Hospitality Design - March/April 2017 - 74

perspectives

interview aparium hotel group
3+4. Housed inside a
century-old warehouse,
the Hewing Hotel in
Minneapolis by ESG
Architects features a
Scandinavian-inspired
rustic design, as seen
in Tullibee restaurant,
outfitted with exposed
timber, brick, and original
industrial elements, and
the wood-clad reception
area.

3
4

with respect to every project," he says. "Are
they willing to roll up their sleeves and dig into
the local market and sit with us so that we can
express how we think about the opportunity,
the asset, the market, the people, the culture?"
Serious collaborators take those tenets to heart
by doing the research, cultivating a design that
respects the original vision, and translating that
into a masterpiece.
Consider the Hewing. As a nod to the

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March/April 2017 hospitalitydesign.com

immigrants who once logged the area, the hotel is
crowned with a rooftop sauna where a butler-like
sauna master greets guests with a hot buttered
rum. They can "sit in the hot tub and enjoy the
beauty of the outside even when it's snowing,"
says Robinson. A seemingly straightforward
recreational amenity is, in fact, a celebration of
both the communal Scandinavian ritual and the
city's longtime all-seasons passion for outdoor
activities.

Local architects, mill workers, and
craftspeople like ceramicists who fashion lighting
fixtures all work hand in hand with designers.
Rather than having all the FF&E developed,
constructed, or manufactured outside the U.S.,
Aparium tries to stay local. But, says Robinson,
this can prove expensive, forcing them to balance
their budget through a different lens: "We end
up in a position where we know the product we
want, and then [everything] ends up costing us
more than what we originally expected."

Power of Three

Tricoci and Robinson enjoy an unusual sense
of freedom to make such decisions as they own
outright a handful of their hotels. They make
investments in others, structuring partnerships
with like-minded people to get involved with
projects in different ways, and then solely operate
the remaining properties in their portfolio.
Whatever their involvement, they usually like
to be involved in the concepting, branding, or
positioning of the hotel. For the recently restored
Pontchartrain Hotel in New Orleans, from
Chicago-based AJ Capital Partners, the set up
was a bit different as Aparium was brought
in a few months before opening solely for the
management, without any input. "They're saving
a historical asset. It's in a community that we love
and it's in line with everything that is important
to us," says Tricoci. Knowing and respecting
AJ Capital for quite some time (they shared an
office at one point), he felt they would have done
something "very similar. So it actually meets
what we do very well."
And the duo isn't slowing down anytime
soon. Next on the boards are properties in
Tampa, Florida; Tempe, Arizona; Birmingham,
Michigan; and Des Moines, Iowa. "We're not
building something to jump out quickly," says
Robinson. "We're building something that we can
have control of and enjoy doing for the rest of
our lives." hd
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