects make this your favourite hotel?

The view over the lake from the rooms is breathtaking and, if you are lucky, on a clear day you get a beautiful sunset in cotton-candy-sky colours. The rooms are luxurious through and through, with a daybed in front of the balcony and elegant doors. The lobby feels like coming home, with a lovely lounge by the fireplace or on the adjoining terrace. The bar serves one of the best Negronis, if you ask me. The hotel is still relatively unknown and therefore a real hidden gem. A fun fact is that it overlooks George Clooney's house, so do bring binoculars. ;)

How do you create that luxury hotel feel in your own bedroom? 

Wherever I go, I photograph ideas for home of what I like in a hotel, including for the bedroom, of course. The first thing we did during the renovation was to add decorative mouldings to the walls and install hotel-style switches for the lighting. The mouldings immediately create atmosphere, and thanks to the hotel-style switching you can, just like in a hotel, control all the lighting from your bed, which is so convenient. In addition, in a beautiful hotel in Madrid I saw the idea of an in-between curtain with a blackout curtain over it. This creates so much atmosphere in combination with the decorative/wall mouldings. What could of course not be missing is a box spring and, perhaps even more important, the DOUXE featherbed and matching bed linen. What a difference, truly pure luxury every evening anew.

How can you best describe your style? And how is this reflected in your bedroom?

Our style is best described as classic-modern. From the living room to the hallway to the bedroom, we have carried the decorative mouldings throughout. This is combined with a classic herringbone parquet floor with double black trim and a thin black wrought-iron stair rail. In the bedroom we used the same colour tones on the wall as in the curtains downstairs, taupe & white.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

My biggest source of inspiration is definitely the (luxury) hotels where I get to stay for Travel WorldClass. This has allowed me to bring all these ideas together in one bedroom. I also draw a lot of inspiration from (how could it be otherwise) Pinterest and Elle Decor.

Do you have a set bedtime ritual?

Not so much before going to bed, but when I get up. What is pure luxury for me in a hotel is being able to make a cup of coffee in the room while starting my skincare and make-up routine. Of course this could not be missing in our own bedroom, and now I have my own mini bar.

Suppose you get to design/create your dream home, what should not be missing? 

A swimming pool in the garden with lovely sunbeds and an orangery for the winter.

Â