Founded in the early 1980s as a management company for properties in and near Charleston, South Carolina, Charlestowne Hotels has of late focused on adapting historic buildings into modern hotels. The Charleston-based company currently has a portfolio of 50 hotels in a dozen states, including independent and branded options. A handful of those lifestyle hotels are currently in development, including the recently opened the Collector Luxury Inn & Gardens in St. Augustine, Florida by local firm Anastasia Design; the forthcoming Manuel Zeitlin Architects-crafted Fairlane Hotel in Nashville; the Bristol in Virginia with architecture by Nashville’s Earl Swensson Associates; the Hotel Clermont in Atlanta, a collaboration from Citizndesign and Blur Workshop; and the Foundry in Asheville, North Carolina, thanks to the handiwork of Studio Z Architecture and Lagom Interiors. Here, president and COO Michael W. Tall talks about telling a good story, the challenges of adaptive reuse, and what the future holds for the management company.
Why has Charlestowne sought to add older, historic properties to its portfolio?
It’s great to go into a project that already has a compelling story. Our goal is to immerse ourselves in that story and then work with the developer and design team to build a property that completes the synergy of that story and has a sense of place. These kinds of properties often reflect the locale and are an expression of civic pride. We are very interested in restoring communities, and bringing a historic structure back to life is a great foundation for doing that. Plus, it ultimately heightens the quality of the experience that today’s discerning traveler desires.
How are you locating the right properties and selecting destinations?
We feel that every city has stories within the stories and so we try to figure out where there’s a need for a product that can tease out that story. We might discover the right opportunity and then talk with a developer who we know is looking at that market. Or, maybe a developer will approach us because they realize that these are the types of properties we love to do.
What new properties do you have coming online?
The Collector is at the edge of downtown St. Augustine and is comprised of nine historic structures dating back to the late 1700s set within a 1-acre garden. Throughout the property, there are references that are specific to each period of time: There’s a recreation of a well from the 1800s in our bar; there’s a courtyard that features wrought iron gates and red brick paths. Everything is curated and historical in its representation.
The Fairlane in Nashville was a midcentury bank building, so its design will reflect that. The Foundry in Asheville once produced the steel for the nearby Biltmore Estate, so we’ll incorporate many local artifacts into the design and maintain as much of the original character details as we can.
How do you choose design firms to work with?
Most of the time we’re involved in selection of the interiors. Sometimes, though, the developer has an architect in mind that he’s worked with before. For a [yet-to-be-named] property, we’re bringing in both the architect and the interior designer because the developer has never done a hotel before.
What are some of the challenges of managing adaptive reuse properties?
If you’re building from the ground up, you know what’s going in and there’s more of a clear timeline. But in adaptive reuse, once you peel back the walls or take steel beams down, you can run into surprises. The critical path to opening is much more complicated.
What’s the future hold for Charlestowne?
Our industry is moving toward providing unique experiences, so the beauty for us is that we’ve built all the resources and elements needed for them to be successful in that space. It’s great to see the industry recognizing what we’ve been doing for decades now.
