The Barracks Hotel at Sentosa

The Barracks Hotel at Sentosa

Arrival is up Gunner Lane, a short road climbing Palawan Ridge on Sentosa, the island off Singapore’s southern shore that is twelve minutes by car from the central business district and twenty-five from Changi, and the street name is the first clue to what these buildings were. The two long, white colonial blocks went up in 1904 as the Blakang Mati Artillery Barracks, quarters for a British garrison on what the island was then called, were taken over as administrative offices by the Japanese after the invasion of February 1942, and from 1947 the lawn in front of them served as the parade square of the First Singapore Regiment, Royal Artillery. The conversion, completed in 2019 with Khoo Peng Beng of Arc Studio Architecture + Urbanism as principal architect, keeps both buildings at two storeys and fits 40 rooms and suites inside them, a small fraction of the 839 keys across the three-hotel development that the Ng family’s Far East Organization built on this plot. The Barracks is the smallest and most tucked away of those siblings, set behind the family-oriented Village Hotel and the adults-only Outpost, operated by Far East Hospitality and a member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World. Interiors by KKS International and COEN Design work with the colonial frame without turning it into a museum: carpeted floors, made-to-measure furniture in leather and dark wood, plantation shutters, and in the suites, folding walls that close the living area off from the bedroom. Premier Rooms on the upper level get the high ceilings and a balcony, while ground-floor rooms open onto terraces with direct pool access, and there are two 30-metre pools, one on either side of the Living Room, with semi-private jacuzzis. The Living Room carries the food programme, and it is included in the rate: breakfast ordered in advance, afternoon tea, and wine and canapés in the evening, with a house tea called 1904 blended by Pryce. There is no restaurant of its own, so dinner means the Mess Hall, another conserved barrack building, where Royal Taj serves tandoor kebabs and mutton rogan josh, or Miyoshi on Gunner Lane for Japanese, or the sister hotels next door, all chargeable to the room. A round-the-clock butler arrangement, which the hotel calls its Equerry Service, handles reservations, laundry and an in-room menu worth ordering the laksa from. The Barracks feels less like a resort than a regimental club whose members have gone out for the day. The lawn, once the parade square, is the hotel’s centre of gravity, and with only 40 rooms sharing two pools, sunloungers are not contested, while Resorts World and Universal Studios are within walking distance and never within earshot. The heritage material is handled with more restraint than the brochure language suggests: postcards of the old parade ground on the writing desk, a tea named for the year of construction, and complimentary walks on Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings led by army veterans who were once stationed here, which is the most affecting hour the hotel offers. The inclusions do quiet work too, since by the time the evening canapés come round, most guests have stopped worrying about dinner. It suits couples, a long Singapore stopover, and anyone who wants the city close without sleeping in it. You should not come if you want a destination restaurant under your own roof, a sea view from bed, or the late-night pull of Marina Bay and Clarke Quay, and you should not come if Sentosa’s casino-and-theme-park reputation bothers you on principle, because the hotel screens it well but cannot erase it. Families with young children will find more to do at Village Hotel next door. You should come if you want a small colonial building with a lawn, two good pools and a lounge that feeds you from breakfast to canapés, twenty-five minutes from your flight, in a city where luxury usually means a tower. The short version: Two conserved 1904 British artillery barracks on Sentosa’s Palawan Ridge, converted in 2019 into 40 rooms and suites around a former parade lawn, with two 30-metre pools and an included lounge in place of a restaurant.