Meyer Davis Envisions a Hotel That Offers a Cinematic Nod to Rome

2022 Best of Year Winner for International Hotel Restoration

The W Rome is like nothing we’ve ever seen. Nor is the hotel like anything in the vast and far-reaching hospitality portfolio of Meyer Davis co-principals Will Meyer and Gray Davis, soon-to-be inductees into Interior Design’s Hall of Fame. “We’re known as masters of editing,” Meyer begins. “But this project turns the speakers up to 11.” He, Davis, and Zoe Pinfold, senior associate and co-director of the firm’s Los Angeles studio, nixed any trace of minimalism in favor of exuberance and flat-out cinematic glamour.

“By peeling back layers we discovered the reason Rome is so special, it’s where civilizations and cultures were layered on top of each other,” Meyer continues. “That amazing collage drove our narrative.” Jumping in, Davis adds, “We used the phrase: We got lost in the city.” Yet when guests stroll the Ludovisi district and branch off from Via Veneto, its main corridor, to find their way to Via Liguria high above the Spanish Steps, they are indeed promised la dolce vita upon passing through the W’s portals. While the hotel boasts three points of entry, the main one’s glazed cube is not only the showpiece but also Meyer Davis’s ingenious introduction to a tricky site, composed of two buildings dating to 1889. The property was first a hotel, with shops on the ground floor and a restaurant added in 1914. During the ’40’s, the story takes an unsavory turn, the buildings reportedly commandeered by Nazi troops. From the ’60’s to 2002 they were offices, and then empty when purchased by Omnam Group and King Street Capital Management.

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Transforming a historic property into the W Rome hotel

The cube or “gasket,” as the team calls it, solves the immediate problem of tying together the buildings, one six stories high and the other four, for a total of 150,000 square feet. Then, organization assures a unified experience. Guest quarters, 162 keys including 13 suites, populate both—as do amenities. Establishing see-and-be-seen scenes, they include a knockout reception and lobby, a jazzy bar-lounge, Giano restaurant, Zucchero café, and a pool and bar on the rooftop. A fitness center and meeting rooms figure into the mix, as does a clandestine sculpture garden located at the rear of the property. “There are no dead ends,” Davis notes. “Visitors can wander all over and never get stuck.”

Meyer Davis created the entry experience as a procession of see-through spaces, starting with reception. It’s a fantastical Roman garden, simultaneously classical and irreverent, composed of a verdant mural by Constanza Alvarez de Castro surrounding a trio of shiny stainless-steel check-in kiosks. Next comes the lobby, its carved stone walls surrounding a sweep of black-and-white marble flooring, the stonework nodding to that of nearby churches. The standout here, however, is what really ties site to city: an oval enclave, a lounge within a lounge, with luxe rosewood paneling and a gilt ceiling, that’s an undisputed homage to the Pantheon. It all anchors a lively mishmash of furnishings, most of which are custom, as are many elements throughout. “We designed more than 200 pieces made by Italian companies,” Pinfold says.

Meyer Davis elevates hotel dining through design

Lively is an understatement for the hotel bar-lounge, a generous space Meyer Davis utterly transformed from bland to bellissimo with arches, moldings, and three heavily veined types of Italian marble for the floor, creating a setting evocative of ancient Rome. Large rectangular light fixtures with a Colosseum-like vibe cast an attractive glow on guests enjoying apertivo on ample curvaceous seating, upholstered in sunset orange, periwinkle blue, or an op art–esque peach/brown. It’s all amplified by surrounding mirrors, including Florence photographer Massimo Listri’s image of a classical statue-filled gallery mounted on mirror, a kind of Italian trompe l’oeil.

Come 8:00 p.m., all thoughts in Rome turn to dinner. At W, that’s at Giano, helmed by acclaimed chef Ciccio Sultano, who helped create yet another series of rooms. In addition to private dining, three rooms are arrayed in an enfilade with dining spaces on each side of a main axis. It’s a dense environment, buzzy with disco music reverberating off stone and brass surfaces as the evening progresses. Meanwhile, copious walnut millwork has niches inset with layers of backlit acrylic and glass behind blackened steel for a prismatic effect. Arguably most striking is the supreme approach to color. Chairs and banquettes are upholstered in deep green, cobalt, and terra-cotta mohair, settees in calming blush. “’Collage it up’ was our approach,” Davis notes.

Guest rooms reference Italy’s legends

Collage reaches its pinnacle in the guest quarters, which range from 215 square feet to 850 in the presidential suite. Each room feels unique. “We tried to do something that hasn’t been seen before,” Pinfold explains, “starting with the background color, a light gray leaning to blue.” References to Italy’s legends abound. Channeled leather headboards, for example, “are inspired by Carlo Scarpa,” she adds. Tables reference Memphis. Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni’s iconic Arco lamp illuminates the presidential suite. Seating on the terraces is covered in a pattern derived from an archival Hermès textile. The design was hand-painted, then printed on outdoor fabric—by a decades-old Roman fabricator, of course.

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meyer davis: stephanie schreiber

lombardini22: architect of record

lighting design collective: lighting consultant

extra ordinario; mobil project: custom furniture workshops

cc tapis: custom rugs (bar)

artemest: stool

cassina: armchairs (lobby), cocktail table (presidential suite)

giovannozzi: wall covering (lobby stair)

flos: lamp (presidential suite)

Tuuci: umbrellas (pool)

silhouette outdoor: custom chairs, custom tables (pool), custom sectional (terrace)

arte 2000: custom fountain (courtyard)

contardi: sconces (suite bathroom), lanterns (terrace)

laufen: tubs (suites)

pictalab: custom mural (café)

Bert Frank: floor lamp (junior suite)

dooq: dining chairs (duplex)

grupo arca: custom vanity, custom floor tile (restroom)

italpoltrone: custom bench

ven global: custom lighting

loloey: custom rugs, custom carpet

class design: custom pillows, custom cushions, custom drapery

This Napoli Home by Giuliano Andrea dell’Uva Architetti is a Hidden Gem

Italy’s third largest city, Naples, is not exactly known as a locus of peace and quiet. “The city is certainly chaotic,” says architect Giuliano Andrea dell’Uva, who has lived most of his 41 years there. “Its charm also comes from managing to find the serene and calm in that chaos.” That is precisely what he accomplished with his redesign of a three-bedroom, four-bath flat in the upscale Posillipo quarter for art/design collectors Irene and Teodoro Falco and their teenage daughter and son.

In a twist of fate, the 3,400-square-foot apartment, located in a 1956 building by Davide Pacanowski, has roots in dell’Uva’s youth, when he first became acquainted with the work of the Polish-born architect, a student of Le Corbusier’s. “I lived in a stretch of the Posillipo hill and was fascinated by the sight of Villa Crespi, a bold project of rationalist architecture that Pacanowski designed in 1955,” he recalls. The cliffside residence, with cantilevered slabs wedged between ancient pine trees, “was, for me, a symbol of the direct relationship between architecture and sea.”

Alas, his clients’ flat, though retaining some historical elements like porthole windows, had been restored in the 1990s “to a more neoclassical taste that eradicated its original charm,” dell’Uva recounts. “I really tried to get it back.”

Doing so entailed reconfiguring the floor plan around sea views, so that the public areas and main bedroom face the Gulf of Naples. Dell’Uva forewent corridors and divisions in favor of making the space as open as possible. The entry leads to conjoined living and dining areas (the Falcos requested a statement salon in which to receive guests) separated from the eat-in kitchen by full-height brass-frame glass doors. To the left of the living area’s fireplace—a steel marvel designed by the French sculptor Robert Ascain in 1972—a curved wall subtly directs foot traffic to a row of sleeping quarters: first the main suite, followed by bedrooms for the kids, as well as their own youthful sitting room. The son gets a custom berth tucked into a space-age aluminum enclosure.

The gulf also inspired the color scheme: sparsely deployed yellows and blues (see the cipollino marble paving the entry and cladding the primary bath walls) against a background of sparkling white. The city’s world-class cultural scene also figures prominently in the form of the couple’s blue-chip art collection as well as covetable vintage furnishings from a cadre of specialist dealers. Elements by maestri of design invariably factor into any dell’Uva project. He grew up surrounded by the work of Gio Ponti, Franco Albini, and others, which instilled a love of design in him from an early age. “Even as a little boy I would draw houses and interiors,” he recalls. (Dell’Uva was certainly precocious: his first project, at the tender age of 17, was the renovation of a family home his architect great-grandfather had designed in 1924; and he launched his own studio at 23, shortly after graduating from the Università di Napoli Federico II.)

cc tapis: rug (living area)

la cividina: sofas

through galleria francesco: coffee table

tacchini: armchairs

rezina: resin floor

through dimore gallery: floor lamp

through robertaebasta: chimney breast (living area), chandelier (dining area)

Nilufar: custom table, chairs (dining area)

paola c.: glass centerpiece

through galleria massimo caiafa: leather armchair (son’s room)

cassina: chairs (kitchen)

abimis: island

B&B Italia: sofa (kids’ lounge)

through galleria rossella colombari: vintage ceiling light

alimonti milano: marble (bathroom)

Dornbracht: sink and shower fittings

galleria elena: tilework (primary bedroom)

Nilufar: sofa