Boutique Design - March 2017 - 24

KIMPTON HOTEL PALOMAR LOS ANGELES BEVERLY HILLS

ANDREA: What other restaurant rules need to be broken?
JON: One would be the proliferation of chef-driven restaurants. There's a place

for them, but not if you're focusing on the financials. Second, you have to find
a way to make unworkable spaces work. When you and I did the first Dirty
Habit at the Hotel Zelos in San Francisco, we were reconcepting existing space.
People thought it would be impossible to make a restaurant on the fifth floor
work and be successful. It had no windows, no street access. Customers had to
go through the lobby and up the elevator; they couldn't see even a piece of it
from the lobby. So we needed to come up with a concept that would turn the
negative of being on the fifth floor into the positive of being on the fifth floor.
The design and the concept needed to do that. Your team brought us the idea
of an illicitly glamourous outpost-and yes, we both know that we'll go with
dark humor and raw sensuality when needed, though it has to be subtle.
More and more, investors have to find ways to make negatives into positives.
We couldn't lease out the fifth floor. We couldn't put more guest rooms there. So
we had to find a way to make a marketable destination by designing something
secretive with an attitude that fit the tight space. Some investors walk into a
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crappy building and see a crappy investment. I see a box you can do really cool
things with. Finance and design work together for me as an investor.
ANDREA: We keep hearing from the brands that they want young, hot fresh
designers. Age discrimination is a real problem in the design industry. You've
pushed back on that. Why?
JON: I don't see a need to go in that direction [commissioning only young

designers]. What we've found is that all those young and fresh designers may
have great ideas, but they can't execute. They don't know how to do that at the
right scale. They don't choose the right colors. They don't know all the techniques
to create the right drama. It takes someone with your experience and talent
to do that. You and your team have delivered a lot of great properties for us.
I don't have to explain why something needs to be transitional in one locale;
experimental in another. You know how to do the homework.
We've been pushed by brands to go with their short list of designers and we
just say no. Too often, we get "very nice interiors" (that means we'll have to
redo it later) from other designers. So, we don't work with that many design
firms. We prefer smaller studios so that we're sure we'll be working with the
principals and veterans. You have a lot of young, hot, fresh minds in your office
but you're the gatekeeper. It all has to go through you before it gets to me. Why
change something when it works?
ANDREA: I am the art director, coach and editor for my team. Our internal
design process is totally collaborative. We often get brilliant ideas from kids
right out of school that I'd never thought of. We pull ideas from both young
people and veterans, and we're adding staff to make sure we stay original. It is
about attitude not about age. We depend on diversity to get great ideas.
ANDREA: You've always been a big supporter of original art as an essential
design element. What's ahead on that front?

DAV I D P H E L P S

we can have multiple things going on gives the operator more opportunities to
layer in different revenue streams. The key is that the restaurant space itself has
to be cool and financially successful on its own-not just in the context of the
hotel. We want the neighbors to make our restaurants their own so we can
draw the local experience inside the hotel. That makes the hotel environment
that much richer and more stimulating.
We'll be considering more concepts such as Dirty Habit in the Kimpton Hotel
Monaco, Washington D.C. The new exterior courtyard and bar can hold up to
800 people for anything from a rehearsal dinner to a business event, depending
on their needs, but it also works as a nightclub and as a restaurant. We can subdivide the space for privacy or open it up for more of a display. People probably
think we're out of our minds to spend $8 million on that renovation. We'll see.

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Boutique Design - March 2017

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