Blue Tree Hotels Fundador

Class: First

Style: Cutting edge

Rooms: 147

It’s related to the Remota, in Puerto Natales, and while it may lack the windswept edge-of-the-world theatrics of its country cousin, the Hotel Fundador shares a common approach, a dedication to innovative and unconventional interior design. You can thank the architect Germán del Sol; he was responsible for Remota as well, and it’s from his mind that the Fundador’s decidedly modern yet recognizably local style springs. There’s a European thread running throughout, most noticeably in the furnishings. In the lobby canary-yellow Louis XV armchairs are posed delicately alongside the local Andean textiles. Up in the guest rooms you’ll find a continuation of the same lively palette, the spaces simple and low-key but saved from minimalism by color and by well-chosen details, some of them antique. It’s certainly not white-glove luxury, but they don’t really do luxury here, not in the traditional sense — and it’s certainly not what Mr. del Sol is about. What it is is the simple pleasure of a well-designed — and uniquely designed — city-center boutique hotel, as fine an introduction to the Chilean capital as you’re likely to get from any of its hotels.