If fate had made a slight change of direction, Kemper Hyers may well be tap dancing his way across a stage rather than making meticulous and stylish choices for a soon-to-open luxury hotel. But choreography’s loss was design’s gain. A native of the South (birthplace: Charleston, South Carolina), he grew up enamored of both Lucille Ball and the buildings of McKim, Mead & White. The son of a lawyer (“deep down he was an engineer”) and a clothing and handbag designer, he was encouraged in his fascination with architectural history.
Despite his love of design (“I redesigned my room about 100 times and used to do little photo shoots,” Hyers says) he pursued a dance career as he headed to New York. “But one night I found myself in some café reading Backstage at midnight and thinking it was some glamorous life. It was horrible.”
The planets had shifted. Tapping into his early love of architecture, he studied at Columbia University and opened his own company. Styling for TV and magazines followed, and then product design for Martha Stewart and Crate & Barrel. Hospitality design became a natural pursuit, and he held executive positions for Le Méridien and then the Sheraton brands at Starwood Hotels & Resorts. Rejoining Barry Sternlicht at Starwood Capital in 2007, he has lavished exquisite attention on two emerging brands: the eco-responsible 1 Hotels (with recent openings in South Beach and New York, and with Brooklyn on the horizon) and the luxurious Baccarat Hotels & Residences, an extension of the 250-year-old French crystal maker, which just made its debut in Midtown Manhattan.
Asked to describe his job that finds him guiding the design of all Starwood Capital’s hotels and brands, he says, “I do everything, from the façade of the building to the sticker on the toilet paper. I oversee and hopefully inspire most of it. Some of it I design myself, or my staff does. I have this pan vision job, where you get to touch everything. It’s a dream.”
And a dream he isn’t eager to escape. “My perfect day is to wake up at 6:15 a.m., spend an hour reading the paper, and then launch at 100 miles an hour doing nothing but see creative work and meet designers and problem-solve. It’s this incredibly nourishing gift that I get every day. And the day tends to go really long.”
