Home Sweet Hotel: Lark Hotels' Gilded

A sprawling, late nineteenth-century home comes up on my right, painted thick with a jewel-toned eggplant. I don’t even glance at the GPS. You can’t miss The Gilded Hotel.

Lark Hotels’ newest Newport destination stands out like a swan in a paddling of ducks. Eye-catching around every corner, the patterns and colors are a feast for the eyes and for Instagram. Whimsical touches like birdcage chandeliers, leopard-print rugs, and metallic lion statues fill the space with an eccentric mod and art deco design. I love it immediately. It feels like I’ve stepped into the home of one of Johnny Depp’s larger than life characters.

The hotel is located on an ideal corner, just far enough away from the crowds to be sleepily silent at night. It’s a ten minute walk to the restaurants and shops along the docks, which I end up doing regularly since there’s so much to see. I find a lot of the hidden gems on the hotel’s convenient itineraries on my complimentary iPad—it’s mine for the duration of my stay, and between the scavenger hunt for free nights and list of recommendations, I put it to good use.

Gilded's free breakfast the next morning is beautiful, small plate dishes like rosemary-basil frittata and blueberry-banana yogurt parfaits. I’m surprised to see the presentation efforts—most hotel breakfasts are DIY waffles and tubes of dry cereal.

The concierge tells me I’m in the best room in the hotel, which I understand since it isn’t quite high season for tourists. After a long day of travel and exploration, I’m extremely grateful for the fireplace and bathtub. The bathroom is one of the prettiest I’ve ever seen, especially for a hotel. The bed might be deserving of its own blog post—I can easily say it was the best hotel bed I’ve ever slept in. I’m a person that likes to have a lot of blanket weight on top of me when I sleep, and the linens on my Gilded bed were what marshmallow bed dreams are made of.

Upon checkout, I feel like I’ve been at Gilded for much longer than one night. The welcoming and tailored experience makes me wish I were staying a full week more. Next time, I decide as the giant plum estate disappears in my rearview mirror, I just might.

Thank you to Lark Hotels for hosting my stay.