The silk has been on the staircase since the hotel opened. September's renovation, all US$50 million of it, had the sense to leave it there.
It is about 100 square metres of hand-woven Thai silk, a mural called The Coronation of a King. Paiboon Suwannakudt, the painter who started it for the opening, died about six months into the work. His daughter Phaptawan finished the wall with 27 apprentices, over about a year, and her own account of those years also names the ceiling in the same lobby. The hotel calls that ceiling The Heavens in Thai Thought. Look at both before you let the book talk you into a room number.
The rooms around that wall were the actual job. Minor Hotels redid all 335 guestrooms, suites and villas between June 2025 and September 2026, and kept the doors open the whole time. The release is proud of the teak and the new marble baths. Fine. The booking worth making is out in the court, where a handful of suites and villas now have a pool of their own.
If the Bangkok hotels in your notes are all towers, you are shopping for a different week. The Ritz-Carlton at One Bangkok, 260 rooms over Lumphini, has been receiving guests since 4 December 2024. Andaz One Bangkok opened on Wireless Road on 19 December 2025. Fairmont Bangkok Sukhumvit followed on 18 August 2026 with 416 rooms, and the rooftop tables are still due in December. Take one of those when you want the city from above. Anantara is the low courts beside the Royal Bangkok Sports Club, a members' course founded in 1901. The grass is in the window. The round belongs to members.
The building has worn four names on that lawn. It opened on 15 April 1983 as the Bangkok Peninsula, George Wimberly's design for WATG, on Rajadamri land leased from the Privy Purse. Regent in 1985, the Four Seasons name in November 2003, Anantara in March 2015. That 2015 arrival came with its own US$20 million refresh, which belongs in a different column from this year's fifty. Ask which Peninsula, if someone sends you to the river. The one on the Chao Phraya opened in 1998, and that stay is Three Nights on the Chao Phraya. This week is the club through the glass.
Book the pool, or book the silk
Say the square metres when you call.
There are two Garden Pool Suites, 91 square metres each, with a columned terrace and a pool that is yours. The book also lists one Garden Pool Villa at 120 square metres, the Anantara Garden Pool Villa in the photograph at 238, which is the largest one-bedroom, and a single two-bedroom garden villa at 190. If the confirmation comes back deluxe, with a look at the shared pool, send it back. You will have booked a pleasant room and missed the renovation.
The Jim Thompson Explorer Suite is the other cheque, and there is only one. It runs 198 square metres: two bedrooms, a private library, an open living and dining room, a king and two doubles, as many as seven adults, or five adults and two children. I would keep the party smaller if anyone means to use the library. What I would trust on the direct offers is a minimum of two nights and a vintage car to Jim Thompson House. After that, the pieces travel. One rate includes the five-course Thai menu at Spice Market. Another puts dinner at the House. The spa hour, and any late checkout, count when the confirmation names them. Read that page before you tell anyone the morning is set.
A deluxe room at 42 square metres still faces the garden or the club, and so do the Kasara executive rooms of the same size. Take one of those when the pool suites are gone and the stairs were the point. Take the 198 square metres when you want the second bedroom and a morning that leaves the property.
Exit 4, then the lobby
The door is 155 Rajadamri Road, Pathumwan. From BTS Ratchadamri, Exit 4, you are there in about a minute. The desk is +66 2 365 9110. Suvarnabhumi is about three quarters of an hour when the expressway behaves. Don Mueang is the shorter airport. Neither figure survives a bad Friday.
Have tea in the lobby once. They have poured it there since the year the hotel opened, under that ceiling, and the afternoon sitting is still Mariage Frères. It is the easy way to see the silk if your room is one of the smaller ones. Then go outside. Aqua is still pouring in the court, if you want a drink before dinner turns into a plan. Spice Market is the Thai kitchen, and the one some suite rates have already paid for, so use it when the confirmation says so. Madison does the steak, Shintaro the Japanese. Ask the hours on the day. A job this long can shut a kitchen and leave the name on the site.
Jim Thompson House is a morning of its own, at 6 Soi Kasemsan 2 off Rama I, unless the suite has already ordered the car. On your own, National Stadium is the nearer BTS, and the ticket is the one sold at the house. The Banquet Guide to Bangkok has the river hotels, and the tables, for the nights you are eating away from the court.
