Twelve years ago, French shoe designer Christian Louboutin bought a holiday home in Melides,
an agricultural community on the Atlantic coast, south of Lisbon. Everything was perfect, except this: “There was no restaurant where I could go every night and hang out,” he says. “My house was not built to have dinner. Lunch, yes. Dinner, no.” He found a small, nondescript home on the edge of the historic village and thought he’d open a bistro there. The local mayor had a grander idea. “He said, ‘Do a hotel,’ ” Louboutin recalls. “So I did.”
This month, Vermelho Melides—named for the word red in Portuguese, a nod to his signature scarlet soles—opens for business. Set in a newly constructed building that resembles a centuries-old convent, Vermelho has 13 bespoke rooms, a spa, a bar, and, yes, a restaurant, all designed by Louboutin in collaboration with Lusitanian architect Madalena Caiado and longtime friend Carolina Irving. “I didn’t want a busy hotel or a loud hotel—I can’t stand when you arrive someplace and there is music everywhere, very lounge-y,” Louboutin says. “If you go to a hotel, you should feel like you belong there, that feeling of home.”