Review of Casa Howard Rome, by Jeroen Bergmans

The two, quirky Casa Howard guesthouses in Rome have only five individually-designed bedrooms, and qualify as a bona fide boutique hotels. The Casa Howard look - fine fabrics, bright colours and custom-made furniture - is the brainchild of owner Jennifer Howard, who cut her teeth in the fashion industry, and architect Tommaso Ziffer, who worked on Rome's Hotel de Russie. Her husband Count Massimiliano Leonardi di Casalino is the businessman behind the Casa Howard concept which includes a third guesthouse in Florence, and he has plans to open more designer pied-a-terres across the creative capitals of Europe.

The facilities

The reason guests regularly return to both Casa Howards (they are almost always full) is their boutique hotel home-from-home feel. The housekeepers are ever-attentive, breakfasts of fresh cornetti and home-made jams from the owners' Tuscan estate are served in the rooms and the soaps have been sourced from the historic Santa Maria Novella pharmacy in Florence. Amenities are on a par with five-star hotels as massages are available on request, there's a laundry service and both properties even have communal hammams to soothe away aches and pains after the cultural steeplechase of Rome.

The rooms

The five rooms at the original boutique hotel on Via Capo Le Case are on the sedate side with a hint of chintz, and three have bathrooms accessed down a corridor. The Pink Room (with en-suite) is the largest and the Chinese Room, with its swathes of crimson Shanghai Tang silk, is the most lavish. Guests with more daring tastes in design will prefer the rooms at the second Casa Howard on Via Sistina, which all have en-suite bathrooms and WiFi. The Flower Room is a riot of clashing floral fabrics and the Zebra Room a mix of monochrome stripes set against crimson walls.