Vacation Want: Casa Ojalá

I am not a difficult traveler. I don’t need five-star accommodations, but I do like someplace nice and clean, with a comfy bed and nice bath.

Enter Casa Ojalá. After a celebrated debut at Milan Design Week in 2019, Casa Ojalá [Hope House] has officially premiered its first unit in Tuscany’s Val d’Orcia region. The compact cabin, conceived by Italian architect Beatrice Bonzanigo, is perched on a hillside in the 5,000-acre Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco estate, which hosts a luxury hotel with its own Brunello di Montalcino winery.

If you’ve never had Brunello di Montalcino, a delicious Sangiovese, you haven’t tasted heaven, but I digress …

After the smash debut, Bonzanigo teamed up with engineer Ryan Nesbitt to develop the concept into full-scale production, featuring manual mechanisms of ropes, pulleys, and cranks—inspired by the same system on boats—the roughly 291-square-foot guest suite can be fully opened, or closed, concealing walls, floor and ceiling tiles, and furniture.

The customizable, timber-clad cabin comes with options for retractable single and double beds that can be stored beneath the floor to maximize space in the living areas. A freestanding tub sits below one of the structure’s roof panels, which can open for sunbathing and stargazing. A ladder leads to a terrace lounge area that is accessible via a roof hatch.

These little transformative off-the-grid hotel rooms can be placed just about anywhere in the world, whether “by the ocean of Tulum, among the Vermont forests, or on the sands of Dubai.”

I want one in Tuscany so I can climb the roof and drink my Brunello di Montalcino, or sit in the open-air bath and drink my Brunello di Montalcino, or in the sitting area or the bedroom area, or just wandering through the fields drinking my Brunello di Montalcino.

Casa Ojalá  Dwell

Hey Sheraton?It's 2019, Check Your Homophobia

Josh Rimer, the gay travel blogger and winner of Mr. Gay Canada 2019,  and was planning his wedding, a destination wedding in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico. And so, he contacted the Sheraton Buganvilias Resort & Convention Center to set up his wedding and reception for April 2020. But the Sheraton turned Josh down because, ahem, it doesn’t “specialize” in same-sex marriages.

Oh Sheraton. Dear sweet, stupid, homophobic, out-of-touch losing business Sheraton. There’s no need to “specialize” in a same-sex wedding because it’s the same as an opposite-sex wedding except for that whole two grooms or two brides thing.

And now here you are, with egg on your face and possibly on the losing end of countless same-sex weddings at your venues all over the world.

Sorry; not sorry.

Two days after Rimer published a video about the Sheraton resort’s initial refusal to host his same-sex wedding, the Hilton tagged Rimer in an Instagram post:

“We’ll gladly host your wedding ceremony and feast for FREE for you and your 45 guests at Hilton Puerto Vallarta!”

And a couple of days later, travel company VACAYA offered Josh and his fiancé a free honeymoon cruise on their Lisbon Pride Cruise in June 2020:

“We’re thrilled to join Hilton Puerto Vallarta in celebrating the love between Josh and Heath because we believe that together we can shine a brighter light on the work we still have left to do to reach equality.”

A spokesperson for Marriott, which owns Sheraton, contacted to Rimer to apologize for his experience:

“Marriott has long been committed to providing an environment where all are welcome including our LGBTQ guests and their loved ones.”

Might wanna check that again, Marriott because someone in Puerto Vallarta has a different story, and it doesn’t sound inclusive and welcoming to the LGBTQ+ community.

LGBTQ Nation

Architecture Wednesday Urban Renewal Wednesday: The Liberty Hotel

Okay, so it’s not a house ... and it’s not really about the architecture, although the architecture is fabulous.

It’s a hotel ... the luxurious 298-room Liberty Hotel in Boston ... so why is it so special? Well, it’s because the Liberty Hotel used to be the Charles Street Jail, until 2007 and a $150 million renovation. The jail, completed in 1851, was designed by Gridley James Fox Bryant, Boston’s most famous architect. He was so beloved in Boston that when 152 buildings he designed were destroyed by the Great Fire of 1872, he was given commissions to rebuild 110 of them.

The landmark jail was built between 1848 and 1851 in the form of a cross with four wings of Quincy granite extending from a central octagonal rotunda with a 90-foot-tall atrium; thirty arched windows, each 33 feet high, provided ventilation and natural light. The wings allowed segregation of prisoners by sex and category of offense in 220 granite cells, each 8 feet by ten feet.

Over its 140 year life, the jail housed such inmates as Sacco and Vanzetti, Mayor James Michael Curley, Malcolm X, women suffragettes and World War II prisoners from the German submarine Unterseeboot 234.

In 1973, the jail was declared unfit and in 1991, Massachusetts General Hospital acquired the old prison and sought proposals for its reuse, requiring that significant elements of the building be preserved.

In 2001, Carpenter & Company was designated the developer of the project, and entered into a lease agreement with MGH for the land and the jail itself. And thus began the transformation, the work of developer Richard Friedman and the Cambridge Seven Associates and Ann Beha Architects.

They collaborated with historians and conservationists from the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the Boston Landmarks Commission, the National Park Service and the Boston Redevelopment Authority to ensure that the end result was a thoughtful balance between architectural preservation and a dynamic new use. The team used Bryant’s original architectural drawings to ensure adherence to his creative vision for the cruciform-shaped building.

After the renovations, the jail’s granite exterior and expansive, light-filled interiors remain largely unchanged. Soaring 90 feet, the jail’s central atrium was preserved to form the core of the new hotel and retains the building’s trademark windows and historic catwalks once used by prison guards.

The former exercise yard is now the hotel’s landscaped courtyard, one of the beloved “hidden gardens” of the Beacon Hill neighborhood. While most of the 298 guestrooms are in a new tower, 18 are in the original jail, connected by the catwalk-like terraces.

I love the fact that what once was a prison is now a luxury hotel, and that much of the original building’s designs have been retained and updated; I also love that one of the restaurants is called ‘Clink’ where diners can look through original bars from cell doors and windows as they order smoked lobster bisque or citrus poached prawns from waiters and waitresses wearing shirts with prison numbers. The hotel bar, Alibi, is built in the jail's former drunk tank. And the old sally port, where guards once brought prisoners from paddy wagons to their cells, is being converted into the entrance to a new restaurant, Scampo, which is Italian for "escape."

It’d be a swell place to escape to ...