The writer was hosted.
Don’t pack rose petals, confetti, or glitter when you head to a holiday in the Angad Arts Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri. They are not allowed in hotel rooms.
Do anticipate awe and wonder, gasps of laughter, and delightful surprises at every turn.
Pretty safe to say there is no hotel experience quite like this one.
The 146 rooms at the Angad Arts Hotel are comfortable and appointed with all the room amenities a traveler expects. Toiletries feature Bee Kind products with honey and organic ingredients.
It’s the unexpected that will captivate you.
Colors Dominate Every Room
Make a wild guess and declare what color you want your guest room to be! The best way to claim that room is by calling after your reservation has been made. The exception for online color choice is booking the queen room, king room, or one-bedroom king suite.
Four choices are possible: red, blue, green, and yellow.
That means ten shades of the color you choose so better be sure you like it. Color reflects emotion, and affects it too, Angad Arts Hotel fans believe. Here’s their code:
- Blue for freedom to free the mind, for relaxation, and for calming.
- Green for rejuvenation and free spirits. Green rooms have a Himalayan salt lamp.
- Yellow for curiosity, playfulness, and bringing out one’s authentic self.
- Red for empowerment
Some of the rooms have a deep soaking tub, and all of the colors feature big eyes on pillows. Up to you to decide if they’re a bit unsettling, or part of the catch-your-breath features.
The artist behind the eye pillows is Paula Haniszewski.
SheBuysTravel Tip: Don’t decide to put the eyes to sleep by turning those pillows over. Big eyes there too. Male on one side, female on the other Angad staff says.
Find this hotel with the curious name in the St. Louis Grand Center Arts District. That means walking distance is short to performance venues, art museums, pretty pocket parks, and places to eat.
Accessibility is provided in eight of the guest rooms; private bathrooms are the norm in all 146 room types. Queen beds, king suites, and king beds are all available.
Cribs are not standard, but Pac-N-Play for sleeping babies can be requested from the front desk.
Playfulness and Whimsy
You might not think to ask at check-in where the playroom is — fitness center yes, or snack bar access, but room to play! This hotel provides musical instruments and board games, out in the open, help-yourself style any time.
SheBuysTravel Tip: Find the playroom a few steps from the front desk but stop to figure out the time of day around the world on your way to play. The Angad Wall of World Clocks is not concerned with London or Paris or Sydney. Check out Nowhere Else in Tasmania or Kissing in Bavaria, Silly in Belgium, and Chicken in Alaska for starters.
Confusion— or delight – starts at the front door with a whimsical sculpture and continues inside. Entry level is an art installation: chairs attached to one another, not all with four legs, and a wall of doors.
Open those doors and maybe see yourself in a mirror or the scene across the street with a camera or a video of someone telling a story. More interested in check-in? Take the elevator to floor 12.
Or to floor 13 for the art bar first, and then the front desk.
Either way, consider the philosophy posted in big letters near those challenging chairs:
What is art but seeing the world in a different way?
What is life but a series of experiences connected together?
Surprise and Delight
Angad Paul said that. He’s a big part of the inspiration behind the Angad Arts Hotel. Local developer Steve Smith of The Lawrence Group met Paul, a British film producer, in 2014 and together they began planning the artistic vision that is the hotel today.
They teamed up to infuse a hotel with “surprise, delight and joy” as its mantra, wanting guests to see the world in a different way.
Paul died in 2015, and his outlook continued to influence the details. Named in his honor, Angad Arts Hotel opened in 2018.
Commonwealth Restaurant
Commonwealth is the name of the breakfast restaurant and that too pays homage to Angad Paul’s British heritage.
It’s on-site but sort of feels connected to street traffic too.
On the ground level floor, near the fitness center, Commonwealth feels a bit more routine than those 12 floors up above—but keep aware because art nestled in small spaces is worth a closer look.
My meal was as distinctive as the building: Croque madame with ham, smoked Gouda, a fried egg, and superb Bechamel sauce on sourdough bread.
Should have been sufficient but I had to try avocado toast too—arugula, creme fraiche, and a blood orange reduction.
“Food for the common good” is the suggestion on the menu, along with a tiny compass in the lower right corner declaring Together we are an ocean.
And next door on the Washington Avenue side is a church echoing the “for the common good” mantra.
Samuel Shepard is the side street with the formal hotel address of 3550 Samuel Shepard Dr. My taxi driver had trouble finding it, perhaps because of some road closings, but Google Walk sent me right where I needed to be.
Road trippers can self-park, have no valet parking, and the parking is free. Free wifi too. Consider this private parking. because the lot is gated and only for hotel guests.
SheBuysTravel Tip: The St. Louis Fox Theater is a historic wonder itself and it’s right across the street from the Angad Arts Hotel. If you check the performance schedule and book a room when a show is happening, you might encounter some stars. They like to sleep within so much art too!
Pooch Friendly
Pets under 60 pounds are welcome, and special treats for them can be found on the Angad Arts Hotel offers section of the website.
The rooftop bar offers craft cocktails as well as basic drinks, and food. See all the way to the Gateway Arch on the Mississippi River, and a little closer to the Red Top circus tent, a permanent home to Circus Flora and major concerts during the annual MATI — Music at the Intersection – every September.
From the art bar on top, I could hear concert sounds wafting up from the Music at the Intersection festival, more pleasure even after attending hours of performances on four stages.
Art Everywhere
Art galleries pop up in public areas, meeting rooms, and simple hotel hallways. They might feel random but there’s an Angad plan.
Ground floor art changes four times a year. The twelfth floor, where the front desk and check-in are found, is a bi-annual changing art gallery. Artists are St. Louis connected; the Angad Arts Hotel seeks creative people from no more than 200 miles away from the city.
Settle in for two days—-or 40 hours of continuous watching — in a public area on the 12th floor and watch digital art. If you did that, the motion display of colors and shapes would never repeat itself.
This is big, a mushroom shape to sit under or watch from anywhere in the room. Notice it when exiting the elevator to check-in.
Other St. Louis Specials
While the Grand Center Arts District is all around the midtown hotel, Forest Park and Union Station are city gems (like the Gateway Arch) that are worth a short jaunt.
The 1,600-acre Forest Park is home to SLAM—the St. Louis Art Museum. Admission is free, as it is in the St. Louis Zoo. Both set the tone for this city which makes sure the arts are affordable and accessible.
The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, with Powell Hall as home base in the Grand Center Arts District, is performing elsewhere in the city in 2023-2024 as the 98-year-old building is undergoing renovations.
STL is a city nickname, often appearing on signage. Saint Louis spelled out shows up now and then too.
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