David Douglas Room at the Fife Arms Hotel, Scotland
We are used to opening the window of a hotel room and looking out at the Iguazú Falls or the Torres del Paine, the skyscrapers of Manhattan, the Mediterranean, the Taj Mahal, the great migration of wildebeest through the Serengeti... Today, however, we want to pay homage to the imagination and we have booked a room with only a small window, but it contains everything we need: a forest on the walls . And a lot to read.
The forest was hand painted by Corin Sands , one of the most interesting figurative artists of the moment. The wirth , owners of the hotel and the prestigious gallery Hauser & Wirth , they say that Sands spent weeks wandering the surrounding woods , attentive to the movement of the leaves and the play of light through the branches of the fir trees. The Caledonian pine and Douglas fir forests , unusual in the rest of Scotland, abound in the Cordillera de los cairngorms.
We are in Braemar , the closest village to Balmoral Castle, in the hotel with the most interesting stories per square foot we've been to, the Fife Arms . A Picasso on a wall lined with the clan tartan, poems by Robert Burns carved into the fireplace, taxidermy, more than 16,000 pieces of art and curios, even mammoth horns! , and 49 rooms that recreate personalities, periods or aspects of Scotland. Stevenson , who spent a summer in Braemar writing The island of the treasure, queen victoria (number one fan of the area), colonial India, the impact of the visits of the daring fashion editor Elsa Schiaparelli.
Our forest room is dedicated to an eminent botanist , a neighbor of the surroundings, who at the beginning of the 19th century explored from cover to cover the wild nature of the Highlands and the American Northwest, David Douglas . Douglas? Like the firs? Bingo.
A restless man eager for knowledge, David Douglas, whom everyone knew as Douglas Fir, Fir tree –and this is no joke–, discovered more than 80 species of flora and fauna during his expeditions through the North Pacific and the Rockies, such as the short-horned pygmy lizard (Phrynosoma douglasii), the Douglas squirrel (Tamiasciurus douglasii), the quail crestidorada (Callipepla douglasii) or, surprise, peppermint (Clinopodium douglasii). And the fir, of course, the Douglas of Oregon which he introduced to Britain in the 1820s.
Today it would be frowned upon to introduce exotic species, but the scrupulous observation work of the Scottish botanist has been essential to the work of Corin Sands, who turns and reflect on nature and the place and effect of man upon it.
To encourage curiosity and reflection, in the room there is reading , texts on Douglas's travels, and botanical catalogs and prints. And carved into the headboard of the bed, a phrase from the poet, multidisciplinary artist and editor Alec Finley: "To learn about the pine, hold the cone in your hand ". Finlay is also the author of gathering , an original atlas of poetry and landscapes of the Highlands.
Despite being the room in the Fife Arms with the least exit to the outside, It is one of the Wirths' favorite rooms. . Also interior designer Russell Sage and the hotel manager Federica Bertolini , who assures us that he is very curious about spending a night here: "Everyone has interesting experiences of their stay in this room, they find it especially comforting." It will be the strength and magic of the forest. Or the one inside you.