Growing up in South Carolina with a designer mother, Kelly Wearstler was destined for a colorful, creative life, so it came as no surprise when she enrolled and studied interior design at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Between classes, she waited tables by night and worked relentlessly in her studio in the morning, which she credits for making her a great multitasker.
Today, her eponymous lifestyle brand with curated collections from furniture to jewelry and objets d’art is eclectic, exuding her spontaneous spirit and love of adventure. Her inherently chic style (outside of design, her sartorial fearlessness is revered) is whimsical yet soulful, and “a juxtaposition of so many different loves, with art and fashion among them,” she says. “Fashion has definitely taught me to treat materiality in a different way. I pay so much attention to the hand of things, the feel and detail of the tailoring, in everything that I design, discover, and experience.” Even her flagship boutique on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, which sells luxury goods and furniture, among other curiosities and original designs from Wearstler’s collection, offers a glimpse of her signature flair with stone embellished hardware and a blend of vintage and contemporary pieces.
She’s worked on many high-profile projects, including the Four Seasons Anguilla (formerly the Viceroy), the Tides South Beach, and Viceroys in Santa Monica and Miami with her husband hotel developer Brad Korzen of the Kor Group. But none like last year’s $2 million renovation of the Avalon Hotel Beverly Hills, a passion project that “was the first hotel I ever designed [in 1999]. It was the start of what would become an incredible journey into hospitality,” she notes. Now, with a Palm Springs location, the boutique collection is under Kor’s newly launched Proper Hospitality. In true Hollywood fashion, she gave facelifts to all 84 guestrooms (think European oak floors), as well as the public spaces, including Viviane restaurant for Bombet Group and chef Michael Hung. The elegant space centered around a cabana-lined pool draws inspiration from the ’50s and ’60s with vintage furniture, pastel hues, and playful geometric patterns.
Wearstler is also spearheading the design of Kor’s Proper Hotels and Residences, a brand recently launched in 2015. “There’s a desire to deliver higher-end, captivating, contemporary spaces that resonate with the sophisticated Millennial,” she says. “This includes designing more intimate creative hubs and workspaces, and providing amenities with creative and cultural energy—authentic experiences for a more upscale creative traveler.” Expect Wearstler’s signature warm, residentially informed, curated aesthetic throughout the spaces. In the upcoming San Francisco hotel, for instance, housed in a historic 1926 Flatiron-shaped building clad in brick, stone, and terracotta, she mixed pre-modernist European influences with vintage finds and pieces by local artists throughout the classic salon-inspired lounge, a Cubist-informed restaurant, and 191 guestrooms, designed as pieds-à-terre with a blend of French, Italian, and urban elements. Residences—created for short and longer stays and decked out with hotel-like amenity spaces—are already open in Hollywood, and in the next two years, expect more hotels in downtown LA, Austin (with residences), and Santa Monica. “Every city is our muse for creating a ‘proper’ stay in each destination,” she adds.
Wearstler’s never-ending creativity comes from her consciousness of living, her need for travel, and natural disposition, all of which provide her the ability to “always remain open to new colors, forms, textures, artists, and furniture whenever I am traveling, being aware of my surroundings, and doing research, whether it is reading a book or exploring at a museum,” she says. “That allows me to find the beauty in all that I see and translate it into my work.”
