There’s something infinitely comforting about returning to a hotel that you have stayed in many times, knowing everything is exactly as it always has been, the same spaces, the same creature comforts, the same experience. The Westin Dubai Mina Seyahi Beach Resort & Marina is that hotel for me.
Acting as my home-away-from-home for the past 15 years, I know every inch of the property like the back of my hand, my memories virtually stitched into the fabric of the hotel. But my most recent stay threw the cat amongst the pigeons, because – following a hotel, all-room and more recent all-suite renovation – the hotel’s newly redesigned Penthouse Duplex Suite was ready to open its doors for the first time. Usually favouring the Deluxe or Family Sea View Suites, it’s the first time I’m stepping inside the two-storey Art Deco extravaganza, which has been upgraded from a traditional space to a thoroughly modern apartment.
There are, in fact, four Penthouse Duplex Suites, all sitting pretty on the 7th floor. The new design has been dispensed across all four suites, with Dubai-based design studio Stickman Tribe spearheading the creative. Celebrating 10 years in the business, the boutique agency is known for creating eclectic, design-rich spaces that resonate with guests long after they leave across myriad hotel brands in Dubai and beyond.
Space is certainly a premium in the Penthouse Duplex Suite, with its 2,260 square feet providing the perfect blank canvas for Stickman Tribe to unleash an ‘unexpected, retro and quirky’ vision. A little bit retro Wes Anderson, a lot cool contemporary comforts.
Beautiful grey herringbone flooring anchors the ground floor, taking you from the lobby – with its bathroom, bedroom and spiral staircase – into the living room, basking in all its sunlit glory. Here, the contemporary-cum-retro cues loom loudest – a cornucopia of styles, from Art Deco to mid-century to modern. A bold gold-plated brass Monocles Sideboard from Essential Home attracts the eye first – a mid-century-designed piece that takes cinematic inspiration from the classic ‘gun barrel’ scene from Bond movies.
Bold ‘venn diagram’ printed carpets match the eclecticism of the wall art – edging from surrealist to conceptual – while wood features in myriad incarnations: a Scandi-meets-mid-century-modern-look ‘Franco Center’ coffee table from Essential Home; four solid walnut wood ‘Federico’ dining chairs from Covet House with Missoni-inspired blue zig-zag print; the curvy lines of a matte walnut ‘Leigh’ sofa from Mezzo Collection (inspired by Old Hollywood actress Vivien Leigh); and stained oak and brushed brass leather ‘Haines’ armchairs by Finezza Furniture. The latter are the perfect place to curl up with one of Assouline’s voluminous coffee table tomes dotted around the living room – from Louis Vuitton: Virgil Abloh to Arabian Leopard: Treasures of AlUla – as is the squishy leather Ottoman that sits in a window nook, as afternoon light casts geometric shadow play on the walls. As if to accentuate the high ceilings, a royal blue alcove frames one end of the living room housing the mini bar, with a beautiful curvilineal desk tucked away for any discreet business demands.
For all our sleep needs, we head ‘up to bed’ by way of the sweeping staircase to the twin guest bedroom or Master – all kitted out with Westin Heavenly® Beds, linen and bedding (so good we’ve already purchased the pillows for home). A duck-egg blue leather headboard riffs off the blue in the geometric-print carpet, but otherwise it’s all about calming neutral colours, a marble coffee table and a gorgeous, oversized wood and rattan TV unit. The two balconies cement your sense of place, looking out over the wider Mina Seyahi resort, Palm Jumeirah and the sea.
Nature finds its way inside and onto the bathroom walls, with a snake and leaf-print wallpaper that looks like it just leapt out of the pages of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book. There’s also lots of marble, huge ‘his and hers’ rain showers and, something that will become increasingly important, glass bottled local water. Be WTR is served ‘on tap’ and bottled on site, avoiding any unnecessary plastic paraphernalia. You can even purchase your own ‘forever’ bottle and refill it for free around the resort during your stay.
For other liquid refreshments, the Club Lounge on the 8th floor calls – another beautifully-renovated space which is light-filled by day and all cosy come night, with a ‘conservatory-esque’ private dining room that rivals most restaurants.
Throughout the rest of the weekend, we feast on healthy, vegan burgers and salads at the eternally pretty Bounty Beets; take a trip to Italy by way of pizzas, Panzanella and burrata at Bussola; and take a tour round Asia through the menu and eclectic interiors at Sui Mui. Feeling a little nostalgic, we also do The Roast by Bubbalicious on Sunday lunchtime which pays tribute to the time-honoured British ‘Sunday roast’ tradition. The setting, in Mina’s Kitchen, is like a beautiful Art Deco glasshouse, with chequered flooring, glass windows from floor to double-height ceiling and plants everywhere you look.
If you have kids, you won’t be spared spending a few hours at The Westin’s Cyclades-designed Jungle Bay waterpark. But there are slides for adults too, as well as private cabanas when you need to take a break from all the excitement. But the best reward of all is tucked around a corner at the back – a little al fresco bar with parasols serving ice-cream and ice-cold refreshments of the grown-up kind.
Belonging to the Mina Seyahi complex – which also includes W Dubai – Mina Seyahi and Le Meridien Mina Seyahi Beach Resort & Waterpark – there are endless other ways to spend time, from the five outdoor swimming pools (and that’s just at The Westin alone), a long strip of private beach, a kids’ club, seven restaurants, a WestinWORKOUT Fitness Studio, and a Heavenly Spa by Westin for every relaxation requirement…. A weekend may not be enough. But going back to our Penthouse Duplex Suite each night gives more than a little taste of home. A hotel that makes up so much of my past now cleverly entwined itself in my present - and no doubt my future too - with a redesign that feels deliciously retro yet modern and reassuringly familiar all at once. Because, after all, there’s no place like home.