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Wine-casks turned into hotel rooms

Cory Doctorow at 7:39 pm Sun, Mar 22, 2009

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The Netherlands' Hotel de Vrouwe van Stavoren features rooms built inside giant, 14,500 liter wine-casks:
The rooms offer two single beds as well as an attached sitting room and bathroom. These rooms have been pretty popular with tourists in the sleepy village of Stavoren. If you get tired of the in-room television and radio, you can rent a bicycle and travel along one of the many popular bike paths to see the old growth forests and beach. There is even a famous statue of “Lady van Stavoren” to keep an eye on the harbour as well as an eccentric local story to go along with it.

The wine casks are a great reuse as hotel rooms because of their ability to seal tightly. Visitors have stayed in the hotels four special recycled rooms from all over the world. Prices for the rooms range from approximately $150 USD a night to about $40 USD a night depending on the length of your stay and the season you go in. How can you afford not to?

Sleep it Off Inside a Wine Cask (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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The Snowden Principle

  • Antinous / Moderator

    It starts with stuffing yourself into a wine cask and it ends here.

  • nanuq

    Would you have Bilbo and Frodo as neighbours?

  • js7a

    I don’t know about you, but when I’m looking for on-the-road accommodations, an airtight seal isn’t always at the top of my list.

  • Redmond Cooper

    Just remeber… when the cask is a rockin, don’t come a knockin.

  • eltonbong

    lol @ Nanuq- The day the Shire went condo….

  • ROSSINDETROIT

    Wait… Dutch wine? I thought I ‘d tried it all.

  • igpajo

    I’d love to have one of those to turn into a playhouse for the kids in the backyard.

  • Bekah

    the truck carrying the casks appeared to be from a close neighbour so maybe not Dutch wine :)

  • Takuan

    I’m sorry, am I given to understand these casks are indeed empty? I’m afraid I just do not see the point.

  • Moriarty

    @#16: I agree. A hotel consisting of “sealed tightly” barrels sounds a bit like a setting for an Edgar Allen Poe story. Or maybe a Grimm’s Fairy Tale.

  • TroofSeeker

    Tried it with sepic tanks. No good.

  • Takuan

    for the love of god, Moriarty! (pass the corkscrew)

  • pinehead

    That is absolutely gorgeous. I would love to sleep a night or two in one of those casks. Oh, I wonder what the walls smell like; old and sweet? Maybe dry and almost powdery, but with a woody undertone. And they look so pleasant inside and out, too.

  • The Lizardman

    I like it.

  • Tswarts

    Just enjoyed a fine meal at Old West Steak house in Steamboat Springs. They have tables set in old wine casks stacked one atop another, but they no longer serve meals in them. Seems some child fell out of one and after the parents sued, the new owner decided it wasn’t worth the risk. Guests may still climb in for a visit, however; not sure if they have to sign a release.

  • presto

    I have seen my future. I must one day have a home made of these.

  • Drhaggis

    Bah! I could build those with some cinder blocks and some planks from a barn. And what about the wine outgassing?

  • Simon Cameron

    I have stayed at this hotel. It is a pretty cool experience in a pretty cool town.

  • mooremadrid

    @6 – EMPTY Dutch wine barrels – you’re just sleeping in what they had left over from a heavy session last week.

    …seriously though, 150 dollars a night to sleep in a barrel in a sleepy town? – I get the quirkiness thing, but shouldn’t part of the charm also come from the low price of sleeping in something way smaller than a half-size shipping container, or maybe this is just my grouchy early morning mood meeting my claustrophobia and tripping over my stupid-crisis attitudes.

  • Captain Maybe

    “The wine casks are a great reuse as hotel rooms because of their ability to seal tightly.”

    This struck me as very slightly ominous. Just sayin’.

  • seanboing

    lol @takuan. Reminds me of a certain classic movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssM4KBRX_Qw

  • murata

    How do you select a room Red or White ?

  • Irene Delse

    What, nobody made a reference to Diogenes yet?

  • merreborn

    “The wine casks are a great reuse as hotel rooms because of their ability to seal tightly.”

    That’s actually not desirable in a living space. Proper circulation of air is critical, or you end up with nasty mold and humidity problems.

  • sfro

    Another reason to go to the Netherlands….

  • Takuan

    that would be dishonest

  • frogmarch

    The appeal of these is actually quite simple to explain: I like big butts, and I can not lie.

    (OK, strictly speaking, I think these are tuns, but you see my point. You other brothers can’t deny.)

  • Big Ed Dunkel

    Complete with hot & cold running Chardonnay.

  • arkizzle

    “that would be dishonest”

    Or cynical :p

  • unclewilco

    now turning Beer Barrels into Garden Sheds would be good ideas as well..

  • bardfinn

    Frogmarch has won. Internet is over. Everyone go home.