Is this the world's most luxurious hotel? Inside the Baroque-inspired palace that cost £1 BILLION and comes with retractable marble floors, Rolls-Royce Phantoms for guests and a butler for every room.
At the startling cost of $7 million per room, Macau’s The 13, with its 200 baroquely crafted suites, fancies itself as the hotel for the one percent of the one percent. This ridiculous exercise in excess, which reportedly cost in excess of $1.4 billion (divide this by 200 and you get the per room cost above), was spearheaded by the infamously flamboyant Stephen Hung, the hotel czar with a taste for the highly decadent who earned his fortune from investment banking and real estate.
To provide some context here as far the price goes (because this story is frankly unbelievable), the 13 Hotel is not the most expensive hotel in Macau even. The hotly anticipated Wynn Palace Cotai cost a reported $4.1 billion but, at 1,700 rooms, the per room cost there is a mere $2.4 million. The secret sauce here is clearly exclusivity. Just a look into the premises already calls to mind visions of Brian De Palma’s Scarface, just with more gilt and less gunfights.
The Internet seems to be divided about what this Louis XIII Holdings Ltd (yes that is the name of Hung’s company and the reason for the hotel’s name) property means for humanity. Stunned disbelief is probably an adequate summary. In our opinion, Hung seems to be on a determined goal to minimize the energy expenditure of the guests as far as he possibly can. The suites are accessed by private elevator. A 24-hour butler service staffed by professionals (trained by MCM Palace Consultants in Paris and certified by the English Guild of Butlers) is available. Red Rolls-Royce Phantoms are used as VIP shuttles. You get the feeling that if Hung had enough resources, he would have hired personal palanquin bearers for every guest as well.
Every inch of the hotel seems to be embellishment: baroque inspired frescoes on the ceiling; gold-fringed drapes hanging across the room; black and white marble checkered floors; stained glass windows; neo-classical columns; crystal chandeliers. One might think that even aristocrats in the past had some sense of restraint. Likewise, in the taste department, there are six Chinese, French and Japanese restaurants & bars. The hotel even has a private invitation-only shopping space called L’Atelier – featuring exclusive bespoke products by high-end luxury brands.
“This was a labor of love,” Hung declared in a statement, “The team and I put every ounce of creativity and passion we had into this project to ensure every detail was perfect. Our guests, I believe, will find the result truly remarkable and beyond anything they have previously experienced.”
A new kind of experience indeed. Guests will definitely be feeling Hung’s efforts penetrating into every inch of their senses for days to come.
Stephen Hung (left) shakes hands with Rolls-Royce CEO Torsten Mueller-Oetvoes at the carmaker's headquarters at Goodwood, England
Guests will access their villas via lifts which open directly into a private lobby, like a New York-style penthouse.
Every butler was trained by MCM Palace Consultants and certified by the English Guild of Butlers, while the Rolls-Royce Phantom chauffeurs were trained in England.
In a statement, Hung said: ‘This was a labour of love. The team and I put every ounce of creativity and passion we had into this project to ensure every detail was perfect.
‘Our guests, I believe, will find the result truly remarkable and beyond anything they have previously experienced.’
He added: ‘As the business and the brand have developed, we felt that the name “The 13” most accurately reflected our Macau hotel’s combination of Baroque inspiration and contemporary accents.
‘Our brand represents a unique vision of a global luxury lifestyle based on strong bespoke traditions while embracing modern elements that enhance these traditions.
Louis XIII Holdings Ltd, named after the French king who built the Palace of Versailles, announced plans for the hotel back in 2013.
The 13 will take its place in the world’s gambling capital and one of its richest cities, Macau, which is a special administrative region on a peninsula on China’s southern coast.
Louis XIII Holdings Ltd also announced plans today to change its corporate name to The 13 Holdings Ltd.
Hung said: ‘Thirteen is my lucky number and the new name along with the new logo fit perfectly with my vision. There is a hint of tradition while also suggesting a chic and fun edginess.’
