Retail therapy or luxury overnight stay? Both, in this Fitzroy Airbnb

It is absolutely in character that Melbourne architect Ben Edwards would create a shop so different you’ll wonder if you are experiencing retail therapy or a luxurious overnight stay in a naff little rental in the funkiest part of gritty-interesting Fitzroy.

The reality is that you will experience both simultaneously.

Having bought a tiny one bedroom flat down the road from the Edwards Moore studio he shares with design partner Juliette Moore, Edwards did his usual lateral thinking and, instead of renovating it to rent on a long-term lease, he refurbished the studio-scale abode to become a cross-over retail/pay-to-stay short-term rental.

Photo: Fraser Marsden

“It seemed like a more interesting way to pay the mortgage”, he says. “And it’s way more exciting than a hotel room”.

The concept behind Microluxe that will be labelled as “a showroom, store and hotel in one” when it lodges onto the Airbnb listings at the end of the month, is that everything that is not nailed down, which includes the bath, the marble walls, the industrial chic kitchen fit-out, and the golden box from which the bed folds out, is for sale.

“Beautiful towels”, he raves. “The orange toilet paper, the memory-foam mattress. The bed linen … the cashmere bathrobe and cashmere socks – really nice to put on after a bath”. The retail offerings extend to the chairs, the paintings, the light fittings, the leather couch, the coffee table, even the olive oil soap.

Photo: Fraser Marsden

The pieces in situ and that are used during the stay aren’t for the take out. Rather, via an iPad that is in the apartment, they can be ordered online from the retailers from whom Edwards has so carefully sourced them.

“You go directly to the supplier and they can be shipped new.

“The drawcard to it,” he says, “is that while you’re staying there you qualify for a 10 per cent discount from the retailers.  

Photo: Fraser Marsden

“It’s a shop you can stay in; an interesting cross-over between design and retail. It’s a passive way, I guess, of shopping. You might get up from the bed and think ‘that was amazing’. So you get to try before you buy.”

Microluxe, which will cost $300 per night, “is small. But it’s also a way of combining different typologies of shopping, retail, hospitality and design. I’ve designed a space where you can do all those things”.

www.micro-luxe.com