1984 Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, the crown heads of Studio 54, the disco nightclub that summoned only the hipoisie, opened the first hotel that cozied up to what they called boutique. They defined Morgans by what it wasn’t, as much as they also disavowed dictionary definition.
Their 114-room hotel named for the building’s one-time owner, the powerful financier of 19th-century American industry, J.P. Morgan, totally reimagined the interiors of a heavily draped 1927 residential property on mid-Manhattan’s East Side as minimalist. It was an instant hit.
Vacation options had long relied on formal and often grand hotels that were landmarks of arrival in their cities or with resorts in iconic countrysides. But after WWII, when motor courts sprouted everywhere across American roadways and when location meant owners lived nearby for jiffy repairs, the amenity was — Zut! A cabin key.
Different by far, full-service bed-and-breakfast inns overflowed in the personality of their owners but how could you even find them? Their reliable guide was Norman T. Simpson and his Country Inns and Back Roads, first self-published in 1966 by his Berkshire Traveller’s Press and later by
Harper & Row and successors. However, the Anglophile Simpson largely limited his choices to the original 13 colonies.
There’s a lot about boutique lodgings that draws on the idiosyncrasies that enchanted Simpson.
Boutique was radical
From the get-go, boutique wasn’t small, with which every dictionary claimed it was synonymous. It was a notional play on the word. It was a cultural shot across the bow of every chain. “The best surprise is no surprise,” Holiday Inns sloganized, emerging from the mom-and-pop era.
Boutique would mean thoroughly original, It would be an owner’s concept for its own right place. The buzz was creative, artistic, whimsical, and often historical. Frances Kiradjian, who would become their voice, labeled boutique owners “artisans.” Hipsters and cultural creatives all had their antennae up for the new brand that spread by word of mouth because it was no brand at all.
The chains were in their prime with often air-conditioned atrium lobbies, busy outside and in with valet car parkers, porters and check-in queues. Or on auto-pilot best systemetized by Moses Matalon, the Robert Moses of Jamaica, by weekly planeloads of 747 arrivals emptied into hotels scaled to fit their week-to-week churn.
Quick cue to today when we drive ourselves to most brands we’ve booked equipped with coded check-ins that unlock our doors. Arrived. Done. Swimming pool!
We thank our luck
Instead, when we arrive at a boutique property, maybe the space is a 100-year hotel like Orli La Jolla overlooking the sea, its exterior unobtrusively white, its hidden gardens un-hinted, its lobby reimagined with the flair of a kid tutored by a maestro. You sink into upholstered nooks for
conversation, likely as lively as the area floor coverings beneath bushy ceiling fixtures.
You’ve arrived with an expectation of enjoying precisely where you are.
Frances and the Boutique Lifestyle Leaders Association
Frances had her antennae out. She and boutique were made for each other.
Her aha moment?
She was running a California business negotiating hotel rates for corporate clients. The contracts the chains offered were getting long and legalese. ”I was often around boutique operators. How could you not like them? They were living their passion. Even a couple from Italy reached out to me. They knew I cared.”
In 2003 she met with several small brands ready to support her services, whereupon she sold her business, then in 2009 opened the Boutique Lodging Association, soon joined by her daughter Ariela. They transitioned from a hotel consortium program to a boutique hotel association.
Running a mother-daughter duo business in hospitality was difficult. I’d get asked, ‘Who are you!’ Yet today members top over 400 globally.”
They were right on time
“People’s tastes keep changing. Properties have to match up,” Frances wrote me by email. People are diving deeper. They want to connect with owners, with staff, and with where they are. We now have a full range of options at our fingertips outside the world of standard cookie cutter hotels.”
I asked Frances in a phone talk what she thinks of Hilton’s new systemwide branding, “Hilton for the stay”. Said Frances, “I don’t connect. Guests today want to connect with all the places outside their hotel. The chains are just adding more brands. Hilton’s new brand is Spark. It’s for budget travelers, but it’s just getting plopped around. Am I supposed to believe I’m there just for the stay?“
“It’s the same with too many chain operators.”
“How do owners feel about who walks through the door? It’s how you live in your life. Their ethos is the brand, and it shows in everything about their place. Are they just focused on the money? With so many choices, people today can feel this out. It’s amazing. We’re humans. We look for artisans.”
BLLA puts on three educational conferences a year. At this year’s Boutique Hotel Investment Conference by BLLA, June 7–8 in Manhattan, the Kiradjians will introduce a sister organization, the Boutique Money Group, that matches independent owners with independent operators.
Reporting by Travel Weekly and the Skift media arm have already made BLLA and the rise of boutique mainstream for the trade.
Says Ariela, in an email to me. “I want to stay in a building that has history. It’s about honoring and respecting the land that you’re on. From regenerative farming to organic home-grown vegetables, independent owners are stepping up.”
Frances also by email says, “We also find that on the ‘eco side,’ owners are getting in it. They may not be full into it, but it means a lot to guests.”
For Skift “the push toward more sustainability in hospitality will only drive the adaptive reuse trend.”
NOTES
https://www.hotel-online.com/press_releases/release/hotel-conversions-to-residential-use-heat-up/
https://skift.com/2023/02/21/the-trends-boutique-hotels-need-to-watch-in-2023/
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/brand-management.asp
https://businesstravelerusa.com/travel/how-hotels-throughout-the-u-s-are-combating-climate-change/
Tech support by Ted Wendler
