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A collaborative corporate culture helps this high-profile international hospitality design firm create projects that make design headlines—and money.
By Matthew Hall
"The value of good design -- what a building looks like and how it feels to people -- can be rung up on a cash register." Nearly six decades have elapsed since this observation was made by George "Pete" Wimberly, co-founder of the company then known as Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo (and that now goes by the acronym WATG). A salient point in any economy, anywhere in the world, this simple principle resonated with the generations of hospitality owners and investors who have helped turn the architecture/interior design/planning firm into one the largest players in the field anywhere in the world.
"We've been designing with the triple bottom line in mind-people, planet and profits-since before the phrase was invented," says Howard Wolff, senior vice president. "Our projects are noted not only for their memorable designs and explicit sense of place, but also for their ability to make money from them."
That three-pronged approach has netted WATG an enviable project list, starting with the 1945 renovation of the venerable Royal Hawaiian on Waikiki Beach, with its signature pink façade and vaulted Spanish archways. Another early project where the firm invoked the then-unusual practice of instilling a project with a sense of place was the Coco Palms Hotel on Kauai, which WATG designed in the 1950s. To help create a Polynesian look and feel in that hotel, designers took such steps as installing giant clam shells imported from the South Pacific as its bathroom sinks.
In all, the company has been involved with more than 240 hotels, spas, casinos and resorts around the world, including such iconic complexes as Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa in Orlando; the Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas; the Atlantis, Paradise Island Resort in the Bahamas; the Mandarin Oriental in Kuala Lumpur; the Palace of the Lost City in Sun City, South Africa; and the Hilton Sanya Resort and Spa in China.
Thus far, WATG has worked in a total of 157 countries on six continents (no commissions yet in the Antarctic). To help cover all that territory, the firm has branched out beyond its initial home base in Honolulu to open five other offices during the past couple of decades-in Irvine, Calif.; Seattle; Orlando; London and Singapore-and has grown to have a staff currently totaling just under 450. Its billings are also world-class. Last year, that workforce generated billings totaling $98 million.
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