Hospitality Design - June 2013 - 75

Within two years, we landed three
St. Regis projects and three small
independent luxury hotels.

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crafts, knitting, sewing, hiking,
and taking care of our many, many
animals.
At first, my interests lay in fashion
design. I would sketch up ideas for
my mother and we would go to the
local fabric store and buy the fabrics
and notions I wanted and she would
sew my ideas. Eventually, I learned
to sew and I would make clothing
for myself and my friends.

1. A suite at King &
Grove Williamsburg in
Brooklyn, New York.
2+3. Heather’s résumé
includes a brief stint at
Restoration Hardware as
vice president of design
and development, and
recently she launched
her own product
designs: a line for Mark
David’s Spark program
(Library Chair shown),
and Collection No. 1,
relaunching this fall with
Blue Coast Hospitality
(shown is a couch in
black leather).
4+5. The rooftop bar and
bed-lined pool at King &
Grove Williamsburg.

I grew up in Hammondsport, a
small town in the Finger Lakes
region of upstate New York—and by
small I mean under one thousand
people. The area is dominated by
vineyards, dairy farms, and scenic
lakes carved out by glaciers. I was
raised in a log cabin in the woods
that my grandfather built in the
fifties as a hunting cabin.
My mother was a naturalist and
very much a kind of Renaissance
woman who dabbled in painting,
sketching, ceramics, weaving,
sewing, knitting, silversmithing,
and horticulture. She always kept
me busy with drawing, arts and

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My first job out of New York School
of Interior Design was for Martha
Stack, an upscale residential
designer with a small firm of four
employees. I learned a lot about the
details that go into making custom
upholstery, drapery, millwork, and
shopping for antiques, but almost
more valuable was learning how
easily projects can go wrong.
In April 2000, when Architectural
Digest came out with its top
designers of the century issue, I
sent my résumé to all the New
York designers on the list. One
of the callbacks I got was from
David Easton and I was hired as
his furniture designer. When he
was approached by St. Regis to
compete for several of their new
resort projects in 2004, he didn’t
have anyone on staff that had any
experience with hotels, so he asked
me to take on this new department.

Having my son Rhys in May of
2011 was life changing, and upon
returning from maternity leave, I
made the decision to leave Morgans
Hotel Group after four years to join
King & Grove Hotels. There is no
such thing as good timing—just a
time for change. So I began a new
chapter building a new company,
selecting designers, creating
standards, building a team, learning
the ropes all over again while being
a single working mother. It made
me question my sanity at times
but as they say, ‘What doesn’t kill
you makes you stronger.’ We have
four operating properties and
more than twelve properties under
development.
I believe in timeless design that
transcends age and status. I feel the
age of over-conceptualized design
is done and we are now in an era of
design that marries new with old,
polished with rustic, and classic
with contemporary. Everything in
the right proportion.
I am working with so many great
designers right now and I admire
them all. I would really like to work
with Paola Navone. Every space
I see of hers I want to move into
immediately.
I want my tombstone to read, ‘Here
lies Heather Maloney—she clearly
needed a vacation.’
Current Projects:
King & Grove New York
King & Grove Tides South Beach
King & Grove Williamsburg
King & Grove Metropolitan
King & Grove Lafayette
King & Grove Versailles
King & Grove Bossert
The Chelsea Hotel, New York

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