O'Connell Hotel

Owner: Dylan O'Connell

The interior of the O'Connell hotel doesn't appear to be anything unusual, at first. Sure there's the standard check in counter with a scattering of well worn sofas that look like they've been lifted straight out of the 70's, or a sidewalk, and there's the required nook of coffee machines pumping away at all hours, but besides the hefty smell of chlorine, nothing seems out of the ordinary. It's only until one gets to the rooms they see the experiment that was trying to unfold.

Before the youngest son of the family took over, the elder O'Connell had dreams of making a theme hotel. Problem is, he didn't know what kind of theme to stick on. The rooms all have wild differences, though a few on the first floor have been torn down to try and present a varnish of normality. The rest all seem to be the dream of someone who couldn't make up their mind. A garishly orange spot has a bed built into a step platform with unneeded beams strung above. Another completely cerulean room drapes heavily around the guest, creating a peaceful getaway with silvery stars painted directly on the ceiling. One of the interiors replicates a disturbing image of a green asylum cell, complete with padded walls. An eerie scarlet hovel has the bed positioned upon a stack of logs for reasons unknown.

While the second floor goes on with a parade of colour coding, the third is even more bizarre in nature. A set of wingdings seem to have broken loose of their technological prison and infected one of the interiors, even squares plastered with nonsense symbols and pictures. Yet another space seems to be suffering from an overgrowth of mirrored surfaces, not only the walls, but the ceiling and floors, everything save for the bed bounces images helter skelter.

One might be forgiven for thinking they have entered the world of Alice and her Wonderland in another, large growths of artificial pillow fungi popping from the walls and creating a mash of fluffed surfaces for a bed.

One of the more popular rooms is a topsy turvy episode of furniture on the ceiling and light fixtures upon the floor. It seems, however, the last O'Connell neglected to place an area for one to actually sleep and enjoy it further. If one were to ask about the topmost, the fourth floor, the manager merely says it is out of service. Yes, the entire floor. Maids and maintenance may give you a wary look upon inquiring further, each one brushing off the questions with a vaguely frightened glance. No one goes to the fourth floor, that's just how it is.