This book features the design details of the largest and most innovative examples from such cutting-edge firms as Archi-Tectonics, ARO, Escher GuneWardena, and Office dA, among others. Its pages offer ...
LodgeWorks Makes Boutique Bet
Does the world need another boutique hotel chain? LodgeWorks LP, for one, thinks so.
That's why the Wichita, Kan.-based hotel development and management company is launching its AVIA Hotels collection this month in Savannah, Ga., followed by two properties in California (Napa and Long Beach) this summer and one near Houston this fall.
"Unlike so many other brands in the boutique sector, AVIA will not be style-centric-instead, our hotels will bear a location-specific character," says LodgeWorks president Anthony Issac. "We are not the destination; but we make the destination come alive."
This is new territory for LodgeWorks, whose portfolio consists mainly of owned and managed branded hotels bearing the Hyatt Summerfield Suites, Hyatt Place, Aloft, Hawthorn Suites and Hilton Garden Inn flags. To create the location-specific feel for the new AVIA brand, the company began by talking with community leaders and taste makers in destinations it had targeted. Then, LodgeWorks hired a cadre of design and branding specialists to translate that feedback into individualized boutique hotel environments, including Colum McCartan, Heller Manus, J. Webb Design & Associates, Krehbiel Architecture and Law/Kingdon Inc., Phillips+Co., Paul Keeler and Adam Ghali.
The result is four new-build properties whose interiors are populated with colors, materials and furnishings that strongly reflect their surroundings. AVIA Napa, for example, "takes its inspiration from the romance and viticultural heritage of the surrounding wine country with an earthy and warm color palette and vine-like, curvilinear design motifs," says McCartan, whose previous designs include the Hotel Vitale and Hotel Adagio in San Francisco and Le Parker Méridien in New York.