Park right here

Let's face it, the Park Hotels have a way with design. That's perhaps why it seems even more incongruous in the hodgepodge development of CBD Belapur (Navi Mumbai).

The Apeejay group's sixth property seems, at first, a strange location choice, but on examination, the opening is in sync with the region's hectic commercial real estate development.

For the hotel's loyalists looking for threads of design continuity, there are a few to grab onto. The linear arrangements are still there, although there is a dash of the organic in the shape of furniture and fabric pattern.

Priya Paul, chairperson, Apeejay Hotels, suggests there is no singular set of aesthetics that dictates all of the group's hotels. "That's why we call it a collection of boutique hotels, as opposed to a chain," says Vijay Dewan, managing director, The Park Hotel.

The play with white light, however, is a continuing theme, with the brilliant white exterior, landscaped gardens with only white flowers and the mirrored pool at the base of the atrium that forms a well of light. The most uninspiring part of the hotel possibly is the facade, but to be fair it is a 20-year-old structure.

Dewan indicates the hotel is seeing above-average occupancy in the first month, but he's far more excited about the potential of interface with the local population.

Dusk, the bar, one imagines, will be the chief instigator for that. Or perhaps even Aqua, now a standard F&B property across all Park hotels. The Park, it seems, is all set to energise the borough.