In 1985, when Auberge du Soleil debuted its swank guest cottages and spa, there was no other hotel like it in Napa Valley. First established by Claude Rouas as a restaurant in 1981, its expansion came courtesy of real estate developer Bob Harmon. “You could sit on the terrace looking at Rutherford Hill’s vineyards while drinking Rutherford wine. No one else was doing that,” says Kemper Hyers, chief creative officer at Auberge Resorts Collection, the Mill Valley, California-based company founded in 1998 by Harmon’s son Mark. “It’s in our DNA to have this luxury that is incredibly personal and humanistic with a bit of elegance.”
Sensing “Auberge’s moment,” as he puts it, was imminent, Hyers came aboard in 2018 after creating brands like Baccarat Hotels and 1 Hotels with Barry Sternlicht at Starwood Capital Group. Now owned by Houston businessman Dan Friedkin and helmed by president and CEO Craig Reid (a Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts veteran), Auberge currently has 19 properties across three continents in its portfolio, including the Lodge at Blue Sky in Park City, Utah, designed by Salt Lake City firm AJC Architects and Santa Monica, California-based Design 360 Unlimited, and the White Barn Inn in Kennebunk, Maine, rejuvenated by New York studio Jenny Wolf Interiors.
Shown in a rendering, Stanly Ranch will be nestled among the vineyards in Napa Valley and feature a design by Overland Partners and CCID
Even in the early days, Auberge was recognized for its distinctive hotels, each one magnifying its respective location. “So much of the Auberge brand ethos is founded on this idea of one-of-a-kind hotels. We built every single one, even at the pace we’re going now, from scratch,” says Hyers. “Auberge understands that the consumer wants real design.”
This creative freedom always cultivates fresh narratives, and finding the right partner is a process that Hyers leaves to intuition, taking in the hotel owner’s vision and then looking “at thousands of people until someone just hits me. For example, Hyers once again turned to Meyer Davis—the New York firm behind the recently rebooted Mauna Lani in Hawaii—for Etéreo (in collaboration with Mexico City’s Migdal Arquitectos), opening this year on Mexico’s Riviera Maya. “Everything they do is so handsome. This time, I pushed for something different: [I asked them to] pretend they are curating a wealthy person’s house whose obsession is young Mexican designers, and treat it as a gallery.”
Mauna Lani in Hawaii honors local craftsmanship through a design by Meyer Davis
Upcoming projects include the redo of Bishop’s Lodge in Santa Fe, New Mexico by Dallas-based Nunzio Marc DeSantis Architects and HKS; the transformation of a former stagecoach stop in Los Olivos, California into the Inn at Mattei’s Tavern by Santa Barbara-based DMHA Architecture + Interior Design and the San Francisco office of AvroKO; Stanly Ranch in Napa Valley by San Antonio, Texas architecture firm Overland Partners, with interiors by Atlanta’s CCID; Costa Rica’s overhauled Hacienda AltaGracia by New York-based designer Nina Gotlieb; and Susurros del Corazon in Punta Mita, Mexico by Burlingame, California-based Le Architects and Dallas firm Paul Duesing Partners, with F&B by Studio Collective, the Venice, California-based firm that also worked on Solage in Napa Valley.
Going forward, Auberge plans to venture into more European and urban markets, modernizing the notion of an inn along the way. “We don’t want to lose our resort roots,” Hyers says, “but it’s going to be fun to figure out our recipe in a different context.”
Here, we highlight three recent properties that celebrate Auberge’s singular design voice:
Madeline Hotel & Residences
Commodore Perry Estate
Mayflower Inn & Spa
