Boutique Design - Fall 2021 - 65

A MURAL BY LOCAL ARTI ST DELILAH STRUKEL GRACES THE EXTERIOR OF THE PEARL HOTEL IN SAN DIEGO, WITH PUBLIC SPACES BY ELECTRIC BOWERY
What led you to this place in your career? I started my career
in contemporary galleries but fell in love with hospitality and
the idea that hotels are a 360-degree, fully immersive art
experience for travelers. I decided to dive into hospitality by
working in restaurants and eventually, by getting my foot in the
hotel door as a server at Ace Hotel in New York. From there, I
climbed the hospitality ladder and worked in events, sales, and
guest experience for Ace, Sydell, Proper, and other boutique
brands. I've stayed boutique for my entire career and am thrilled
to be building Casetta Group to add to the beautiful landscape.
CAROLYN
SCHNEIDER
CO- FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT
CASE T TA GROUP
LOS ANGELES
What are you hoping to create for Casetta property guests?
Personalized experiences where the details matter. Our
properties are small enough that our team members can
really connect with our guests on a personal level and learn
about them. It's thrilling to see Casetta guests connect the
dots between our properties. Each hotel has a unique identity
based on the buildings' stories, but we have a Casetta thread
that runs through all of them: Our signature lifestyle amenities
and services and our philosophy of sustainability without
compromising style, quality, or experience. I'm excited by
those moments when a Pearl Hotel regular checks out Casa
Cody for the fi rst time and falls in love with the brand. I want
our guests to really feel that there were humans behind all of
the touchpoints and decisions at our properties-they really
are a labor of love.
Is smaller better? It's how I like to travel. It usually allows for a
more local experience and if you love design, it's inspiring to
see those small properties really shine.
Business inspiration? Casetta Group strives to be as
sustainable as possible. We've created meaningful partnerships
with PlantPaper, Ocean Bottle, and Plastic Bank to incorporate
these initiatives at the property level. We are working on
obtaining our B Corp Certifi cation, so my current business
inspirations are some of the established brands like Ben &
Jerry's and Patagonia who have made this mission an integral
part of their ethos. I also love the podcast How I Built This to
learn about other entrepreneurial stories.
Hospitality inspiration? Sort of an oddball answer, but I
always reference the " feeling " that director Luca Guadagnino
creates. His movies really capture the romantic, designforward,
sensory, textural experience that I hope to accomplish
with Casetta. One of my favorites of his is A Bigger Splash; the
setting, fashion, food, and visuals are aspirational but also very
approachable. I want our guests to feel truly on vacation, out
of offi ce, and immersed in these little worlds we're creating.
From an operations perspective, I respect the Hillstone Group's
training model and dedication to excellent service.
How does design factor into your properties? Design is
a huge factor. There are still tons of roadside motels and
small boutique properties out there where design is an
afterthought. I believe that if you are looking at all of the
details and creating an experience, it truly takes as much work
to create a beautiful 23-room hotel as it does to create a 300room
hotel. The dedication, time, visioning, and deliverables
are the same. We work closely with our design team to create
the vision and our operations teams to execute it.
What makes a property or location a good fi t for your portfolio?
We are looking for a combination of history, an architecturally
interesting building that maybe needs some love but has lots of
potential, as well as an exciting location and community.
We like our properties to have an outdoor element to them.
We also make sure that our locations are places we would
personally like to visit and frequent often, which makes
work enjoyable!
What's ahead for Casetta? We are opening guestrooms at
Marina Riviera in Big Bear, California at the end of 2021. Next
up: Hotel Willa in Taos, New Mexico and our property in Los
Angeles' Silver Lake neighborhood, which is a church built in
1931 that we are converting into a hotel and restaurant.
Personal bucket list? Get me to the Met Gala. I'd also love to
perfect my Spanish skills. BD
BOU T I QUE DE S I GN . COM
65
JOSH CHO PHOTOGRAPHY AND GINA SHELDON

http://BOUTIQUEDESIGN.COM

Boutique Design - Fall 2021

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