Founded by art collectors and preservationists Laura Lee Brown and Steve Wilson, the 21c Museum Hotel Durham in North Carolina began as a reimaging of the Shreve, Lamb & Harmon-designed Hill building, which originally housed the Durham Bank and Trust Company. “Our main inspiration was the 1937 Hill building itself,” explains designer Deborah Berke of New York-based Deborah Berke Partners.

The design team dedicated the entire first floor to the public, including the ballroom, art galleries, and restaurant, while the hotel lobby and private guest entrance are positioned on the second floor. “While it was a challenge to design intuitive yet unobtrusive paths of circulation, the second floor lobby allowed us to highlight the amazing historic stair of the original building,” says Berke.

The ballroom’s rich wood paneling and ceilings were restored, however the original chandeliers were replaced with bold LED fixtures. “We saw the lighting as an important opportunity to acknowledge the Art Deco character of the historic banking hall while also creating a dynamic space for the 21st century,” Berke explains.

Architecturally open, the lobby features space for guests to interact with each other and the art exhibition, which includes seven permanent site-specific pieces curated by museum director Alice Gray Stites, collectively titled Reflecting Transformation.

“One of the biggest challenges was to reconcile how a guest would circulate from the main entrance to the second floor lobby,” Berke says. “We used the challenge as an opportunity to design interesting paths that encourage wandering, finding that encouraging a sense of discovery as part of the design makes guests feel comfortable and at home.”

In guestrooms, custom seating referential to Art Deco’s streamlined forms has a bold, graphic quality. “We chose to custom design these pieces because getting this exactly right was essential if we were going to be successful in designing a hotel that synthesized the past and future.”

Guestrooms feature steel accents, a gray and copper color palette, and a series of niches for an intimate, residential character. Cues were taken from the original terrazzo flooring, which changes from floor to floor. For example, the pewter terrazzo on the private floors relates to the guestrooms’ silver toned wood.

Art Deco-inspired vanities with bright pink LED lighting in the guest bathrooms nod to the past and reference a pop art aesthetic with accents such as rubber duckies.

Of the the hotel’s onsite restaurant, the Counting House, Berke says: “Located on the ground floor where the Ellis-Stone department store was originally, the restaurant’s large store display windows were still intact,” Berke says. “Being in the restaurant, you feel connected to the fabric of downtown, but the energy of the space with its open kitchen and ceiling, brings you back to the restaurant.”