If you follow creatives of a certain milieu, photos of Carmen Amsterdam will ignite a strong sense of déjà vu. The meticulously designed guesthouse, kitchen and boutique run by Carmen Atiyah de Baets, her husband Joris ter Meulen Swijtink, and their tight-knit team have become a hub for the Dutch capital’s fashion set as well as visitors from near and far. You’ve probably seen its burled wood furniture, stainless steel kitchen counters and lofty cinema room on your feed several times over.
The canal house belonged to Joris’s grandmother, who purchased it in 1980. After she passed, the couple decided to turn it into a multifunctional space while preserving its contemporary-meets-old-world charm. Below, we spoke with Carmen Atiyah de Baets, her husband Joris ter Meulen Swijtink about their design inspirations, and how they executed their vision.
Zoe Suen: Where did you get the idea to turn this place into a guesthouse?
Joris ter Meulen Swijtink: When we were younger we travelled a lot together, and we enjoyed staying in both cheap and very nice places – our holidays would be spent 80 per cent in somewhere affordable and two nights somewhere crazy. We really loved seeing how different spots would do things, especially homestays which are more common in Asia.
Carmen Atiyah de Baets: We both lived in London for a while and we had a lot of friends who wanted to come to Amsterdam to visit but we wouldn’t know where to tell them to stay. Of course, there are big hotels – now there’s the Hoxton – and hostels, but there isn’t anything in between. We thought it’d be so cool to one day turn this space into a guesthouse.
We also stayed in Enrique Olvera’s B&B, Casa Teo, which has two bedrooms; you’d have breakfast every day by a chef also working at his restaurant, and they’d give you recommendations. It was way more intimate than a hotel, and Joris also has a background in food, so we wanted to open a place that combined our passions.
ZS: How much of the space did you change?
JTMS: We really wanted to keep a lot of the details because [my grandmother] had incredible style, and she renovated it with an interesting architect. But we had to redo the basement floor and foundation. On the first and second floor, we kept details like the marble in the floor and the cabinets.
CADB: The [first floor guest room] was her bedroom, and the closet and vanity were hers. We thought we should put something more fabulous, more statement, there. But I was really intrigued by her simplicity. Everything is so well made, and you just can’t find stuff like it anymore.
ZS: How did you approach the whole undertaking?
JTMS: It was such a long journey. We didn’t work with an architect; we came to realise that you either hire someone for their style, or they have to be okay doing it your way. We had a specific idea, to recreate a lot of the details in a way that was more old-school Dutch. We did a lot of trips around Belgium, Amsterdam and France to get inspired by mid-century architects and source things like taps and light switches.
CADB: We met with interior design firms, but we knew it’d become their project, a hotel-y type place, and we didn’t want that. We had some savings and had left our jobs knowing this was what we were going to do, and we just wanted to make it our own. We tried to live here during the renovation thinking we’d save money and pretty early on we were like, there’s no way we can live here. We had to buy an apartment, we had to go.
ZS: Was there a particular designer or house you used as a starting point?
CADB: I got really into Dutch design. The Sonneveld house in Rotterdam was one of the most inspiring houses we went to see. It’s a beautiful villa and everything is well made but it’s low-key and minimal on the inside. We wanted things to be beautiful but also feel accessible. It’s something I hear about from people, that everything looks beautiful on Instagram, but they do feel comfortable being here. That makes me super proud.
ZS: When did you open up bookings, and what were the first months like?
CADB: Joris is a perfectionist, but I just want to get going. I remember [creative director Freja Wewer] saw the building process online and asked if she could come stay. We didn’t have all the lamps sorted yet and I thought, I can’t have her stay since pictures of unfinished corners will go all over the internet. I was freaking out. I remember finding [Joris] and saying, I think we should just pull it together. I’d always imagined an opening party or doing press, but she came and stayed and that was it – that’s when we opened. But it still doesn’t feel done. We have so many things we want to do and parts that don’t feel perfect.
ZS: And to pivot to the store. How did that come about?
CADB: Every brand I stock, I’ve known them for such a long time. I’ve always loved specific stores in New York, London and Austin, and I had friends here who felt similarly, so I knew there was a need for it. My dad comes from a retail family, and I worked in fashion – in London I worked at Karla Otto. When we were doing the renovations, I felt I was losing a bit of myself in the guesthouse. As much as I love hosting, the store was something for me. I started emailing people I knew saying I had this idea, and a lot of brands were struggling because of Covid, so I got some good deals at the beginning. There were also brands with no presence in Amsterdam, and simultaneously good friends starting their own brands like Florian [from Flore Flore]. She’d bring me samples of white T-shirts and we’d sit and compare lengths; my other friend Pien started with her bags.
ZS: Would you ever do this again in another place?
JTMS: You can get so much energy out of having a nice time with guests, that gives us a lot of joy. But this is so specific to its setting, and even if we moved this house to another space, it would be something different. People have talked to us about doing something elsewhere, like in Mallorca, but this year things are just starting to land.
CADB: I’d like to do it with someone, like if we had a really good connection with an interior designer, but it’d have to happen organically and with meaning. We’re so connected to this place, so it’d have to be another place with meaning. I’m open to it in the future, for sure. But once a place becomes bigger and expands, it can lose what you loved about it in the first place. So it’d have to feel right.
Find out more about Carmen Amsterdam here.
