A Home Away From Home
Who hasn’t checked into a hotel only to wind up in a cold, institutional box or a sea of cloying, color-coordinated patterns? When interior designer Kelly Wearstler set out to redo the old Beverly Carlton Hotel--opening in phases this fall as the new Avalon--the goal was simple yet stylish surroundings that make guests feel as if they’d never left home.
Opened in 1948, the three-building, 88-room Beverly Hills hotel was a favorite among celebrities, including one-time residents Mae West and Marilyn Monroe. Since its heyday in the ‘50s, though, multiple face lifts had left the place all but forgotten. Now, in her first hotel project, Wearstler is updating the mid-century interiors with a fresh palette, reproductions of modern furniture classics and sleek pieces from her own drawing board.
She chose muted green, blue and yellow for walls, carpet and floors, then assembled a few exemplars of postwar design. George Nelson bubble lights hang from the ceiling. Eames storage units stow away high-tech amenities. An Isamu Noguchi wire-based table and Thonet molded plywood chairs provide a dining nook in the kitchenette.
“But I didn’t want this to be a total time warp,” Wearstler says, so she rounded out furnishings with clean-edged sofas and armchairs of her own design. Revealing an eye for textural subtlety are her black headboards of raffia or woven rope, bedside lamps of ebonized wood and stainless steel and coffee tables topped with glass tile mosaics.
In revamping the bathrooms, she maximized space so cleverly that they appear larger than they really are. The bowl sink doesn’t monopolize the counter; towels rolled up in the wall-mounted magazine racks eliminate clutter. And when Wearstler placed an ornamental bamboo pole in the corner, she even found a way to attach the toilet paper dispenser to it. “People keep asking me, ‘Are you hiding a plumbing line in there?’ ” she says with a laugh.
Once structural renovation by Koning Eizenberg Architecture is finished, guests will have 20 original floor plans to choose from, each room slightly different but every one replete with 27-inch TV, VCR, stereo CD/tape player, PC hookup and fax machine--virtually all the comforts of home. “This place is for people who don’t want to stay in a cookie-cutter hotel,” Wearstler says, noting that guests are also welcome to pack along their pets. “It has a more residential feel, kind of like an apartment.”