“Hotels and dancing are so closely related — I think about live performance and musicality,” says Alexander “Sander” Kølpin, owner of the 54-room Hotel Sanders, Copenhagen, which opened in the Danish capital January 2018.
He remains Denmark’s best-known ballet star, earlier anointed “best male dancer in the world” (Prix Benois de la Danse) at the Bolshoi in Moscow. His background includes Twyla Tharp in New York and as principal dancer with the world-renowned Royal Danish Ballet. Not surprisingly, movement has always been, and continues to be, in his blood.
“Just as with dance, hotels must be something you feel, and musicality and all the senses are vital. In addition, high-end is so individual that the personality of the owner needs to be evident — fortunately I have so much energy,” said this blue-eyed Dane, climbing over seating on his five-floor property’s rooftop terrace and opening windows to combat summer heat.
Kølpin Hotels is a partnership between Sander Kølpin and his father, architect Jes Kølpin. They already owned two mid-level properties but when the opportunity came to buy Copenhagen’s Hotel Opera, two minutes’ walk from the Royal Danish Theatre, they acted quickly. As creative director, Sander Kølpin turned to London-based designers Pernille Lind and Richy Almond, later working as Lind+Almond.
Interiors are local, with floors and staircases of smooth Danish oak, and theatrical (several public areas have black and white photographs of dancers, and the public washrooms are themed for Broadway).
“I wanted a feeling of travel, and corridors have rattan ceilings, to evoke memories of an Orient-Express train. After 25 years’ directing ballet I know how essential it is to communicate your vision.”
Kølpin’s ballet years, and his natural warmth, have given him a global network. Last week a leading ballet patron, based in New York, hosted a dinner for 10 in the private dining room of Sanders Kitchen, which blends a Scandinavian feel with white New York subway tiles. Another American, alerted by a media message, liked The Sanders so much he stayed for six weeks.
“At first I thought I did not need affiliation, although now I am trying to find a suitable company that I can work with. Of course every brand has made contact. Kathleen Duda, MD of KVD Communications New York, has done a tremendous job getting the message out, and she has been vital. The U.S. is our biggest market, at 25%, and, in total, 80% of business is leisure. Copenhagen city-wide had a slow first quarter of 2018 but now The Sanders is doing nicely,” the owner said with a characteristic grin.
In his earlier career, Kølpin would, as now, turn to specialists, for all elements of his eventual product, but whereas then he choreographed team members’ movements, here he hires right, and then leaves colleagues to act on their own. “But I am around every day, I share energy, and create happenings.”
Every Wednesday, for instance, Hotel Sanders offers aperitivo cocktails, with jazz (for Kølpin, luxury must have vibe as well as authenticity). The hotel’s bar, Tata, is called after the lush red curtain that often sweeps across a stage before the opening of a performance, including dance.
Although he starred in a Copenhagen production of “The Elephant Man” ballet in 2013, he has largely given up dancing. “The first thing I did once I hung up my ballet gear was go to a tattoo artist, so I have my favorite peonies on one arm, and, on the other, the Kølpin family crest — one of my sons also carries the crest,” he laughed. He uses almost as many calories as before, bounding up to the rooftop of Hotel Sanders, meeting arrivals and chatting with those around, who might include his just-arrived general manager, Nicholas Rana.
“I also, just as I have always done throughout my entire life, dream and subsequently create. In two years’ time Kølpin Hotels might be ready to do another Hotel Sanders, not in Denmark but we will have to see, when the timing is right, and mature,” he declared.