Hospitality environments live and breathe thanks to the ingenuity of designers like Kristen Cochran. She cut her teeth at Starwood Hotels & Resorts (now Marriott), and then spent five years with New York firm Meyer Davis before joining the Ian Schrager Company in the fall of 2018, where she has helped style and open hotels like the West Hollywood EDITION. She says working alongside the visionary hotelier is “an opportunity you do not pass on. It is an honor to work with him and with his design team.”
Early design memories
The Texas native moved often with her family, fostering a curiosity that manifested in a love of design (she even lived in a hotel for a few months). Each new house meant Cochran was able to imprint her evolving style on her bedroom. “I loved starting fresh and playing with new ideas,” she says. A trip to a Ritz-Carlton while on a family vacation confirmed her love of hospitality. Here, she experienced luxury for the first time. When trying to choose between sorbet flavors, the waiter brought her all three. “I still remember the bowl arriving with the scoops and saying to my parents, ‘you can leave me here.’”
The 1 Hotel South Beach’s lobby juxtaposes natural details with a clean, soft palette
First design jobs
After graduating from the University of Houston during the Great Recession, Cochran struggled to find work in Texas. She ended up juggling two part-time jobs at separate high-end residential firms while also doing her own projects on the side, but to get the experience and opportunities she wanted, she decided to move to New York in 2010. She landed a job at Stephens Design Group six weeks later.
On her big break
Her time with Starwood “ultimately led me to the people and projects that shaped my career,” Cochran says. She also found her calling: “Hospitality is what I truly love and thrive on.”
The rooftop pool at the Meyer Davis-crafted 1 Hotel South Beach offers sweeping ocean views
Most rewarding and challenging projects
As a senior designer with Meyer Davis, she had the chance to return to her hometown to design one of her now-favorite projects, the Four Seasons Houston. “It was a major transformation for a very important owner with an extremely short timeline: 12 months start to finish design, development, construction, install, and opening.”
She was part of the team that spearheaded the debut of 1 Hotels in South Beach, a revamp of the Gansevoort Miami Beach. “It was a major renovation of a very challenging building with 426 guestrooms and 100 different room types.” Despite the pressure of launching Barry Sternlicht’s signature sustainably minded brand, Cochran says it reaffirmed her love for the industry. There is “nothing more exciting than going to visit a living, breathing place you have designed and seeing how it comes to life with people inside of it.”
On her tombstone
“Approved Flowers Only”
Meyer Davis’ design of the lobby at the Four Seasons Houston evokes a private club
Photos by Don Riddle and courtesy of Meyer Davis
This article originally appeared in HD’s July 2020 issue.
