Hotel Una

A Boutique Hotel with an Author

Hotel Una doesn’t feel as though somebody started with a hospitality concept. It feels as though somebody started collecting things they loved. Set across two Regency properties on the eastern side of Brighton’s Regency Square, the hotel is the personal creation of Bosnian-born architect Zoran Maricevic and his wife Jelena. Their eye runs through virtually everything: contemporary artworks, sculptural lighting, stripped floorboards, exposed brick, rich timber and one-off pieces of furniture. There’s even a clue in the name. Una is a river running through Bosnia and Herzegovina, and all 20 rooms are named after rivers.

20 Rooms, No Formula

The proportions of the original Regency buildings provide the canvas: tall ceilings, cornicing, large windows and, in the front rooms, sideways glimpses of the sea. From there, uniformity disappears. Some rooms are intimate doubles with exposed brick and dark-tiled bathrooms. Others have raised platform beds, leather sofas or private balconies. Three spa rooms add private saunas and whirlpool baths, while the Quaile suite goes further with its own film projector. Freestanding baths sometimes appear almost as pieces of furniture beside the bed. Yet the individual touches never feel like a catalogue of boutique-hotel tricks. Much of the furniture has been locally sourced or specially made, allowing new pieces to sit naturally alongside the bones of the old townhouses.

Wood, Art and Unexpected Objects

Warm timber is one of Una’s recurring materials. You’ll find it in floors, bed frames and furniture, set against predominantly white walls and interrupted by strong contemporary artworks and curious sculptural objects. Look out for driftwood horses, unusual pendant lights, richly patterned rugs and the gold artwork flowing down the central staircase like a river. Rather than carefully matching everything, Una allows objects to coexist. It’s closer to entering someone’s highly individual home than a professionally styled showroom — precisely the quality that gives the hotel its warmth.

A Bar Worth Staying In For

Downstairs, Una Bar continues the mood. Wood, exposed brick and chocolate-brown leather create an intimate setting, with animal-hide rugs and eccentric details including a sofa fashioned from a freestanding bathtub. The drinks are taken seriously. Cocktails sit alongside a substantial selection of whiskies, cognacs, gins, wines and Champagne, making this much more than a reception area with a few bottles behind the counter. It’s small, grown-up and sociable — the sort of hotel bar where having one drink before dinner can easily become having another.

Brighton Outside, Calm Inside

Regency Square puts Una in an enviable position. Walk down the square and you’re at the beach and West Pier; head into the city and Brighton’s independent restaurants, bars, galleries and shops are close at hand. Yet being slightly removed from the seafront itself protects the hotel from much of its noise. That balance suits Una. Brighton’s creativity is everywhere in the hotel, but none of its more frantic energy follows you upstairs.

Personal Beats Perfect

Brighton has no shortage of hotels with personality, but Hotel Una occupies its own space among them. It isn’t as deliberately bohemian as Artist Residence or as gloriously outrageous as Pelirocco. Its character comes from something quieter: materials chosen because someone loved them, furniture made for a particular room, artworks placed without needing to fit a corporate narrative. Even its indulgences — a sauna here, a whirlpool bath there, a cinema hidden upstairs — feel personal rather than prescribed. Hotel Una is a reminder of what the word boutique originally promised: small scale, individual rooms and owners with enough confidence in their own taste not to follow everybody else’s.