New downtown hotels are changing San Francisco's look, from stodgy to stylish
Lights, action. Forget traditionalism -- a more modern approach is coming, finally, to the San Francisco hotel scene.
The latest and most visible example of this trend is the Embarcadero's Le Méridien Hotel. Formerly a Park Hyatt, the 24-story building at 333 Battery St. was acquired by Starwood Hotels this year and reopened as part of the swanky Le Méridien group.
On Wednesday, they will relaunch the hotel with a "First Night" celebration, a grand fete that is equal parts gallery opening and corporate shindig. But far from being just another excuse to stuff yourself with tiny quiches, "First Night" is the debut of a three-month-long installation, by tres en vogue lighting designer Thierry Dreyfus, that will transform the building into a tower of colored light.
For years, the dominant aesthetic in San Francisco's finest hotels has been of the wood-paneling-and-leather-banquette variety. Though the dim lighting and warm interiors of Union Square perennials, such as the Mark Hopkins and the Fairmont, give off the patrician feel of an old boys' club -- and induce an insatiable thirst for a Gin Rickey -- finally it may be time for something more modern, even in this famously traditional town.
In the aftermath of the successful remodel of the Clift Hotel, Ian Schrager-ized in 2001 over vociferous objections, comes a number of hotels whose recent goings-on suggest that there's nothing inhospitable about stowing the cigar-smoky waistcoats in favor of something more modish, of which the Méridien project is the most prominent recent example.
Fashionistas may recall Dreyfus' lighting work at the runway shows of such luminaries as Calvin Klein, Yves Saint Laurent and Helmut Lang. And those of us who don't work for Vogue may know Dreyfus from his success lighting the reopening of Paris' Grand Palais last year, a commission he won in an international competition. Dreyfus will kick off the birth of Le Méridien San Francisco by placing colored gels on the windows of many guest rooms. At night, when guests turn on and off their lights, the windows glow in an ever-shifting pattern of colored light that owes as much to Mondrian as Rubik's Cube.
