|
Desert Palm, Dubai
By: Mary Gostelow
Where else can you swim in a crystal clear 25-yard long infinity pool watching the helmets and rotating sticks of a polo match but at Desert Palm luxury resort in Dubai?
You are only 20 minutes' drive from the crazy futuristic bling-brash world of Dubai (or is it Disney or Vegas, without the gambling?), but you feel as if you are in another world.
|
  |
The car goes past security and into an oasis of single-story villas, with high security walls. Flowering bougainvillea flanks neat paved roads. After 300 yards the car turns right, to reveal, 100 yards ahead, what looks like a flat-roofed two-floor art gallery designed by Kerry Hill (the architect is in fact Ali Reda who used to work with Kerry Hill). The car stops, you get out to admire the soft small stones forming the walls, a perfect foil for the 3m-high bronze statue, already going gloriously green, merely of a horse's head, dipping down into a shallow black pool. To your right you can see, through plate glass windows, framed blow-up photos, black and white, artistic details of a local woman's eyes peering over her cupped hands, or a close up of a henna-ed hand. At the end is a gnarled wood trunk, its shape like another sculpture.
To your left is the main door, again glass. You go through, sit a desk above which hangs a large color photo of HH Sheikh Mohamed, ruler of Dubai, riding in Co Monaghan with his son, the Crown Prince. In case you did not know you are in equestrian land, here.
The hotel, run by Per Aquum, is the pride and joy of Ali Albwardy, king of polo for the Middle East and far beyond (he also runs supermarkets and construction - he is away building Kempinskis in Tanzania right at this moment). General Manager is Jacque O'Hara, a former spa manager who with her husband David, moved here, by way of the Maldives, from Amman, where he was personal chef for the late King Hussein. Add royalty, therefore, to the association with Desert Palm.
I am escorted up 28 open-fronted steps - cut from blue-mottled cream stone, from Jordan like all the stone here - to room five, one of seven west-facing rooms, all about 70 sq m and identically set. The hotel has 13 of these Polo Rooms, all on the upper floor: it also lets 11 of the villas, all with private pools. I flip my key on the sense pad outside the wood door and go into room five to see what designer Isabelle Miaja of Singapore-based IMA Interiors has conjured up. I look along an expanse of terrazzo floor to the glass wall at the end, which overlooks a polo field - one of four in the complex, which also manages to house over 300 ponies and a polo museum. The left wall is wood board, set horizontally. The right wall is cream hessian. To my left, full length near-sheer curtains separate the arrival corridor from the bath area, which has a freestanding oval tub, a pair of floor-standing basins that look like whirling dervishes, a big shower stall and toilet cubicle, both with standing wooden horse statues, and Ren toiletries. The waffle robes are Josephine Home.
Forward to the main area, four ceiling-high wood panels, joined at the lower part, separate the closet and desk area from the bedroom, and form the bedhead. The closet-work area has a Nespresso machine, Siemans kettle, Nespresso and Tchaba fruit tea sachets and multi-striped Iittala mugs and bowls. Red leather desktop equipment adds style (the guide to services is the epitomal beautiful job). The mini bar holds health drinks, and martini equipment stands above. An angled desk light can be moved over to help for bedside reading. The phone is Bang & Olufsen, wired, and Internet is wireless, full strength. Office supplies are in a red leather box.
The bed is gorgeous, a solid leather base with supportive mattress, made up with white Caleffi linens and beige Josephine Home linens. At night, full-length blackout blinds and sheers have closed off the front wall, but zappers by the bed allow you to open these electronically, early morning, to look out over the polo field, at a giant Cartier scoreboard beyond. I have L-shaped fitted sofa seating, in cream, with a metal horse sculpture on its coffee table. The flat-screen is Sony, the player B&O, the binoculars Pentax Jupiter, the room fragrance sticks Linari Mondo. I have an iPod and dock, and a Rubik cube.
|
The flat roof of the whole building extends as a sun shield beyond my front glass wall, held by 2 rows of 8 giant concrete pillars that extend down to the exterior terrace at the back of the main, ground, floor of the building (in fact there is another floor at the rear of the building, the spa). I go down to check around, to look at Red, the pretty masculine main bar, lobby seating area and Rare, the fine dining restaurant with open kitchen and pizza oven. Outside, to the right of the terrace, I look into immaculately manicured gardens, with a 75-foot blue-tiled pool and white fabric canopy at one end. Along one length of the pool is Epicure, an all-day deli with food to go, a blessing for those who rent the other villas in whole Desert Palm complex (their anonymous number, chosen by Ali Albwardy personally, is said to include such CEOs as the boss of Emirates Airline).
As I emerge from the pool, one of the hotel's 120 total staff complement offers me a turquoise towel, shows me where to change. (Jacquie O'Hara points out that she runs two hotels, this and the staff accommodation, where customer service is even more taxing.) A gym is planned, but I prefer running outside anyway, so in the morning I shall run and inspect the complex.
David O'Hara has chosen the dinner menu, a gateau of eggplant, tomato and mozzarella followed by juicy salmon steaks, and the home-made breads are as healthful as he would have provided back home in Australia. I have more of his sourdough bread, as good as any Poilâne, at breakfast, with just-squeezed juice in a turquoise glass, an incredibly good natural organic yoghurt, mango and blueberries, and Beurre Echiré and Hero jams. It is time to go down to the spa, run by a Swede, Susan Yarbug. She asks me to choose a color, gives me its smell: she introduces me to her product range, the American Sparitual, the Australian all-halal Koosh and Unios, from Geneva, which she uses for special treatments after polo games - riders, it seems, acquires aches, pains and chafing. Ari, a delightful Balinese married to the head housekeeper, who came from Paris Four Seasons George V, does a magnificent hot stone and llang llang massage, and I fall asleep. We eat rocket salad with pine nuts and parmesan, and a small portion of spinach and ricotta ravioli for lunch, and I have a little nap before the five o'clock polo game.
First, though, it is afternoon tea time, with elegant brown and white striped Bernardaud porcelain and crisp white napkins rolled in 5cm wide silver bands with giant protruding 'diamonds', like an oversized engagement ring. Tea comes with a 3-tier silver stand, its trio of Bernardaud plates holding, from top, scones, a selection of open and finger sandwiches, and fresh fruit. Five delicate bite-sized cakes are in a box, and there are dishes of clotted cream and home-made fig jam. From the proffered Tchaba tea box I choose a green-tea, papaya and Fruit Passion. And then the chukhas start, thundering up and down, and sadly it is time to leave.
Desert Palm, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
See other hotels in Dubai (19)
Sign up for Confidential Newsletter
Send this article to a friend
View other Away Nights Articles
|
|
| | | | Sign up for the Free WOW Confidential Newsletter |  |
Advertisement | |
BACK
