Room2 Chain Carves Out 'Hometels' With Quirky, Design-Led Spaces

Room2 is a small UK company that illustrates a big trend in hospitality. Room2 offers apartment hotels, which it calls "hometels," blending the advantages of professionally run lodging with the quirkiness and spaciousness of apartment buildings. Wherever possible, it aims to be "net zero," meaning that it strives to operationally not contribute carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere.

Room2 is privately owned by the Lamington Group, a real estate investment, development and operational business, and it has only three locations in Britain: Southampton, the Hammersmith district of London, and Chiswick. It has a mixed model, owning the Hammersmith and Chiswick properties and leasing back to an investor the Southampton property.

In recent months it announced about $110 million (£100 million) worth of additional properties. Next year it hopes to open a 190-u