How This Dutch Colonial Home in Seattle Was Transformed Into a Design-Savvy Boutique Hotel
Earlier this year, Jake Santelli and his husband, chef Julian Hagood, opened their first hotel property, Harry’s Guest House, in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Santelli’s previous career was all about aesthetics, as a head of creative at Apple and creative director of brand experience for the members-only club Soho House; fittingly, the two-suite hotel is the perfect mix of modern and classic, with trippy wallpaper by Stella McCartney alongside an enviable collection of vintage furniture. Room service comes courtesy of Hagood and Santelli’s restaurant Harry’s Fine Foods, conveniently located next door.
Being a hotelier had long been Santelli’s dream, though it took fate to create an opening. In 2022, their neighbor Winnie, a friend and restaurant regular, announced she was moving east to be closer to family. She offered to sell her Dutch Colonial on the condition that the pair preserve the house—new construction was ruining the character of her beloved neighborhood, the septuagenarian said, and she wouldn’t contribute to that problem. After taking possession, Hagood and Santelli acted as their own general contractors, with their first year of marriage playing out like an HGTV series minus the cameras.
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Santelli calls the finished space playful but sophisticated, and his experience working at Apple informed the project in surprising ways, down to the sleek, automated light switches that also control the window treatments. “Make things user-friendly, peel away everything you don’t need,” says Santelli, describing the Steve Jobs ethos, which he absorbed while at Apple. “There’s nothing worse than when you get into a hotel and you can’t figure out how to turn a light on or off.”
But considered tech touchpoints aside, the space feels a world away from a Genius Bar. Even as Santelli, 36, pushed to keep costs down during the build, he fell in love with a hand-carved Italian television cabinet from the 1940s that he found online and had shipped from London; glass side tables were sourced from Susan Wheeler Home, an antiques shop in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood. And while the hosts partnered with the Tappan Collective for art across the two suites—which also feature custom furniture pieces outfitted with fabrics from New York–based design firm Zak+Fox—Winnie’s coffee-table books remain scattered throughout the space, and her writing desk occupies a windowed nook in the ground-floor suite.
The renovation took 12 months to complete, which Hagood had anticipated; he’d previously torn his restaurant down to the studs, transforming a run-down corner store into an airy neighborhood delight made for lingering conversations. He tried to manage his maximalist tendencies here—he recalls channeling Coco Chanel’s advice about taking off one accessory before leaving the house—though the design is by no means safe. Hagood, who trained at the Culinary Institute of America in the Hudson Valley, calls the aesthetic “Ralph Lauren on acid,” with the second-floor shower tile, a bold cocoa-and-cream checkerboard from Heath Ceramics, being a perfect example of the look.
Santelli and Hagood, it turns out, are natural hosts, joining a cadre of fashionable couples trying their hands at hospitality. Former J. Crew designer Frank Muytjens and his partner, Scott Edward Cole, renovated a Berkshires bed-and-breakfast, the Inn at Kenmore Hall, back in 2018; more recently, Old Navy alum Richard Crisman and his partner, Jeff Brock, opened Bar Cecil in Palm Springs, a desert watering hole notable for its wait list, not to mention the Warhol behind the bar.
And it turns out that Harry’s Guest House is an amuse-bouche for a larger hospitality project from Santelli and Hagood, who are currently negotiating on a space in Seattle—which is all they’re willing to divulge at the moment. Asked instead to describe their target visitor, Hagood says with a laugh: “People who are tired of pulling their blinds up with their hands.”
The Guest List
Seattle is a city of neighborhoods, and Harry’s Guest House is the perfect perch from which to explore—like staying with friends, but with a better wine cellar.
Eat
The frequent gripe about the lack of Michelin-starred restaurants in Seattle is misleading—the dining guide hasn’t come here yet. Canlis, a white-tablecloth stalwart dating back to the ’50s, will likely make the cut when it happens: Pop in for a cocktail and the Canlis salad (like a dramatic wedge). But Seattle’s most coveted tables of late are omakase experiences; our pick, Surrell, in out-of-the-way Madison Valley, offers a seasonal (and perfectly Pacific Northwest) 10-course menu—the $200 price doesn’t include the tip but does cover an original poem written about the menu, plus a take-home bag of granola. Or book a seat at Hamdi, run by Eleven Madison Park vet Berk Güldal, for a wood-fired Turkish experience in the hip Ballard section of town.
Shop
Digging the end tables and various other treasures in Harry’s Guest House? Head to Susan Wheeler Home, where they were sourced. Or, since clothing is easier to pack, try Glasswing in Capitol Hill, a men’s-and-women’s boutique featuring hard-to-find Japanese cult brands such as Kapital alongside T-shirts from Merz b. Schwanen, makers of the white version made famous by Carmy on The Bear. The accessories here are nicely edited, particularly the sunglasses. (Don’t scoff. There has been more rain in Los Angeles this year than in Seattle.) Our pick: the Man-tle frames, also from Japan.
See
The Seattle Art Museum—SAM to locals—wraps up its blockbuster Alexander Calder retrospective in August, and the exhibit is a marvel. In 2023, patrons Jon and Kim Shirley donated the family’s Calder collection to the museum, and the pieces are arranged here almost exactly as they’d been on display in the couple’s Seattle home. Don’t miss the untitled piece from his collaboration with choreographer Martha Graham, the mobile’s arms moving like a dancer’s limbs. The exhibition, fittingly titled Calder: In Motion, is the first in a planned multiyear series. For more culture, visit the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, an ambitious space currently hosting a dreamy Raúl de Nieves stained-glass show.
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