NEWH - Winter 2017 - 38

PROJECT | WATERMARK BATON ROUGE HOTEL

Bank on It
Eras mix in a charming renovation in Baton Rouge
By JoAnn Greco
Photography courtesy of Andrew Bordwin
With their graphic angles and interchangability, the letters "W"
and "M" are a designer's dream. When they happen to be the
initials both of the owner's name and the hotel, as is the case
with Watermark Baton Rouge Hotel by Marriott Autograph, they
present a positively irresistible opportunity. So, the team from
Gensler's Houston office incorporated the letters into everything
from the laser-cut brass screens that accent the reception desk
to the silver wallpaper behind the guestroom beds.
These clever custom elements are just a small part of the
conversion of a 1920s building-built for a bank and then later
housing state offices-into the 144-room boutique property.
Banking iconography, for instance, is everywhere, including on
guestroom doors, where laminated images of safe doors and
actual (nonworking) safe dials send a message that the guest is
valued. "It was a blessing to have so much history and content
to work with," says Douglas Detiveaux, associate and interior
designer.
Long a marker on the city's skyline, the Art Deco building
underwent an expansion and renovation in the 1950s, when the
government moved in. Detiveaux and his team used the best of
what was intact from both periods and turned to those assets
for inspiration. For example, both the name and the color palette

of the hotel's restaurant, Gregory, are inspired by a suite of
painted bas-relief murals that were added during the midcentury
renovation. Created by the acclaimed sculptor Angela Gregory,
they sport motifs related to state industries like oil and
sugarcane. Nearby, after the design team discovered the grand
marble staircase was largely intact, it went a step further to
reverse damage done during later years and replicated the eight
accompanying fluted columns that had been removed.
Throughout the rooms and public spaces, periods and
influences mix happily. Marble surfaces and gleaming metals
speak of Art Deco, but orange sofas and chairs, leather
headboards, and menswear prints recall the midcentury.
Meanwhile, chandeliers made of bike parts and exposed concrete
columns thrust the hotel firmly into modernity.
The hotel's cheeky art continues that mingling of eras. Hotel
guests are first greeted with a set of black-and-white lenticular
displays that feature personalities from various ages and aspects
of Louisiana's history. Elsewhere, they might encounter several
prints of the bank's founders that have been edited to include the
discreet accoutrements of today's technology, like smartphones
and ear buds. Says Detiveaux, "We were constantly thinking of
ways to represent the transformation from one era to the next."

Left: Housed in a converted
1920s building, formerly
a bank, Watermark Baton
Rouge incorporates banking
iconography into the design
where gleaming metals mix
with marble.
Opposite page: In rooms
and public spaces, influences
come together seamlessly,
from Art Deco-inspired
marble and metal finishes
to warm leather and
midcentury-inspired prints.
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