Hotel Inspector, September 2007

There may be quirkier places to stay than Miller's Residence - but I haven't come across them. This is such a prized gem that it seems almost gauche to be speaking about it in public.

The fact that its been around for 11 years and yet remains virtually unknown only goes to prove that less publicity sometimes can make for much more success. If the product's right, of course.

This product is extraordinary - and for one very good reason: it's owned by the flamboyant, woman-loving, energetic hotelier, Martin Miller, better known as the name behind Miller's Price Antiques Guide, which he started in 1969.

Miller has amassed tons of antiques and curiosities, many of which have found their way here, just off Westbourne Grove in trendy Notting Hill. There are eight rooms, all bearing the name of a writer (Wordsworth, Keats, Coleridge et al), and I am not expecting any to be available at such short notice.

Its 7pm on Tuesday and the London Underground has come to a pay-and-conditions halt. So, I am paying £150 for B&B but it's really DB&B - with D for drinks, which are on the house.

And we're talking about big-time drinks - as much wine, beer, or spirits as you like, offered on a serve yourself basis in the main antiques warehouse - sorry, main drawing room.

'Help yourself to drinks,' says a delightful French woman when I walk upstairs (Millers Residence is above a Brazilian restaurant). 'And do bring in any food. Heres a key to the front door: I'm upstairs painting if you need me.'

Blake, on the second floor, has green walls, but you don't see much of them because almost every inch is covered by something: paintings, mirrors, wall lights (without bulbs in them), pottery, dolls.

I've got the saloon to myself, which provides a chance to peruse a novel Miller has written, called The Wookey Hole Affair, which just happens to be about a man called Tarmin Rimell, who runs a hotel called Miller's. The cover includes a paragraph about Martin Miller's take on interior design - Maximillism. It warns that: 'Believing in practicality is the biggest enemy of style,' and concludes that 'your environment should excite, confuse and challenge the eye with vast arrangements of porcelain, paintings and furniture in the aim of creating an atmosphere of random visual sensuality.'

'Random visual sensuality'. I couldn't have put it better myself, especially when dozens of candles are all lit up, flicking light off the mirrors and candelabras. Books, clocks, bowls, piles of magazines, and enough ashtrays to tell you that Miller is suffering from the no-smoking ban.

If you want opulence without grandeur, warmth without anyone trying too hard to provide it, and chaos without any real confusion, then look no further than Miller's Residence. And if you have a love for antiques, you will go to bed in this world and wake up in heaven.