Inside the world's most expensive hotel room – it's designed by Damien Hirst

Ever wondered what the inside of a £78,000-per-night hotel suite looks like?

Artist Damien Hirst, known for his lavish, pop culture-related designs, has designed a hotel suite that is now the most expensive hotel room in the world, priced at £156,000 for a minimum two-night stay.

Named the Empathy Suite, the 2-story suite spans 9,000 square feet (836 square metres) and occupies two storeys within the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.

The room might sound expensive (well duh, because it is), but the countless Damien Hirst artworks dotted around the penthouse suite are worth a fortune. It's like sleeping in a private art gallery.

Hirst is known for boundary-pushing collections (they range from formaldehyde preservations to carefully arranged pill bottles), and this hotel suite is no exception. There are sharks suspended in formaldehyde, graphics of oversized pills and flooring patterned with butterflies.

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It's the first and only hotel room of its kind featuring a collection of contemporary art at this scale.

Located off the Las Vegas Strip in the Palms Casino Resort, the two-story villa features a 13-seat bar, games room, two media lounges , two massage rooms, a salt relaxation room, a gym, two luxury ensuite bedrooms and an outdoor terrace overlooking Las Vegas.

Comfortably seating 52 people (all on Hirst-designed furniture), it's perfect for entertaining guests. We're imagining Wolf Of Wall Street style parties.

The room also comes with a 24-hour butler service, chauffeured car service, ‘over-the-top welcome amenities’, a private art tour of the hotel property, ‘A-list access’ to the day and nightclubs and recording studio plus £7,800 credit to use at the hotel.

At the centre of the lavish suite is a 13-seat curved bar, crowned by Hirst’s Here for a Good Time, Not a Long Time artwork (2018) which hangs directly above it. The piece is made up of two vitrines, one containing a marlin skeleton, the other a taxidermy marlin.

A host of prescription-like designs are visible, such as pill-like stool tops in one of the bathrooms and a curved countertop at the bar filled with medical waste. Two hundred vinyl appliques shaped like drugs also line the exterior and interiors of the suite, while glowing white columns have capsule designs on translucent film. There are medical looking cabinets dotted around too – they are all a reference to the interiors of the Pharmacy restaurant at Hirst's Newport Street Gallery in London.

Just beyond the bar is an outdoor terrace overlooking the Vegas strip.

There's also a Hirst-inspired pool with mosaic inlaid butterflies. 104 stone butterflies and 17 inlaid pills are incorporated into the marble floors throughout the suite and the pool deck.

The bar is flanked by two media rooms, the windows of which feature Hirst-inspired decals to complement Hirst's pill themed artwork that's scattered around.

A large dining area seats eight people comfortably, right next to a translucent cabinet filled with pills titled Monet.

There's also a game room complete with a pool table – and the real show-stopper; two bull sharks suspended in formaldehyde in a white tank, called Winner/Loser.

Then there's also a gym, as well as two massage rooms that feature butterfly embroidered massage chairs.

Both of the master bedrooms have California king beds, along with glass windows that overlook either the lower level of the suite ...

... or the lights of the Las Vegas Strip.

The bathrooms are nothing short of luxe, top-to-toe in marble and with Hirst accents everywhere.

There's more pill-inspired artwork in one of the bathrooms too.

The Empathy Suite was formerly known as the Hugh Hefner Suite. Originally $40,000 per night, a new renovation of the hotel – and Damien Hirst as the designer behind these interiors – have spurred a $60,000 price increase, making this room $100,000 (£78,000) per night – but for a minimum two night stay that's a minimum of £156,000. That's quite the price tag.

Of course, Las Vegas is known for its extravagant opulence. So with the amount of money that's being played with in the casino downstairs, we're sure whoever stays in this suite won't bat an eyelid to the price. In fact, if a guest is gambling with $1 million (£780,000), then Palm Casino throws this room in for free.

As for the rest of the hotel rooms, they're not to be sniffed at. The 'Hardwood' room (from $20,000 per night) comes with its own basketball court – the walls of which pull down as extra guest beds for late-staying party guests.

It even comes with it's own locker room.

We're big fans of the tiling – the circles remind us a bit of poker chips.

Meanwhile the Kingpin room is 'only' $15,000 per night, and comes with it's own bowling alley...

And on top of a master bedroom there's guest spaces too – including a rather stylish bunk bed situation.

Imagery Courtesy of Palms Casino Resort

Lotte Brouwer

Lotte is the Digital Editor for Livingetc, and has been with the website since its launch. She has a background in online journalism and writing for SEO, with previous editor roles at Good Living, Good Housekeeping, Country & Townhouse, and BBC Good Food among others, as well as her own successful interiors blog. When she's not busy writing or tracking analytics, she's doing up houses, two of which have features in interior design magazines. She's just finished doing up her house in Wimbledon, and is eyeing up Bath for her next project.