Hospitality Design - July 2014 - 49

perspectives

sketchbook

diamond horseshoe
> "Being a part of a project that brings the
renowned Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe
back to life from the 1940s was a real honor,"
says Michael Suomi, principal and vice
president of design at Stonehill & Taylor, of
his firm's architecture and space planning
work on the experiential dinner theater venue
originally designed by Thomas Lamb in the
basement of New York's Paramount Hotel.
"We worked hard to pay proper respect to its
iconic past, while creating something unique
for today, in close collaboration with an
amazingly talented group."
That group included interior designer
Meg Sharpe and set designer Douglas Little.
"We rediscovered a space with an incredible
history that had largely been left in ruin
after its closing," explains Sharpe. "Due to
damage and current codes almost nothing
was salvageable. They [developer Aby Rosen,
producer Randy Weiner, nightlife impresario
Simon Hammerstein, and restaurant group
LDV Hospitality] really let us use our
imaginations to dream up the big overall
conceptual gesture."
To complement the current show, Queen
of the Night (an immersive, extravagant
blend of surreal circus, burlesque show, and
opulent food and drink), Sharpe and the
team imagined a story about an eccentric and
decadent marchesa who flees her creditors
in Italy "after throwing too many lavish
dinners, ballets, and theaters," she explains.
"She runs to New York, taking fragments of
her past life with her and stumbles across
this underground theater space in shambles.
She knows she can breathe life into the space
and starts with the main room, filling it up
with all her treasures. She then invites her
society guests to her avant-garde salons with
incredible food and performance for wild
evenings of debauchery."
Guests enter a space that seems like it is
still under construction, dilapidated with holes
in the walls, graffiti, and leftover construction
materials. As they descend a grand staircase,
the design slowly begins to build, as does
the music, until they reach the glamorous
theater. "We wanted the audience to discover
the space as we did and as our host would
have," explains Sharpe. Adds Little: "The
dilapidation in the design is what makes the

space wonderful and romantic. It is definitely
beautiful and refined, yet it has a ruined
feeling, which brings a sense of rock 'n' roll,
hedonism, and debauchery."
Little was responsible for the layers of
theatrical touches, as well as many of the
secret salons, to which only a select number
of guests are whisked off by actors throughout
the evening. His favorite: the queen's boudoir
and bathroom, which is covered in wax, from
the walls to the bed to the bathroom, and lit
and sculpted in Art Deco designs with sexual
undertones. "The idea there is to give it a feel
of a cavern or secret cave," he says.
As for the main theater, the design
"celebrates the use of curves instead of straight
lines, creating a sense of motion that harkens
back to the original oval shape, radiating from
the center," explains Suomi. "We created
the highly ornamental decorative ceiling
with domes, trim, and the fiber optic starry
sky. We overlaid elements, such as the raised
seating pods, the DJ booth, and other curved
pieces that break the classical mold. We find
this juxtaposition of forms to be vibrantly
unexpected and unique."

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