The Siam

A black-and-white gallery of columns, palms and koi ponds runs the length of The Siam, from the gate on Khao road down to the Chao Phraya river, and the whole house is lined with the antiques collected over fifty years by Kamala Sukosol, the hotelier and jazz singer. Her son, the actor and musician Krissada Sukosol Clapp, conceived the hotel and asked Bill Bensley to design it. It opened in 2012 in Dusit, the royal district north of the old city of Bangkok.

History

The Sukosol family owns a group of hotels in Thailand, and The Siam was the project on which Krissada Sukosol Clapp spent his own collection and his ideas. The three-acre riverside site had been in the family for years. The centrepiece of the gardens is a group of century-old teak houses that belonged to Connie Mangskau, the Bangkok antiques dealer and friend of Jim Thompson; they were dismantled, moved here and reassembled, and now hold the Thai restaurant. The hotel opened in 2012 and has stayed family-owned and independent.

Architecture and design

Bill Bensley, the Bangkok-based American designer, worked in an Art Deco idiom with a Siamese accent: high ceilings, black steel and glass, white walls and dark timber, and a central conservatory where the plants are as important as the furniture. The public rooms double as galleries for the family's Buddhas, Chinese cabinets, old maps and film posters. Everything was built to look as though it had been there since the 1930s.

Rooms and suites

There are 39 suites and villas, which makes The Siam one of the smallest hotels of its class in Bangkok. The suites in the main building have separate sitting rooms and high windows on to the gardens; the pool villas, closer to the river, have their own courtyards and plunge pools. Every suite is assigned a butler.

Dining

Chon Thai Restaurant occupies the Connie Mangskau houses by the river and serves Thai cooking in teak rooms open to the water. Deco Bar & Bistro, in the main house, handles breakfast, Western dishes and cocktails. Afternoon tea and drinks are served in the conservatory.

Wellness

The Opium Spa has treatment rooms around a courtyard and a hammam. The hotel has its own Muay Thai boxing ring and gym, with resident trainers who take guests through the basics or a full fight camp, and the riverside pool runs the length of the lawn. A screening room and a library stand beside the spa.

Weddings and events

The Siam hosts weddings and private dinners in the gardens, on the riverside lawn and in the teak houses, usually for parties small enough to take over the property. The hotel does not have a conference centre and takes meetings only for small groups. Published capacities are not available.

Location

The hotel is at 3/2 Khao road in Dusit, on the east bank of the Chao Phraya, north of the Grand Palace and near Vimanmek and the Dusit palaces. Wat Benchamabophit, the Marble Temple, and the National Library of Thailand are in the same district. A private pier gives guests a boat shuttle to Saphan Taksin and the BTS Skytrain, which avoids the traffic on the roads. Suvarnabhumi Airport is 45 minutes to an hour by car, Don Mueang about 30 minutes. For a luxury hotel in Bangkok, it is an unusual address: a residential quarter with no shopping malls and a river at the bottom of the garden.