Carbone Interior Design Balances Art Deco and Modernist Influences at This Hotel in Zurich

Since 1935, the Neues Schloss Privat Hotel Zurich has charmed guests with its rational-yet-rounded façade, an expert blend of Art Deco and Modernism. Today, thanks to a rethink by the city’s Carbone Interior Design, the interiors live up to the building’s motto: “A place that brings together what usually doesn’t combine.”

A member of the Marriott Autograph Collection, the 57-key hotel mixes a jewel-tone palette of velvety textures with walls in natural plaster. Rooms contrast shadow—bathroom walls in deep purple, dark oak details—and natural light. Public areas and a meeting room take advantage of similar contradictions, finding unexpected balances of curvy furnishings and the clean lines of linear light fixtures. And the new restaurant, Castellan’s, ties it all together, serving Mediterranean cuisine among banquettes that lap the walls like waves, just steps from Lake Zurich itself. 

10 Questions With… Ralph Giannone and Pina Petricone

Interior Design: How did two architects end up designing some of the Toronto’s hippest restaurant interiors? 

Pina Petricone: Eugene Barone [the owner of Bar Italia, which Ralph often frequented] asked us to do his restaurant. We had just established our own studio. Bar Italia was an institution. But the landlord was raising Eugene’s rent, so he moved next door. At that time, neither of us had designed any hospitality or done any pure interiors before. We poured everything we had into that first project in 1995 and we fell in love with doing restaurants. It is so much faster than the institutional architecture both of us were doing. We got to test new ideas. And since we were already Bar Italia patrons, it was a perfect fit. Bar Italia was a mecca for ad agencies and the creative sector. We ended up getting referral work from them.

ID: And your decades-long relationship with Terroni founder Cosimo Mammoliti?

PP: Ralph and Cosimo are very close friends. He initially asked Ralph to help him get some permits. Then we ended up doing our first Terroni on Adelaide at the same time we designed the Los Angeles one. 

Ralph Giannone: Terroni epitomizes Toronto. It’s joyous chaos. We create backdrops for theatrical dining experiences. Terroni parallels what we do with our urban design projects. Toronto, too, is an on-going experiment. 

ID: Explain how STOCK T.C evolved out of Terroni and Cumbrae’s? 

RG: Cumbrae’s is a third generation butcher big on zero waste. We designed its shop with a meat fridge fronting Bayview Avenue. That was also about theatre—and materials. How do we layer the glass to prevent condensation so people can see exactly the cut of meat they are buying?

PP: STOCK T.C is not a Terroni and not a Cumbrae’s—it is an offspring that became its own being. We had to abide by Ontario Heritage Act regulations and worked with heritage conservationists ERA Architects to get everything right. For example, we could not disturb the original façade and the glass pavilion we added to the roof of the original post office building could not be visible from the street. So we set it back and we ended up with a popular wrap around patio.

RG: The original coffered ceiling had all but disappeared. Our lighting design was a response to those missing coffers.

PP: We unleashed those coffers on the floor patterns as well. They are meant as ghosts of what was originally there. We used a layered approach for the architectural interiors to pull our intervention away from the host building, underscoring the legibility of where the historic building starts and stops.

ID: And The Royal Hotel in Picton?

PP: For heritage projects, it is about how to leverage the juicy bits to bring the entire building into its next life. It’s about layering a city with different eras and times, to build a living museum that cannot be replicated anywhere else. Our biggest challenge for heritage projects is scale. The Royal was formerly a Victorian mercantile building. Its bones are more domestic than what we expect in hotels today. 

RG: Both The Royal and STOCK T.C are significant enough buildings that they should be incorporated into the urban fabric. Sometimes the new and the old programs don’t mesh. We often design heritage projects thinking whether a lay person will understand what we are trying to do. It’s a constant calibration.

ID: Now that we are emerging on the other side of the pandemic, what are your thoughts about food and the future of hospitality?

RG: The pandemic has really altered our communal experience towards food. It’s an on-going question—what will happen next? We see food retail and consumption happening more and more in the same space, like at STOCK T.C. It lets consumers be more connected to what they eat in a more intimate space.

PP: We see retail creeping into hospitality spaces. It is written into programs from the beginning, such as at Sud Forno on Temperance, which we designed for Terroni’s. And we are gaining confidence with designing them since we get involved at the concept stage.

ID: Ralph, how did you end up owning a hotel in Italy?

RG: My parents are from the same town in southern Italy. My father’s entire family is still there. When we used to visit, there was no place to stay. We found a fortified estate with turrets to guard against invaders. My brother and I purchased and renovated it along with my dad, who was a builder. It took four years to get it up and running. It’s a gentle invasion of a heritage property that tourists can easily understand. And, as Canadians, we had to have a fire pit to roast s’mores.

PP: We changed it to a white exterior to be more consistent with the area’s hill towns. We also carved out a swimming pool.

ID: After so many hospitality projects, do you consider yourselves hospitality specialists?

PP: We see ourselves as architects that work at the extremities of the profession. It is not about typologies. 

RG: We see ourselves as custom tailors. We do bespoke projects and we are personally interested in the final product. 

ID: Pina, why teach architecture at The University of Toronto?

PP: I loved school and went back for my master’s degree at Princeton when Ralph was working at Teeple. Then, when we started our studio, we knew that we needed a steady source of income before we got enough clients to sustain the business. I was offered a chance to teach at our undergrad alma mater. I fell in love with teaching and have been teaching at University of Toronto ever since. At the moment, my teaching commitment takes up about 50% of my time. With our house project near the escarpment, my teaching duties at the Daniels Building and our studio here, my entire life revolves around Spadina Avenue! 

ID: You are finishing your house this fall, right?

PP: Yes, finally! We bought the house back in 2003 and were all set to renovate when I found myself pregnant with Luca, our youngest. We then put our plans on hold and began working on it again several years ago. We wrapped the exterior with copper to pull and push spaces, sliding them from back to front. It looks like an orange peel that allows us to pull away from our neighbors, too. We should be finished by October.

RG: It was tough during COVID. We were so busy. We had no time to work on it. 

PP: A by-product of COVID is that our older sons, Gianlorenzo and Massimo, became part of the project. Both are studying architecture at UofT—Gianlorenzo is doing his master and Massimo is an undergrad. During COVID, with everyone stuck at home, Gianlorenzo worked on the house doing construction, renderings and millwork. He learned so much. The entire experience brought us closer.

RG: Gianlorenzo was our site super! Massimo helped, too. They are passionate about the project.

ID: Your thoughts about Gianlorenzo and Massimo also being architects?

RG: When each told us that he wanted to study architecture, I was not happy. Are they crazy? Can’t they see that all their parents do is work? I told them to get a management or law degree instead. But then I have to admit that there is nothing better to study than architecture—we both loved it. We are on this path because of it. We don’t know if they will actually be architects. It will be interesting to see what they do with their degrees.

PP: Every parent wants her kid’s life to be easier. Our sons are smart and talented. We support whatever they want to do.

Dutch East Design and Becker + Becker Transform an Iconic Marcel Breuer Building into a Sustainable Hotel

In BLDG, a quartz-topped bar with wood accents is topped by a perforated canopy powder-coated bronze—subtle shades of the feeling of suspension in the overall structure. Some of the housing for overhead lighting was reclaimed from the original building site and used there, too. “It’s a fun, little detail that ties into the history,” Oberlin says.

In the rooms, headboards are covered in toffee-colored vinyl. The custom metal-framed desks with painted-glass tops all get a Breuer Cesca chair, to hit the heritage note soundly. But Anni Albers–designed patterns in grays and blues introduce a burst of vim. Like Breuer, the pioneering textile artist was once a Bauhaus teacher, and later lived near New Haven with her Yale University professor husband and artist Josef. “Anni was an inspiration for all the art,” says Moravek of the rooms’ wall hangings by Brooklyn-based Cory Siegler and other pieces in the hotel, which are predominantly by female makers and curated by Becker’s wife, artist Kraemer Sims Becker.

That forward spin on the past epitomizes the Dutch East approach. “We weren’t looking to create a museum to Breuer,” Oberlin says. “It was to create a new typology in the original design that was unexpected.”

Moinard Bétaille Polishes Up the Hotel Cala di Volpe in Sardinia

“The fantasy was to offer the most prestigious guests on the planet a chance to go barefoot and live a simple life in nature,” Bétaille recalls. Couëlle’s late son, self-described “gypsy architect” Savin Couëlle, built a new wing of guest rooms with the same glam-Flintstones vibe during the region’s ’70’s celebrity heyday. But even as competitors raised the bar for luxury globally, Cala di Volpe’s standards and maintenance lagged. “Step-by-step modifications had destroyed the original spirit of the hotel,” Moinard adds. Air-conditioning was noisy and poorly integrated, and minibars were “just a fridge in the middle of the room.” Bétaille remembers the old guest rooms as “quite square,” with tile bathrooms she found “super strict and rigid.” The two won the chance to renovate the 122-room property in
a design competition. Following careful study, the firm tackled three prototype rooms in an initial phase, presenting them for approval from the management and treasured repeat guests.

What has become a six-year transformation enters its final phase this winter when the hotel will refresh the final dozen rooms after closing for the season. Taken together, the inter­ventions extend the lessons of Couëlle’s sculptural interiors. The redesign loosens up the guest rooms with new radiused stonework, handmade plaster arches, and room dividers composed from kaleidoscopic glass chunks placed by Bétaille personally. New clear-glass shower doors are cut with a curve, limestone floor slabs from a local source have been placed in an eccentric pattern inspired by flagstone versions the interior architects spotted in period snaps of Couëlle houses, and beds have been oriented toward the sea view (previously they had faced wall-mounted TVs). Each monumental headboard is plastered individually in-place, threaded with LEDs and accented using locally woven baskets hung as wall art. Topsy-turvy canopies are composed of juniper branches laced with reeds like a rustic Sardinian hut. “There’s no duplication,”
Moinard notes. “Come back to stay in another room, and you will find it to be in the same spirit but never exactly the same.”

The lobby also needed taller wooden stools once the bar was elevated, for better visual access to the seascape out the window. Local craftsmen who extended the artisanal patterned copper-and-stucco bar skirt created a completely new check-in desk using the same materials. Quite frankly, they could not have done it better.

Studio Salaris: Art consultant

bonacina through cala: custom chairs (lobby)

Thomas Juul-Hansen Designs a ‘Boatel’ on Long Island’s North Fork

The North Fork of Long Island, known for its picturesque vineyards and beaches, beckons out-of-towners to stay awhile. Though the area has its share of hotels, a new waterfront locale offers something a bit extra—boat slips. The Shoals, designed by Thomas Juul-Hansen and playfully called a “boatel,” is accessible by land and sea, featuring 20 suites and the same number of boat slips.

“The idea of a ‘boatel’ came from the property’s history as the former fish market for the area, as well as its proximity to the Peconic Bay,” shares Juul-Hansen. Paying homage to the local aesthetic, ceder shingles line the exterior of the two-floor building that offers guests sweeping views of the bay and marina, complete with a private dock and outdoor shower. A vintage Chris-Craft charter boat even serves as a shuttle for nearby restaurants and private beaches. Indigenous plants create scenic pathways for guests to explore thanks to landscape designer, Paul Keyes.

In another nod to its surrounding, the Shoals also partnered with the Little Ram Oyster Company on an oyster program that will be operated out of a renovated waterfront building on the property, creating a haven for locals and visitors alike.

A Nearby Quarry Informs the Interiors of This Hotel in China by Cheng Chung Design

2022 Best of Year Winner for Large Resort

Industrial progress can leave deep scars across our landscapes, some of which take a long time to heal. At Tangshan Mountain, once a misty paradise of vegetation and wildlife close to the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing, near Shanghai, mining for ores deep into the hillside destroyed the local ecology and resulted in a man-made chasm devoid of life. Abandoned for a century, the quarry has recently been revitalized in an unexpected way: through the creation of the Banyan Tree Nanjing Garden Expo, a luxury hotel with interiors by Cheng Chung Design.

Constructing the Banyan Tree required a major undertaking by the hospitality specialist, which made ecological restoration its priority. “The exploitation and destruction by people have stripped the vege­tation, changed the geography, eroded the soil, and damaged the landscape, turning Tangshan into devastated industrial ruins,” CCD founder Joe Cheng says of this area of the Jiangsu province known for its hot springs. “It became imperative to beautify and restore the site to enable the symbiosis of human and nature.”

Although contemporary in appearance, with pale stone cladding and glass walls, the five-story building is shaped as if it has been carved out of the mountainside—the work of China Architecture Design & Research Group. Stepping down from the access road, its light-toned tiers follow the hewn contours of the quarry, with 115 guest rooms stretching out from the main public areas like roots clinging to the sheer rock face. Topped with landscaped gardens, these accommodation bands begin a series of planted terraces that descend all the way down to the valley floor, where they connect to paths and bridges across newly restored parkland.

In such a unique setting, CCD endeavored to ensure that the over 375,000 square feet of hotel interiors feel appropriate for the location, so the firm drew multiple references from nature when considering the materials and spatial qualities. Rough textures, cavernous hollows, striated surfaces, and interplays of light and dark all add to an atmosphere that is simultaneously primordial and modern. “We deconstructed and reshaped various elements such as light, stone, forest, and rain on the abandoned limestone quarry,” Cheng says. “In this way, a new mysterious wonderland is created in the valley.”

One approach to harmonizing the interiors with the context involved physically bringing in organic elements directly from the surroundings. CCD transferred stones of all sizes from the quarry into the hotel, placing large blocks within pools of water as sculptures, while inserting smaller chunks into gaps in the walls, or piling them into steel cages to form gabions. “The rocks, eroded by winds and rain, show the traces of nature and enable the interiors to fully blend with it,” Cheng continues. “The rocks also echo the spirit of the site, carrying its memories.”

With rebirth as a guiding theme for the project, the concept of “breaking through” appears in reception, where counters are housed within an enclosure formed from a spheroid metal framework. This is shrouded with angled petals of walnut and glowing translucent shells to form what Cheng describes as a “deconstructed” cocoon. “It resembles metamorphosis and a pair of open arms,” he notes, “giving a homelike sense of belonging.”

Walking through the bar is intended to evoke the experience of wan­d­ering a mountain trail. Directly facing the quarry’s rocky escarpments, this space is curved and cut to mimic the depth and variations visible beyond the expanse of the structure’s double-height glazing. An imposing cliff of mosaiced carved-walnut panels undulates behind the sculptural bar, exaggerating the sense of awe felt when traversing a steep canyon. Luckily, this one requires no physical exertion to appreciate, instead serving cocktails and offering streamlined lounge seating from which guests can enjoy the sunset. “It’s full of poetry, presenting a coexisting relationship with the outdoor environment,” Cheng says.

The color palette in the guest rooms was also lifted directly from the views of the exposed rock faces outside. Dusky shades of black, brown, and gray create a moody yet tranquil ambiance, while hints of retro green represent “the vitality of new life, a fusion with nature,” Cheng says. Every room is equipped with a thermal bath, for unwinding and contemplating the connection with the scenery outside. “Visitors experience a lyrical atmosphere.” Adding to that is the Banyan Tree’s spa, a cloistered subterranean center that includes a skylit pool and a geothermal wellspring.

Ultimately, CCD strived to “use the power of design to bring economic and cultural value to this area again,” and it succeeded. The completion of the hotel has had a regenerative and healing effect on the quarry and the wider region, marking the return of both visitors and wildlife. Tangshan Mountain is once again recognized and celebrated as a place of beauty, where human impact on the landscape no longer feels jarring or imposed, but more harmonious and symbiotic. The physical scar remains, but the healing has begun.

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gold mantis construction decoration: general contractor

häfele: metal plating (restaurant)

zu: dining chairs (restaurant), sofa (bar)

cherry: lounge chair (bar)

dajiang culture: custom reception desk (restaurant)

Gessi: sink fittings (bathroom)

aliseo: mirror

For the Ace Hotel Sydney, Flack Studio Creates an Authentic Australian Experience

Founded in 1999, the Ace Hotel Group has claimed an enviable slice of the hospitality pie with a chain of high-profile luxury boutique properties aimed at a creative clientele. Since opening its first location—a renovated former Salvation Army halfway house in Seattle—the brand has specialized in transforming rescued buildings of some urban significance into state-of-the-art facilities. The group currently comprises nine hotels, including the latest, which opened in May in Sydney.

The interior of the new property was designed by Flack Studio, a small firm based in Melbourne, best known for residential and retail spaces. Surprisingly, the studio had never worked on a hotel before. “The scale of the job was more than we were used to,” founder and principal David Flack acknowledges. “But I was confident that we could do it. There aren’t many hotel companies that I would want to work for, but Ace is clearly one of them.”

Flack joined the renovation project early on. Bates Smart, one of Australia’s oldest architectural firms, was responsible for gutting the Tyne Building, a 10-story brick structure dating to the early 20th century in the city’s Surry Hills suburb. The architects incorporated the exterior masonry walls into an 18-story, glass-and-steel tower that now houses 257 guest rooms and suites, but “there really wasn’t anything much to salvage of the interior,” Flack observes.

Although the Tyne was not officially landmarked, the designer wanted to pay homage not only to the building but also the fascinating history of the neighborhood where, in 1788, the recently arrived British discovered a deposit of pottery clay and built Australia’s first kiln. Within 40 years, Jonathan Leak, a transported convict, established his own pottery works there and was soon cranking out bricks, tiles, bottles, and domestic earthenware. In 1916, Leak’s factory was razed to be replaced by the Tyne Building—originally a pharmaceutical warehouse, later a garment workshop, and then a school for underprivileged kids. Over the years, Surry Hills was home to Chinese immigrants in the gold rush era, dangerous razor gangs in the 1920’s, bootleggers in the ’30’s, boho artists in the ’60’s, and a burgeoning LGBTQ population in the ’70’s, who established the renowned annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Flack wanted to reference all of it.

Early on, he decided that he would stick to straightforward industrial materials used in both traditional and innovative ways. These include the existing brick, along with board-formed concrete, terrazzo and oak flooring, solid woods and veneers, and a variety of metals. There is also stone, such as honed Rosso Francia marble from Italy for the main staircase. Acoustic ceiling panels are used to line guest-room walls—not so much for soundproofing purposes (even though rooms are equipped with turntables, a selection of vinyl records, and, yes, guitars) as for aesthetic reasons: “It’s a rudimentary material, not fancy,” Flack explains, “but it has a beautiful depth and texture to it.”

As for the color palette, Flack chose a singular combination of earthy tans and ochres, burnt oranges, a variety of greens, and, most surprisingly, purple. The inspiration came from the landscape paintings of Albert Namatjira, one of the country’s best-known 20th-century artists of indigenous ancestry. Both Flack and Mark Robinson, his partner in work and life, collect modern art, which plays a large part in the design. Commissioned pieces in many forms by a diverse group of living Australian artists populate the property. The front desk, for example, comprises a multihued patchwork of variously sized ceramic bricks—a gobsmacking installation by James Lemon. “I’m not afraid of using color,” Flack happily concedes.

The furnishings are a mix of vintage pieces—both anonymous and pedigreed—and custom designs. The lobby lounge features Paul Frankl–style mid-century rattan swivel chairs surrounded by bespoke banquettes upholstered in heavily ruched leather. “I do that with leather a lot,” the designer notes. “I think it makes the seating look more inviting.” The lobby restaurant booths, upholstered in similar fashion, are joined by Mart Stam’s classic 1931 tubular-steel chairs, now manufactured by Thonet, their cantilever frames painted fire-engine red. Guest rooms and suites are equally eclectic, with Mario Bellini’s iconic 1977 leather Cab chairs pulling up to Charles and Ray Eames’s round oak-top tables in some of them. Most of the hotel’s striking light fixtures, which include columnlike sconces of aged-finish perforated brass, are custom Flack designs.

Staying “on brand” was a top concern for Flack. “Ace had rules,” he reports. “But they also allowed that rules were made to be broken.” He eventually determined that the chain’s trademark was not so much a look as a feeling. “An Ace hotel wants to engage people on an aesthetic and social level, to encourage them to congregate and interact with others, both guests and locals,” he concludes. “I wanted this hotel to be an authentic Australian experience without losing the slightly renegade history of the neighborhood. In my view, Australia’s greatest strength is our diversity.”

Flack Studio: Mark Robinson

bates smart: architect of record

plant charmer: landscaping consultants

studio ongarato: custom graphics

electrolight: lighting consultant

marques interiors: custom furniture workshop

signorino: stonework

corsi & nicolai: flooring (reception)

akari: lamp (reception), pendant fixtures (lounge, restaurant)

alustain: stair railings (reception, pre-event)

rms traders: wallcovering (reception, library)

dcw editions: sconce (lounge)

flos: ceiling fixtures

nsw leather co.: banquette upholstery

through casser maison: armchairs (pre-event)

ramler: table (meeting room)

westbury textiles: curtain fabric (meeting room, restaurant)

living edge: side chairs (meeting room, conference room)

thonet: chairs (restaurant)

woodstock resources: flooring (restaurant, library)

house of bamboo: wallcovering (library)

warwick textiles: curtain fabric (guest rooms)

stansborough: custom blankets

parisi: tubs, tub fittings (bathrooms)

reece: sinks

mark tuckey: custom stools

artedomus: terra-cotta floor tile (bathroom)

electrolight: custom lighting

halcyon lake: carpeting

terrazzo australian marble: floor tile

classic ceramics; tiento: bathroom wall tile

knauf: acoustic paneling

bishop master finishes: cement render

Kvadrat Maharam: upholstery fabric

instyle: upholstery leather

dulux: paint

Linda Boronkay and Alan Mc Mahon Bring a Taste of The Cotswolds Down Under

Despite its relative proximity to the bustling metropolis of Sydney, the Southern Highlands of Australia conjures the ambiance of the English countryside, with its rolling hills and charming villages. Here, nestled between the idyllic village of Bundanoon and Morton National Park, sits Osborn House: a decadent 19th century estate, former fitness center, and one of Australia’s most beguiling new hotels. 

London-based designer Linda Boronkay partnered with Sydney-based interior architect Alan Mc Mahon of Mac Design Studio to restore the heritage-listed property, built in 1892 by homeowners George and Dinah Osborn as a guest house for city-dwelling friends on holiday. The three-story, 27,000-square-foot manor sits upon 8.5 acres of undulated gardens surrounded by a forest of radiata pines, complete with a lap pool, spa, and bushwalking trails. 

“The space really emulates a countryside escape,” says Boronkay. The former Soho House design director and world-renowned posh tastemaker approached this project through an emotive, cinematic lens, working with Mc Mahon to honor the manor’s historic legacy, while creating something comfortable and authentic.

“The brief was to create a whimsical retreat,” says Mc Mahon, “A slice of Europe in the Southern Highlands.” To manifest this vision, the designers painstakingly restored as much of the original architectural detail as possible, refurbishing interior walls and doorways to their Victorian-era grandeur. A double-facing fireplace, discovered during renovations, is now a stunning focal point between the hotel’s reception area and library.

“We wanted the interiors to be an eccentric interpretation of the building’s past,” says Boronkay, who envisioned a highly residential vibe, complete with tactile fabrics, patterns, and eye-catching color combinations. Indeed, the hotel’s glorious gallimaufry of vintage and contemporary pieces, sourced from European flea markets and Australian artisans, evokes an eclectic, sensorial environment. Osborn House’s harmonic interiors transport guests to another world—a world that feels like home. 

The 22-room luxury hotel does not skimp on details. Bespoke, ornate lights and regal furnishings harken to the estate’s early days, while lively linens and rattan chairs add modern elements to the tableau. Neutral Moroccan rugs anchor quirky wallpaper reminiscent of botanical graffiti in the guest rooms, and a vintage chandelier sourced from Amsterdam highlights custom, Venetian light fixtures in the formal dining room. 

As the project took place during the pandemic, Boronkay was unable to visit antiques shops firsthand, as she normally would for a hospitality design endeavor. Remarkably, the design team relied on WhatsApp to connect with merchants, curating a lovely collection of vintage pieces without leaving their home base.

While imbuing the estate with English charm, Boronkay embraced its Australian setting, using a soothing palette of green and blue hues to blur the line between the interior and exterior façade. The verdant tones articulated in the Osborn House design language throughout thematically distinct spaces. 

Capitalizing on the property’s indoor-outdoor aesthetic, the designers punctuated the sprawling grounds with seven private cabins, each with a sleek yet warm interior palette of limewashed joinery, furnishings swathed in burnt orange fabrics and light blue accents. The details are thoroughly planned and executed, down to the bathrooms. The suites have sculptural, marble vanities and Carrera marble tile flooring, while the cabin bathrooms feature bright tiles and concrete vanities, in keeping with the rustic vibe.

As Boronkay explains, “The combination of reclaimed materials paired with rich and tactile fabrics, curated objects from around Europe and personal touches in the different spaces will make you feel like you are being embraced by an interesting individual.”

10 Questions With… Tiffany Howell

Interior Design: Wow, Herb Ritts. How did you meet him and what kind of work did you do?

Tiffany Howell: A friend of a friend introduced me to Billy Hayden, Herb’s partner, and we hit it off. I started at Ritts/Hayden as an assistant and worked my way up to executive producer while being mentored by Billy. I had over 10 directors I was responsible for including Mike Figgis, Herb, and the Douglas Brothers. I opened a music video division and eventually left to start my own production company.

ID: How did you embark on learning about the profession of design?

TH:  My mentors were never in interior design. I taught myself everything I know just by getting out there and doing it. My journey was knowing that I didn’t want to do anything else but this. I live and breathe design. 

ID: What is the scope of your work? How did you obtain early commissions?

TH: We do both commercial and residential, but most of our projects are high-end residential. I got everything by word of mouth. I did a few projects for some young actresses, and they referred me to their friends. The circle kept getting bigger and bigger. 

ID: Though projects are different, is there a common thread running through them?

TH: A common thread is our use of European vintage with an emphasis on Italian ‘70’s and French ‘60’s design. We love using lush colors and textures. We’re very drawn to sculptural and artful shapes so we find ourselves fabricating more and more pieces. I believe all our projects should not only tell the story of our design, but of our clients as well. 

ID: Gold-Diggers, your Hollywood hotel is sui generis. Touring it, Interior Design discovered it to be literally and figuratively sexy (the site a one-time strip club), and rock-and-roll, aimed at a music-scene clientele along with the cool recording studio in a separate building at the rear. How did it happen? Tell us more about your vision.

TH: I met Dave Neupert, the owner, and he trusted me to bring the creative vision to life. The muse was the Hotel Chelsea in New York. I wanted to create a place where creatives could rub elbows and inspire each other. I gave each room its own personality since there are 11 rooms and typically 11 songs on an album. Each room received a song title. I wanted the hotel and bar to embody a bit of old Hollywood Rock n’ Roll grit meets beautiful boutique hotel. Nothing too precious. Leon Bridges recorded his album Gold-Diggers while living there. 

ID: How did the name Night Palm come about? 

TH: It came from a poem I wrote about living in Silver Lake. We’re drawn to romantic design, and our work is often inspired by fashion, music, and cinema. 

ID: What’s the studio like? 

TH: Our studio, in the Hancock Park area of Los Angeles, is in a historical French Art Deco building called Chateau Rossmore. We wanted to design it to feel more like a fun apartment than a traditional office space. 

ID: How did you keep active and what did you learn during the pandemic?

TH: Construction continued, and we worked the entire time during the pandemic. I did a few properties remotely, which was a challenge. I learned I am a visual and tactile person, touching, feeling, and seeing things in person. It was interesting to note the shift in clients during this time. Our clients were able to understand more about their spaces and their desires for them. 

ID: What would be your dream project?

TH: We want to have our Diane Lane in “Under the Tuscan Sun” moment, renovating an old villa and bringing the romance back to life in the Italian countryside. Throw in an Italian 1970’s-influenced discotheque, and we’d be in heaven. 

ID: If you hadn’t been a designer, dancer, model, you’d have been?

TH: I would’ve been a poet or a flower farmer with a peacock rescue. Basically “Grey Gardens.”  

A New Hospitality Landmark by Kelly Wearstler and Omgivning Emerges in Los Angeles

2022 Best of Year Winner for Domestic Hotel Transformation

The fourth in the quartet, the Downtown L.A. Proper is Kelly Wearstler’s most complex and layered hotel for the brand yet. “Since the 13-story building is historic, it was important to keep its integrity, its original and odd architectural details,” the acclaimed designer begins. That includes an existing basketball court on the sixth floor and an indoor pool on the seventh. (More on those later.) The interiors of the four-year project, a standout on the city’s gentrifying Broadway cor­ridor, are a multicultural visual feast, a mashup of everything Wearstler is known for and loves: color and pattern; vintage finds mixed with custom pieces; art, both sourced and commissioned; and tiles galore, some 100 different types. Equally rich is the structure’s backstory leading to its Historic-Cultural Monument designation.

Designed by Curlett & Beelman, the California Renaissance Revival building was completed in 1926 as the Commercial Club, a private Old Hollywood–style entity that counted Cecil B. DeMille among its members. In the ’40’s and ’50’s, it transitioned into a hotel, before becoming a 126-room YWCA in 1965. When Wearstler and collaborating architecture firm Omgivning took it on, it had been vacant for 10 years.

Omgivning is an L.A. firm specializing in adaptive reuse, its founder and principal Karin Liljegren naming the firm after the Swedish word that roughly translates to “the way a space feels,” she says. “Considering its immense scale, the Proper was a creative and space-planning challenge that utilized every square inch of the building,” Omgivning director of hospitality projects Morgan Sykes Jaybush states. “Even with the massiveness of the project, we took special care with the details, salvaging as many original pieces as possible, from brass door hardware with Commercial Club initials to ornate Babylonian-style plaster corbels.”

For Wearstler, initial inspiration came from another landmark, the Herald Examiner building across the street, built by architect Julia Morgan for William Randolph Hearst in 1913. “I was looking out the window and seeing the iconic structure, with its tile motifs at the top,” she recalls. “The Proper Hospitality brand is about being fiercely local.” But she went farther afield, too. The bas-relief on the Curlett & Beelman facade shows Spanish, Mexican, and Native American references. All these influences, interpreted with poetic license, now pervade the 115,000- square-foot interior of the Downtown L.A. Proper.

They are visible right at the entry. Wearstler commissioned two area artists to make it a showstopping setting. Painter Abel Macias, whose playful and bold color aesthetic draws upon his Mexican heritage, spent nearly two months on scaffolding covering the walls and the vaulted ceiling with his fantastical mural of flora and fauna, heavy on ocher and dusty-rose tones that Wearstler would adopt as the hotel’s pervasive signature colors. One section of the installation is anchored by a mysterious ebony form: It’s the reception desk fashioned from textured clay tiles by ceramicist Morgan Peck. Elsewhere in the lobby is original millwork restored by Omgivning, furniture by Wearstler’s studio, and various vintage pieces, including a circa 1930’s artwork with what the designer calls a “Cubist-Frida Kahlo feeling.”

Caldo Verde, the adjacent restaurant, further beckons visitors. It’s accessed through a stained-glass partition by another L.A. artisan, Judson Studios. Once inside, there is the focal bar, which Wearstler and Omgivning conceived “to be like its own little building,” framed in ribbed oak and tile, along with Mexican modernist, Moorish, and Portuguese design notes, to reflect the cuisine by James Beard Award–winning chef Suzanne Goin, who with restaurateur Caroline Styne are stars of the city’s culinary landscape and oversee the project’s F+B program. “While the hotel’s design was inspired by the community, it is also very much for the community, for those familiar with the city and this wonderfully talented pair,” Wearstler says of her first-time collaborators.

Guest rooms now number 147, 10 of which are suites. That includes the Proper Pool suite, a 2,800-square-foot extravaganza Wearstler and Omgivning built around the aforementioned indoor pool, now smack in the middle of the living room and overlooked by a ceramic mural composed of abstracted tire treads and cacti—“vernaculars of commuting in Los Angeles,” is how local sculptor Ben Medansky describes his installation. “As soon as we discovered that the YWCA’s pool originally shared a floor plate with the guest rooms, we knew it would be a great to transform it into one large suite, allowing for an unforgettable experience,” Wearstler notes.

The same goes for the Proper Basketball Court suite, a 1,400-square-foot space with an 18-foot ceiling that had contained the YWCA’s basketball court. “I saw the ceiling height as an opportunity to create an impactful moment,” Wearstler explains. Walls finished in a limewash-like textured paint are divided into super-size blocks of charcoal, ecru, moss, and smoky blue that simultaneously emphasize the soaring ceiling and temper its scale. Contrasting patterns in the furniture also contribute to the suite’s intimate feel.

As for the rest, each accommodation is quasi unique, adorned with vintage accessories, paintings, and an organic color palette, “warm tones honoring the building’s rich history,” Wearstler says. In gallery-esque fashion, the art, much of which she sourced from Europe and Mexico as well as such domestic locales as Round Top in Texas, hangs not only on guest-room walls but also in corridors, making them, too, places to pause and delight the eye. Rugs have Turkish and Moroccan roots—either aged or made to appear so. Textiles are specially developed, and many furnishings are Wearstler’s own design.

The Proper rooftop, a split-level urban oasis, is arrayed with vignettes. The firepit is one primal gathering post, the raised pool another, and Cara Cara, for all-day bites and cocktails, yet another. A virtual forest of succulents and greenery articulates semiprivate areas, almost like rooms. Come for sunlight, stay for sunset, carry-on through evening, all the while taking in the panoramic cityscape. L.A.—and its creative set—never looked so good.

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Omgivning: Jonathan Giffin; Dominic Sosinski; Brad Mallette; Alex Prictoe; Chris Asuncion; Yukie Takeshi; Pablo Patiño; Nikki Brown; Joel Chappo

Kelly Wearstler: Luke Kielion; Ryder Chanatry

historic consultants: preservation consultant

The Ruzika Company: lighting consultant

Studio-MLA: landscape architect

nabih youssef structural engineers: structural engineer

henderson engineers: mep

KPFF: civil engineer

wb powell: woodwork

kustanovich construction consultants: construction manager

Kelly Wearstler: credenza (lobby), sofa (court suite)

isa isa floral: flowers

judson studios: partition (restaurant)

PELLE: pendant fixture (lobby)

portola paints & glazes: textured paint (court suite)

lawson-fenning: round side table

Ethimo: chaise longues (roof)

jamal’s rug collection: vintage rugs

Dunn-Edwards Paints; Farrow & Ball: paint

inner gardens: plants