Hospitality Design - August 2019 - 101

Flooded with natural light, a Maison suite's living area
is outfitted with vintage and custom furnishings

To minimize clutter, irons and ironing boards are
found in corridor closets, vanities are separated
from toilets, and some of the furnishings are
convertible, like fold-down desks. With Sister
City, there is a chance to present something
new yet equally as desired to the traditional
Ace customer. "You still feel there's somebody
behind it, that somebody made it. Some of those
important elements that we think need to be in a
hotel are there," Wilson says.
Unlike this friendly, low-key brand, ripe for
new builds in urban locations, Maison de la Luz
in New Orleans, another recent Ace Atelier-born
concept, expands on Ace Hotel's sophisticated
layers. Next door to the Ace Hotel New Orleans,
this one-time city hall annex at Lafayette Square
reveals great bones that feature original marble,
metalwork, and dramatic grand staircases. "It
shouldn't be about excess," Wilson says of the
new 67-room property, "but something rare
and special." Designed in partnership with
Los Angeles-based Studio Shamshiri as a
luxury guesthouse, each space is built around
a complete sense of privacy. To bolster that

Soaring ceilings, a French-inspired headboard, and
locally sourced artwork define a Maison guestroom

exclusive, hushed atmosphere, there is a private
salon solely for guests that transitions through
a revolving bookcase into the open-to-the-public
law library-turned-Bar Marilou, from Parisbased group Quixotic Projects.
Each of the two new brands are reminders
of Ace Hotel Group's devotion to "the craft, the
hand, the people who make hotels," explains
Wilson. "We've never been like the big guys
who go, 'We're going to announce 15 buildings
next year.' It's just not our style."
As Wilson reflects on the past two decades,
he says he still sees Ace as "the young, scrappy"
hotel company trying to find a foothold in
the industry. But now, as they have reached
adulthood, Ace is forging a new path. Though
often imitated, he says his team "rarely copies
what we did last time. We've always been in
a process of evolution and bringing in other
brands to re-energize us."
What does align with their plans is a
second international property. Ace Hotel Kyoto
will open in 2020 as a nod to Wilson's past
developing Nikko Hotels for Japan Airlines;

the time Ace Hotel Group vice president
Ryan Bukstein spent studying in Japan; and
Calderwood's early entrepreneurial stint selling
secondhand, U.S.-made denim in Tokyo.
Housed in a building designed by Kengo
Kuma, it will incorporate a red-brick structure
originally built in 1926 that once housed a
telephone exchange.
Immediately after Calderwood's sudden
death in 2013, Wilson received a phone call
from Ian Schrager, who offered, along with
his condolences, a bit of advice: "He said: 'You
always have to evolve. You want to do the things
like Alex would want them done, but you have
to change. You have to think about what Alex
would do today,'" Wilson recalls. "We have
changed. What you see with Sister City or
Maison isn't necessarily something that was
in Alex's mind at the time the company was
founded, but it's definitely all out of the same
root, the same process, and they're all [things]
we know he would be proud of."
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