Halvard Hotel

The Halvard is a hotel at 57-58 Loch Promenade in Douglas, filling two houses of a white Victorian terrace. Where seafront hotels usually go pale and safe indoors, this one has gone dark, glossy and quite deliberately theatrical.

The front is all stucco and confidence. Columns with carved capitals frame a tall arched doorway in white-painted panels, bay windows climb three floors above it, and heavy cornices divide the storeys. The name is picked out in gold on dark timber beside the entrance.

The lounge and the dining room

Reception opens into a lounge lit warm against grey walls, with a chandelier, deep leather sofas and low tables. The dining room beside it is laid with cloths and glassware, a wine rack running up one wall and covered silver dishes set out on a mahogany sideboard at breakfast. A round table for six sits in one of the front windows.

Charcoal, velvet and gilt upstairs

The bedrooms are the reason to come. Feature walls in a silver-grey swirl paper, cream padded headboards the full width of the bed, teal velvet sofas and mustard tub chairs, ornate mirrors and glass wall sconces, with a ribbon of coloured light run round the cornice. The larger rooms add a seating area and a writing desk. Bathrooms match the rooms for nerve: black gloss tiling floor to ceiling, square white basins on dark stone shelves, chrome towel rails and folded slippers underneath, some with a walk-in shower behind glass, others with a deep freestanding oval bath standing clear of the wall. Kettle, fridge, wardrobe and flat-screen television throughout, and a lift to the upper floors.

Along Loch Promenade

The hotel stands on the promenade in Douglas, with Douglas Beach a very short walk from the door.

Best on a night that matters

Couples who want a room with some drama in it, and anyone travelling on business who has had enough of rooms that could be in any town in any country.