Two very different hotel suites have been transformed by two very different artists. Proving that art doesn’t just have to be on hotel walls - you can stay inside it. 

The elegant and under-played Hotel Le Bristol, Paris (Oetker Collection) has a new and surprising suite with bright green and yellow walls and Disney-esque design. Surprising? Maybe not, when you remember that le Bristol has long collaborated with artists in new and exciting ways.  Now artist Bertrand Lavier has trnasfrome thej hotel’s premier suite.   In 1984 Lavier began making life-size replicas for paintings or sculptures of Disney artwork inspired by a comic strip published in 1977. In the strip, Mickey and Minnie Mouse are depicted scampering through a modern art gallery. Lavier gives this fictional work an artistic reality in the magnificent Suite Paris. The elegant décor of the spacious living room of the suite (known for its Eiffel Tower views) has been transformed from ‘classic’ to ‘cartoon’. In a riot of colour and fun – with all the works for sale.

If the suite is booked you can still admire Bertrand Lavier’s  Disney inspired sculptures in the hotel’s  garden by dining  at L’Epicure overlooking the sculptures.

The hotel offers the Art at Le Bristol package, in which guests can stay two nights in the Suite Paris by Bertrand Lavier, enjoy American breakfast, the wine tasting in exclusive wine cellar and dinner with artist Bertrand Lavier at Epicure restaurant and a private tour of the Bertrand Lavier exhibition at the Galerie kamel mennour, which runs until May 25. 

Meanwhile back in March the new Sky Villa at the Palms Casino Resort was transformed by British artist Damien Hirst, it features much of his artwork and furniture, which could explain its $US100,000 a night  (minimum two-night stay) price tag.  Called The Empathy Suite. But do we find it empathetic? Hirst has created a 13-seat curved bar filled with medical waste, while pill cabinets continue the theme. Hanging at the heart of it all is Hirst’s  ‘Here for a Good Time, Not a Long Time’ featuring two vitrines, one with a marlin skeleton and the other with a taxidermy marlin. There are also five other original Hirst works dotted throughout, including some of his most famous. There’s ‘Casino Royal’, a ten-panel collection of butterfly motifs, ‘Vegas, The Winner Takes It All and Money’, and ‘Winner/Loser’, a tank set into the wall of the suite with two bull sharks suspended in formaldehyde.

The question is, if money were no object, which would you prefer to sleep in? Either would make for some surreal dreams.