Bangkok Publishing Residence

“I thought, Me, hotels, service, business, not so much,” says Panida “Oum” Tosnaitada, scrunching up her face at the thought. Dressed in a plaid shirt and loose khakis, dreadlocks piled into a pineapple-shape bun atop her head, the rakish owner of Bangkok Publishing Residence doesn’t resemble your average upscale hotelier. Yet despite this aversion to the hospitality industry, this August saw Oum launch a surprising addition to Bangkok’s luxury hotel scene: an eight-bedroom bed-and-breakfast in her family’s former publishing factory.

Housed in an industrial building on the fringes of Bangkok’s Old City, Bangkok Publishing Residence is a tribute to Oum’s family legacy. First a delivery boy then a newsstand seller, her grandfather ended up with a lucrative publishing house boasting nearly 20 titles to its name. While the business eventually went the way of most publishers, the original factory remained in the family’s possession. When Oum’s grandmother gifted her the building, she decided to open an exclusive hotel-slash-museum that showcased the remaining historic artifacts.

“It’s like coming into my family’s home,” she says, noting that each of the eight bedrooms were designed with a different family member in mind. Across the three floors, relics from the factory’s publishing days are displayed: a still-functional printing press stands in the lobby while squat rolls of fossilized paper are stacked in an upstairs corner, so stiffened that they were used as stools by the factory workers. On the top floor, an airy library stocked with art books and an easel encourages guests to put their phones down and doodle; in the bathrooms, bespoke toiletries are packaged to look like the various contents of a pencil case. “I want to remind people of ink and paper,” Oum explains.

After a seven-year renovation—including 18 months of forced hiatus during Thailand’s military coup in 2014—Bangkok Publishing Residence is finally open for business—sort of. With little interest in advertising and a perpetually locked front door that opens only to guests, Oum prefers to keep it a sanctuary for those fortunate enough to find it. Commercial success is of secondary importance to the memories she is conserving.

“This place is really for my grandfather,” she says. “We came from no money and now we have so much money. But we’re all forgetting where we came from and this is to remind us where we came from, the beginning of everything.”