North House Hotel
A boutique hotel site with a photography-led narrative and direct-booking engine.
The story
A boutique property wanted its own site to feel more special than the OTA listings driving most of its traffic. We designed a photography-led narrative and shipped a direct-booking flow.
Context
The hotel was almost entirely dependent on aggregator platforms taking 15–20% commissions. Their existing site looked like a downloaded template; the property itself deserved better.
Discovery
We spent two days on-site. The property has a real story; the old site never told it. Copy and photography direction became half the project.
UX strategy
One long, cinematic scroll for the homepage — rooms, spaces, food, region — each with a clear booking pathway. No hidden menus. No modal traps.
UI design
Photography-forward, with a serif display face and quiet supporting UI. Rooms treated as chapters, not products.
Development
Astro for a static, image-heavy site with excellent LCP. Booking engine integrated via API rather than an iframe; guests stay in one experience.
- ▸Pre-arrival email sequence with region + property details.
- ▸Post-stay review request routed to the right platforms.
- ▸Enquiry form routed to reservations Slack in real time.
- Cormorant — Display · editorial
- Inter — Body · UI
Production quality
- · Full-bleed imagery on mobile, but sized appropriately — no 6MB hero shots. Sticky book bar on mobile.
- · Destination + property landing pages.
- · Hotel + LodgingBusiness schema.
- · FAQ + BreadcrumbList schema.
- · Content briefs for regional guides.
- · Static Astro output.
- · Responsive image pipeline.
- · Booking engine loaded lazily after intent signal.
- · Photography paired with descriptive alt text.
- · Sufficient contrast even over hero imagery.
- · Booking flow keyboard-navigable.
- · Payments processed by the booking engine provider (PCI-scoped).
- · Guest data never persisted to the site database.
Screens & mobile experience
Notes we keep coming back to.
- 01Hotel sites live or die on photography.
- 02Direct booking beats OTA on brand — but only when the experience is smoother.
- 03One long scroll is more powerful than five clever pages.
Questions about the North House Hotel project.
Why Astro instead of Next.js?
For an image-heavy, mostly-static site, Astro's zero-JS default gave us a faster hero and a simpler ops story.
Which booking engine did you integrate?
The property's existing PMS via its public API — guests never leave the site.
Do you handle photography?
We direct and shot-list. A specialist photographer handles the actual capture.
Can this scale to multiple properties?
Yes — the CMS structure supports property groups without a rebuild.
Have a project that needs this kind of care?
Book a 30-minute consultation. We'll talk through what you're trying to build — and whether Siddiq.in is the right studio to build it with you.