Three design-forward hotels commissioned by individual owners and small chains show why such players still loom large in the boutique sector. BORN AS REBELLION against the cookie-cutter 1 Oversized images of a tattooed lady add a sizzling visual touch to the guest rooms at the Lord Balfour hotel in Miami. MORIS MORENO hotels that had come to dominate the lodging industry, the 1984 opening of the Morgans in New York by Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell is widely credited with spawning a boutique boom. In the intervening years, the sector has both proliferated and morphed, especially with the entrance of bigbrand competitors launching their own boutique flags. But what has not changed is the essential, design-centric DNA that all boutique hotels share: an emphasis on style and originality. The following three hotel projects, by individual owners and small collections, take those traits in some startling new directions. SEPTEMBER 2013 boutiquedesign.com 43http://www.boutiquedesign.com