iRoHa Garden Hotel & Resort

Built in the 1960s during a peak period for Cambodian architecture, the main villa at iRoHa Garden carries the French colonial lines of that era, later extended upward and reworked room by room under Japanese architects Ken Iijima and Eiji Tsurusaki. Villa Theato, a second building on the grounds, began life as a warehouse and garage; the Japanese designer Koji Mototake converted it, working with over ten Cambodian artists and craftspeople to fill it with local textiles, pottery and furniture. Between the two buildings there are thirty-one rooms, twenty-six in the main hotel and five in Villa Theato, no two decorated alike. Rooms take their cues from the region: a Mekong-inspired bathroom with rain shower, a colonial-style single with tiled floors, a fifty square metre Forest Suite with a freestanding tub. The property opened in June 2014 in the Tonlé Bassac area of Phnom Penh, a five-minute drive from the Royal Palace. Paintings by two Khmer students, made under the Spanish painter Ricardo Casal, hang in the corridors and restaurant. A pool sits at the centre of the garden, ringed by tiled gazebos where guests can order chilled beer or tropical juice. The kitchen serves Khmer, Western and Japanese menus, with set breakfasts and à la carte at lunch and dinner. It reads less like a hotel than an ongoing craft project.