The Inn Of Five Graces Is A Lesson In Maximalism

When people were spending too much time at home during the pandemic, the stark white rooms of minimalism shifted from having a calming effect to coming off cold and impersonal. The design pendulum soon swung to maximalism, as people yearned to see color and comforting reminders of places they’d been. But long before maximalism became the design aesthetic du jour, a hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico—The Inn Of Five Graces—was showcasing what a penchant for excess can create.

While the surrounding city of Santa Fe is known to represent a melange of Native American, and Hispanic influences, the only hint of the Southwest at The Inn of Five Graces is the 400-year-old adobe buildings in which the hotel is built. Instead, the sumptuous interiors of the hotel transport guests from the Southwest to Central Asia. Meticulously detailed wooden doors formed under rounded archways usher you into intimate guest rooms that immediately force pause to take in the amount of detail presented before you.

Millions of tiles made of broken pottery pieces from India, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Mexico are intricately assembled to form colorful murals throughout the bathrooms. Beds are adorned with colorful Indian blankets and feature embroidered Uzbek textiles on the headboards while sofas are upholstered in Afghan dhurries (handwoven rugs). From the painted ceilings to the lavish Turkish rugs that line the floor—not a single inch of each room is left untouched.

Rather than simply jumping on the maximalist trend, the hotel’s founder—Ira Seret—is arguably one of its forefront contributors. “The Seret Aesthetic has always been maximalist, since its beginnings in the late 60s,” says Sylvia Seret, Ira’s wife. Back then, Ira Seret was working in a Manhattan boutique called Abracadabra when he was offered to sell five coats from Afghanistan. Soon after placing the sheepskin coats in the window, fashion designer Anne Klein asked him to source more.

Seret headed to Afghanistan where he would spend the next decade exporting and designing textiles for the New York market. Integrating silks, clothing and carpets (like Afghan dhurrie rugs) into fashion and interior design—the Seret aesthetic was born. From his coats appearing in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar to his collaborations with designers to conjure creative ideas like tents inspired by Pakistani wedding canopies—Seret became known for bridging the East and West.

Returning to the United States in the early 1980s with his new wife Sylvia, the couple decided to settle in Santa Fe, because it reminded Seret of Afghanistan. They opened Seret & Sons to sell their furnishings (which still operates today), and soon after decided to turn a cluster of buildings they purchased in Santa Fe’s oldest neighborhood into a hotel that would double as a showcase room for their furniture. The Inn of Five Graces opened in 1996, named after the Eastern concept that we are graced with five senses to take in the beauty of the world.

Seret’s time in Central Asia not only influenced the design of the hotel, but also their approach to hospitality. “Throughout the East, from the Middle East to Mongolia and Tibet, offering hospitality to strangers is a cultural ethical value,” Sylvia Seret. “Guests or strangers welcomed into a home may be offered gifts that delight the senses such as food (taste), comfort (touch), music (sound), pleasant surroundings (sight) and incense and flowers (smell).”

While the sense of sight is undoubtedly engaged constantly during a stay here, the other sights are most engaged during a visit to the spa. The sound of gently flowing water immediately greets guests from a marble water wall sourced from India, and carries throughout their treatment as fountains made from scratch using tiles from Mexico and India are found in several of the treatment rooms. Touch is engaged with massages using natural elements like heated Himalayan salt stones while the smells of organic botanicals sooth the mind. The calm energy also exudes from giant crystals and Buddha statues set next to treatment tables lined with colorful textiles.

The Inn Of Five Graces was not originally intended to be a wellness property, but it’s hard not to find mindfulness here, even outside the spa. The level of detail in each room beckons your attention. The hotel gently encourages this, with fabric coverings (sewn with whimsical floral motifs no less) placed over the televisions in all the guest rooms. “We hope for guests to find themselves in a peaceful place surrounded by aesthetically beautiful spaces without the ‘window to the world (that black screen)’ glaring at them,” explains. Who needs to escape into T.V. when there is a visual feast before you, urging you to let your mind get lost in it.