by Bailey Shelton | photos by Eric Laignel and courtesy of Rottet Studio, STARCK, InterContinental, and Cidade Matarazzo Rosewood
THE PLAYBOOK TO GREAT HOSPITALITY DESIGN
Spencer Bailey has travelled all over the world, to some of the best hotels on offer. From Mexico City to the Scottish Highlands, from Japan to Colorado, and back home again to New York. Even after hundreds of hotel stays, more than 30 of which have been in the past few years, there are still spaces that stick with him.
“I just had the best sleep of my life at the Imperial Hotel in Kyoto that opened two weeks ago. I didn’t even know a bed could be that comfortable.” Bailey, owner and founder of media startup The Slowdown, has spent the better half of the past three years working with Phaidon and Leading Hotels of the World to assemble and edit a series of books on the hospitality spaces that are doing everything right and then some.
Leading Hotels of the World is a collection of hundreds of luxury hotels that meet certain white-glove criteria. Spencer Bailey’s work with Phaidon endeavors to tell the stories behind these properties, what makes them unique, the people that define the stay. Fittingly, the first of this series was called Design, the second, Culture. The third, Explore, comes out in June.
“This one is primarily focused on the activities one can do around these properties, the experiential and the well-being, so the spas, the swimming pools, the outdoor facilities, all the experiences and activities that these hotels provide.”
Of course, according to Bailey, all these elements feed into one another.
“There’s one hotel in the book that we featured called the Sonnenalp, in Vail [Colorado], where they have hiking trails that only guests of the hotel have exclusive access to. When you ask, ‘why would you stay at that hotel over, say, the four seasons?’ Well, there’s a personal touch, there’s a local touch. It’s very rooted in community.”
AN EYE TO THE WORLD ABROAD
The rule of the local touch rings true for major hospitality projects around the world. Referring to his hotel portfolio, famed industrial designer Philippe Starck says, “The hotels I create are like a movie of which I am the director. I imagine the coming and going of people, what they are going to experience, what they will feel.”
One of the best examples might be the Cidade Matarazzo Rosewood in São Paulo, Brazil, where greenery tries to escape the balconies of the industrial exterior. Inside, guitars adorn walls and shelves in every room, and an array of hide leather, natural wood, and patterned rugs build up a series of small sitting rooms encased in glass walls. In the restaurant, Starck opted for muralled ceilings, a motif he repeats in Paris’ BRACH. But the Rosewood was imagined as more than a luxury hotel. The retrofitted former Matarazzo Maternity is a multi-use structure meant to be a beating heart of the city.
Stores and entertainment venues have found their home in the tower, and materials used for the creative reuse of the property came from mainly Brazilian sources and were inspired by aspects of São Paulo culture. Local artists provided over 450 site-specific art pieces. Starck, creative director of the project, called it his “love letter to Brazil.”
For a domestic example, the Conrad Washington D.C. is a modern marvel in hospitality design. Swiss-based architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron approached the building’s design architecture as if it were a living organism, with dynamic geometric shapes defining the exterior and interior. The atrium is shaped with curving walls which stretch endlessly to the skylight above. Award-winning design firm Rottet Studio, based in Houston, elected to drape the multi-story atrium in a secondary mesh wall, which carries the natural light all the way down, defusing it in a calming glow. A massive, circular pendant serves as a sculptural centerpiece, breaking up the descent while playing off of the curves of the building’s architecture.
But some of the most astounding work in the Conrad is in its subtle features. Rottet Studio Managing Director Kyle Rottet says their goal for the space meant “mixing contemporary comforts with references to the colonial era.” The bar area is shaped to resemble the arsenal of Colonial Williamsburg. Wingback chairs with simplified silhouettes blend modern and traditional. Humble handcrafted wooden furniture sits alongside a piano and wrap-around windows in the penthouse suite.
WHAT LEADS HOSPITALITY DESIGN
Projects like the Conrad Washington D.C. are leading the portfolio that has helped Rottet Studios climb to the top of the hospitality design industry over the past ten years.
“The main force that separates Rottet Studio from other design firms is the fact that we don’t have any house style. We design uniquely to every single project. Other firms can say that they do, but Rottet Studio takes it to the next level by thoroughly researching the local history and microculture of the site, then we weave these findings into a storyline that is told through subtle design details, which create moments of surprise and intrigue, to ensure we create an overall experience that is inherently memorable.”
Rottet Studio prides themselves in spaces that build functionality and experience into every detail. Rottet says this has been a priority even from their earliest projects, where they planned every detail down to the tassel on the room key. As early as 2008, Rottet was designing custom furniture with incorporated power outlets to keep busy guests charged.
“Being able to work anywhere these days is super important to any hotel,” Rottet says. “Your lobby isn’t just a lobby anymore. It is also a living room and an office.”
Rottet says their process involves a detailed site visit, not only to the property itself but around the neighborhood, and journeys to popular nearby attractions. This gives them a feel for how guests will exist in the space. In Fort Worth, Rottet’s design of The Crescent Hotel was heavily inspired by the nearby Fort Worth Cultural District and its various museums. The members-only rooftop bar & club on The Crescent’s top floor shines in an eclectic collection of pieces from world travels and gold finishes that reflect the surrounding skyline. The space, dubbed Ralph’s, is named after the father of Mary Ralph Lowe, Texan philanthropist and CEO of Maralo, LLC.
Another example came from a project Rottet Studios completed in Bethesda, Maryland, where the hotel shared an open courtyard with neighboring corporate offices. This corridor began as dead space. Rottet turned the courtyard into a mixed-use green space with moving wall systems and an indoor-outdoor entertainment area.
“So that really helped activate the community and serve a big function, right? Drove a lot more money into the hotel and just created a great sense of community.”
For Spencer Bailey, when it comes to what makes a hotel truly great, Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger, who wrote the foreword of the first book in Bailey’s series, may have pinpointed the best answer. Goldberger contends that a well-designed hotel can make you feel at home while offering something that clearly indicates you’re somewhere else entirely.
“It’s almost like capturing that feeling of hominess while also offering a level of service and atmosphere that can’t compare, that could never exist at home. That combination is, I think, what makes a lot of these hotels so special,” Bailey says. He has this scrapbook of memorable experiences from these world-class properties, moments that could never be replicated from home. From The Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland, Bailey spent five days in what he describes as adult summer camp: paddle ball at the sport club, tennis on the outdoor courts, an afternoon at the spa, a falconry workshop, a private picnic at a nearby bothy next to Highland cattle, and drinks at the American Bar, which he described as the best cocktails and bar service he’s ever had.
“Where the best luxury hotels thrive is in that personal touch, the kind of quirky details and beautiful eccentricities that can happen when you have an independent property or a family run stay.”
THE CITY OF FIVE STARS
An unlikely destination is rising in the Midwest. The song of downtown Indianapolis this decade has been one of major investment properties, to the tune of over $3 billion in hospitality projects like the InterContinental Indianapolis and the new Ritz-Carlton set for completion by 2028, to name a few. Rottet Studios, in fact, is one of the partners contracted for the Signia by Hilton. This $710 million project, including an expansion of the Indiana Convention Center, will create 800 hotel rooms, enclosed skywalks, and rooftop entertainment for visitors.
“Our function there is focused on a lot of meeting space, a lot of entertainment space, large open restaurants, essentially anything that pulls activity off the street and brings it inward,” Rottet says.
If culture seems to be the number one for hospitality spaces, that culture isn’t limited to the destination itself. For Indianapolis, major events like the Indianapolis 500, the NCAA Championships, Gen Con, and national conferences have driven visitors to the downtown district. As a result, the city sees thousands pour in for weekends or weeks, all centered around specific events. The Crossroads of America, so named for Indiana’s bisecting highways, is alive and well in the ways people come and go.
As a result, the city sees thousands pour in for weekends or weeks, all centered around specific events. The Crossroads of America, so named for Indiana’s bisecting highways, is alive and well in the ways people come and go. As a result, Indianapolis hospitality is not designed around honeymooners or Monday-to-Friday business commuters. Instead, it’s designed to host thousands of cosplayers, or thousands of FFA students, or thousands of Taylor Swift fans. Rooms need to be ready for booking in blocks. There needs to be ample space for getting ready before a show or for a long day out on a conference floor. The dining and entertainment spaces need to be inviting for people who maybe met new friends or colleagues that morning.
If Indianapolis developers were to look to the world for advice in this next era of downtown development, they might heed the advice of Spencer Bailey, whose work has brought him up close and personal with the hotels that are defining global luxury.
“You can’t have a great hotel experience without being rooted deeply in the culture that surrounds the hotel. A hotel should not just be in a place. It should be of a place.”
A key example of top-tier design and service intersecting with culture for Bailey is The Okura Tokyo. Originally designed by Yoshiro Taniguchi in 1962, The Okura reopened in 2019 after a redesign from Taniguchi’s son, Yoshio.
“It’s this extraordinary story of architectural heritage,” says Bailey. “It really became like the definitive midcentury Tokyo hotel, and it was this masterpiece of modernism.”
Many elements of the now-reopened Okura are exact recreations of the original design, in homage to Yoshiro Taniguchi, and the things passed down from father to son.
“They were able to literally salvage the atmosphere and feeling of the place in a way that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I walked in,” says Bailey. “I had visited the old Okura before they tore it down to build the new one, and the sense of respect, the sense of time and care and tradition and ultimately, design, was so powerful.”
It’s hard to capture the element that Bailey describes, that Rottet, Taniguchi, and Starck imbue into their work. In the world of hospitality design, the truly memorable projects are the ones with lasting cultural significance. And culture cannot be bottled.
