On the twentieth floor of Hôtel Swexan, a few steps from an infinity pool overlooking downtown Dallas, stands a hand-hewn wood door. Behind it is a powder room that’s barely bigger than a broom closet but brimming with style. Tiny, multicolor tiles cover the walls and a Moorish mirror hangs above the real showstopper: an engraved antique brass pedestal sink imported from Morocco.
This pool bathroom is the smallest of 24 restrooms (not counting the in-room bathrooms) that visitors can experience at Hôtel Swexan. The 134-room boutique property opened last summer and belongs to Harwood International, a family-operated, Dallas-based development group that owns the 19-block Hardwood District. The family favored one-of-a-kind designs, resulting in more than a hundred different marbles, a hundred different stones, and a hundred different paint colors used throughout. The name Swexan is a play on the founders’ heritage—Gabriel Barbier-Mueller is Swiss; his wife Ann is a Texan. Still, it’s hard to isolate the hotel’s style to a specific region.
“When designing the hotel, we looked at all of the places that the family travels,” says Melinda Clark, Harwood International’s director of interior design. “We wanted it to feel as if you’ve traveled across the globe, and you’ve collected things on your journey—artwork, accessories, photography—and then you’ve come back and accessorized it like you would your own home.”
Clark guides me through the lobby, where a barrel-vaulted ceiling and hand-painted wallpaper give off Parisian vibes. The attached martini bar, Isabelle’s, is one part chic sidewalk cafe with a sizable terrace and one part moody parlor with velvet seating and a fireplace that stays lit year-round. One level down is Babou’s, a Salvador Dalí-inspired speakeasy named in honor of the Spanish artist’s pet ocelot. To get to the speakeasy from the street, you enter through the Library, a two-story lounge with a ladder that boasts antique books and Japanese artifacts from the nearby Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Museum, more commonly known as the Samurai Collection. There’s no shortage of luxe or worldly eye candy, but it’s the bathrooms that I can’t stop thinking about.
“The variety of powder rooms are a huge conversation piece and people love to take selfies in them,” Clark says. “We’ve had celebs, influencers, and guests all rave about the beautiful selections.”
Whether it’s in a hotel, a restaurant, or your own home, Clark is big on personality in powder rooms. “A powder room is where you can express yourself—it should be a representation of who you are or what you want to be,” she says. “People may or may not remember every detail about your house, but they will remember your bathroom.”
To match the animal-print carpet and tufted couches at Babou’s, Clark and her team outfitted the bar’s three gender-neutral bathrooms with doors upholstered in red faux leather for a “theatrical” effect. Each bathroom has black and white penny tile and a saying embedded into the floor: “good luck,” “you look good,” and “not you.” The phrases are purposefully ambiguous to spark conversation. “There’s a cohesiveness, but we wanted each person to have a different experience—maybe it’s different artwork or a different tile treatment,” Clark says, “Something that feels like their own surprise.”
Of course, there’s a practical aspect to designing for high-traffic areas, too. On the ballroom level, where corporate retreats and weddings are held, the design team marries form and function. The women’s restroom is akin to a high-end dressing room with floor-length mirrors and marble walls. A crystal chandelier and hand-blown glass sconces in the shape of flowers provide soft lighting. Tucked under the pink onyx stone countertops are vintage-inspired lucite chairs, so the sink area doubles as a vanity for reapplying makeup. For the men’s restroom, Clark kept things more monochromatic: “It’s black and white—kind of tuxedo style.”
My last stop is Stillwell’s, the hotel’s mid-century modern steakhouse. Next to a crescent-shaped bar, a 1960s TV has been gutted and turned into a liquor cabinet. It feels like an old-school Italian spot, only with clear nods to Texas: a single yellow rose on every table and cowboy hats flanking yet another fireplace. After a round of drinks, I make my way to the restroom, where I’m greeted with a smorgasbord of retro shapes. Dark green square tiles superimposed with a triangle motif bring a moodiness to the space, though the light of a two-tiered circular sconce bounces off a hexagonal wood mirror.
To be fair, Hôtel Swexan isn’t the first place to make bathrooms a moment. (In 2022, Texan Priya Krishna reported on the growing trend for The New York Times in an article titled, “The Most Exciting Part of Dining Out Is. . . the Bathroom?”) But the Dallas hotel is the first hospitality venue I’ve seen do it on such a large scale, devoting equal attention to both the bathrooms that are open to the public and those only accessible to overnight guests. The hotel is also upending the usual approach to a larger guest room and a smaller bathroom. “We made sure the bedrooms are a nice size, but instead of a big sofa or sitting area, we opted to give 50% of the room to the bathroom where people are spending a lot of time getting ready,” Clark says.
Dual vanities and soaking tubs come standard in many rooms. One walk-in shower I saw was nearly the size of some New York City apartments. And then there are the eight suites designed around a different geographic location (I’m partial to the visual effect created by the marble tiles that appear to cascade down the wall and onto the floor in the Moroccan-inspired Imperial Suite). Of course, these suites may be out of the budget for most travelers (on a September weekend, for example, the Imperial costs $2,444 per night). Still, that hasn’t stopped me from mining the website for my personal Pinterest board.
Some bathrooms did elude me, like the almost-mythical gold bathroom inside the hotel’s exclusive members-only club. “We have a gold toilet, gold faucet, gold wall covering, gold tile, gold ceiling, and gold chandelier. The men’s restroom even has urinals that resemble French horns,” Clark says. “Not everybody gets to see it, but it is a very memorable moment.” Even if you’re not one of the lucky few to see inside, the hotel has all but ensured you’ll always pee like royalty.
