The Art of Sleep: The Timeless Craft Behind Savoir Beds 

While technology has dramatically changed our world in the past century, it has not changed the craft behind many of the finest products. Artisans meticulously hand-paint métiers d’art watch dials, artisans hand-stitch luxury handbags, experts mouth-blow fine crystal, and coopers toast oak barrels to age the best whiskeys. Of course, the top luxury brands use technology when it improves their products, but certain practices cannot be improved upon. Luxury mattresses are no different. 

Savoir dates to 1905, and its bedworks in London and Wales look similar to how they did 120 years ago. Artisans work on oak trestle tables, making each custom-order bed from start to finish, then sign their name on the label as a testament to their craft and expertise. The company incorporates technology where it makes sense, such as a CNC machine that cuts out the wood pieces for headboards instead of cutting by hand, which is more precise and efficient. “The only things we want to do by hand are things you can’t do well with a machine,” says Alistair Hughes, co-owner and managing director of Savoir. “It does look quaint and old-fashioned, but it’s only because that’s the best way to do it.” 

The History of Savoir Beds

This story of obsessive craftsmanship and the quest for the perfect night’s sleep began in London at the turn of the 20th century. Theater magnate Richard D’Oyly Carte opened The Savoy Hotel, which set new standards for luxury hospitality. Not only did it have newfangled inventions like an elevator, but each room had electric lights and en-suite bathrooms with hot and cold running water, which had never been done before. 

His attention to detail was legendary and instantly made The Savoy a worldwide sensation. But, there was one problem; D’Oyly Carte couldn’t find a bed resplendent enough for his guests. So, he created his own, the Savoy Bed (now called the Nº2 bed), with expert craftsman James Edwards in 1905. They say you can’t improve on perfection, and the company still makes the same Nº2 bed today, 120 years later. 

Guests loved staying at The Savoy so much that they often commissioned their own beds, taking a piece of the luxurious hotel home with them. In the 1930s, D’Oyly Carte purchased the company that crafted the beds, establishing The Savoy Bedworks. Although the company is in new hands, a condition of purchase was that they would continue to make beds the traditional, hand-crafted way using natural materials. 

Crafting Handmade Mattresses

Savoir doesn’t use expensive natural materials just to say they do. Each serves a function, including comfort and temperature regulation. Most modern mattresses use man-made materials, including plastic, polyurethane foam, and latex, which can be warmer and don’t last as long as natural fibers. The bedworks use materials including cashmere, cotton, and wool, as well as unexpected ones like Mongolian yak and horse tail. Why horse tail? After it’s steam cleaned — no chemicals are used in the process — the hair is twisted into a tight rope in order to produce a permanent curl in the hair, which acts as a minuscule spring inside the bed. “Laying horsetail, there’s no machine that can do it,” Hughes says. “So having someone who is trained and knows what they are doing works really well.”

The cashmere and Tengri Khangai Nobel (yak fibers) come from Mongolia, and add softness to various toppers. Wool acts as a cushion inside the mattresses. When possible, Savoir works with sustainable partners, including a cooperative of nomadic herders in Mongolia. 

Artisans train for three years to learn how to make the various components, beginning with simple tasks like cutting materials to size or unbraiding the horse hair, and work their way up to doing a box spring. There are two bedworks, one in London and one in South Wales. Every bed is made to order; there’s no stock ready to be shipped. This customization is a crucial part of the process. 

It’s an expensive and time-consuming production; the beds take 3-4 days to make. Even with 60 craftspeople, Savoir makes fewer than 1,000 beds a year. Still, this is a dramatic expansion from the 1990s, when the company split from The Savoy Hotel. At the time, it had two full-time and one part-time craftspeople. As they expanded, these experts trained the new staff in London and Wales, and the company incorporated technology into the production process. 

There are only three things that machines can actually do better than human hands: de-roping and carding horse tails, cutting the headboards, and curling bedsprings. “Bits of the manufacturing process are absolutely identical to how it would have been in 1905; other bits are a million miles away. My aim is not to make ‘ye old worldly mattress.’ It’s to make the best mattress.” 

How to Select a Mattress

Of course, you could have one of the best mattresses in the world, but if it doesn’t suit your body, it’s not the best mattress for you. Hughes notes that many people sleep on mattresses that are too firm for them, because they don’t believe that soft mattresses provide enough support. While that might be true for an inexpensive, machine-produced mattress, which can sag in the middle over time or doesn’t provide enough support, that’s not the case at Savoir. It has mastered the art of crafting supportive yet soft mattresses. 

It has 14 showrooms worldwide, from Singapore and Hong Kong to New York and London, where knowledgeable staff guide you through the different beds, helping find the one that suits your body and sleep posture the best. In addition, some of the world’s best hotels use these exclusive and expensive mattresses for their discerning clientele. The Savoy, The Peninsula New York, and Ashford Castle in Ireland highlight Savoir beds in their top suites. The Greenwich Hotel in New York City offers one in every single room. It’s the perfect way to try out one of the mattresses. 

Many of the top celebrities, executives, and royals of the past century have become enamored with Savoir beds after staying at the Savoy. Frank Sinatra would only perform in London if he stayed at the Savoy. Liza Minelli took the mattress she slept on home with her. The late King Hassan II of Morocco traveled with his own furniture, but his mattress was damaged en route to London. He had to sleep on the Nº2 bed, and loved it so much that he ordered 24 for his palace. 

Customization Options at Savoir

The beds begin around $7,720 for a king-size mattress, box spring, and topper, and can quickly increase to more than $200,000 for more luxurious beds with a yak topper, complicated headboards, including built-in speakers, marble trim, and Loro Piana fabrics. Since the beds are made to order, Savoir can customize each side of the mattress. So, one person can have a mattress with extra support, and the other can have a softer mattress.  “We can do anything,” Hughes says. “We rarely make the same thing twice.” That includes rotating beds for clients who can’t decide which view they want to enjoy from bed, headboards crafted from the wing of a DC-3 airplane, and custom sizes.

Recently, it made oversize beds that had to be in one piece, rather than a zipped pair, for a superyacht. The beds were too large to move through the corridors, so artisans flew to the shipyard with materials and spent two weeks building the mattresses inside the bedrooms on the yacht. 

Savoir also has a partnership with the UK’s National Gallery, so it can digitally print artwork onto its headboards. This allows the company to turn its beds into literal works of art. The choices are endless. You could have one of Monet’s famous paintings of the River Thames while sleeping on the same type of mattress that Monet himself once slept on. Yes, the French painter adored The Savoy and stayed there on his trips to London when he sketched the Thames from the hotel’s Riverside Suites. 

The only dilemma you might face? Which of the incredible options to pick. 

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