This NSW hotel has its guests reminiscing about vinyls
Back in 2014, Steve Dossel was a chief financial officer of a large fashion company. A few words from his son projected him in a different direction.
“Daddy, don’t you love me? You’re never home to tuck me in”.
“It just broke my heart,” he said to The New Daily. “I saw this place for sale two days later on the Friday. And bought it sight unseen over the phone on the Monday.”
The place up for sale was Boogie Woogie Beach House.
The music-themed hotel with seven guestrooms, a restaurant, bar and live music venue downstairs known as FLOW BAR as well as being close to beaches and national parks.
Each of the rooms has a different theme. The Ziggy Suite will be popular with fans of David Bowie, as there’s a mosaic portrait in the shower.
However, if you’re a bit more nostalgic for the days of mixtapes, the Mix Tape room features a cassette-print bedspread.
There’s also a record player in every guestroom and there’s a stack of vinyls for guests to choose from to take back to their room and play.
“You see them immediately start reminiscing,” Mr Doessel says. “Their faces just light up. You can see them remembering different parts of their youth or their early 20s or whatever it might be, and it’s taking them on a journey.”
Despite the hustle and bustle of having a live venue underneath the hotel, Mr Doessel and staff encourage guests to relax.
“We once had a couple, CEOs of different companies, and their two daughters stay for two weeks,” he says.
“The first few days they were like, ‘Where can we can go? What can we do?’. They were a million miles an hour and I was like, ‘Guys, there’s not a lot to do here. It’s just about relaxing, going to the beach, leaving your phones in your rooms. Just take a step back from your life for a bit.
“By the time the second week came around, they were like, ‘This is the best place ever’, ‘This is the best holiday we’ve ever had, doing nothing’. It was great to watch.”