In 2009, when Ave Bradley joined Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, the brand was known for its bold guestrooms and public spaces. Bradley, now creative director and global senior vice president of design, has spent the last 12 years evolving the Kimpton personality while staying true to founder Bill Kimpton’s original vision for a portfolio of distinctive hotels.

A pioneer of the boutique hotel movement, Kimpton opened the Clarion Bedford in San Francisco in 1981, introducing innovations like a complimentary wine hour. A few years later, he unveiled the city’s Hotel Vintage Court and partnered with Wolfgang Puck to launch what is often considered the first celebrity chef hotel restaurant, Postrio at the Prescott. By 1991, Kimpton had expanded beyond San Francisco to Portland, Oregon. Soon, the rest of the country was graced with its inventive hotels.

Mindful of Kimpton’s human-centered approach to hospitality, Bradley, who had worked as director of interiors and brand development for W Hotels prior, wanted to preserve the spirit that had defined Kimpton for decades yet balance and infuse it with chic, more modern interiors rooted in their locales.

The lobby at Ella’s Cottages, part of a five-hotel collection in Key West’s Old Town designed by Powerstrip Studio

“We shifted the point of view. We are a bit more restrained and less literal in our storytelling and not knocking people over the head with it,” explains Bradley. “We’re not a brand with a single aesthetic thread, which gives us the opportunity to be thoughtful about each project we take on.”

Tapping into the history of the buildings is as important to the design narrative as is the relationship and interaction to the surrounding neighborhood. Consider the lushly landscaped Winslow’s Bungalows, one of the five Old Town properties comprising the recently completed Key West property in Florida (crafted by Los Angeles firm Powerstrip Studio) or the 1941 Art Deco National Guard building that is home to the Kimpton Armory Hotel Bozeman in Montana, a collaboration between Studio R Interiors, MARKZEFF, and Venue Architects. For each property, Bradley is keen to unearth “a deeper layer that resonates as honest, cool, and connected,” she points out.

With 70 hotels and 73 restaurants in 49 cities spanning North America, Europe, and Asia, Kimpton has grown exponentially from its West Coast roots, propelled by InterContinental Hotel Group’s (IHG) acquisition of the brand in 2015.

The Peacock Room at the Kimpton Hotel Fontenot showcases walls lacquered in turquoise, mosaic tiled floors, and a chinoiserie wallcovering

Kimpton’s first international foray, the Kimpton De Witt Amsterdam, featuring a modern spin on luxury by London practice Michaelis Boyd, followed shortly after in 2017. Its European footprint was further expanded in 2020 with the with the artistically informed Kimpton Vividora Hotel in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter by local firm El Equipo Creativo. Set for a spring debut is the 149-key Kimpton St Honoré Paris. Housed inside the former department store La Samaritaine de Luxe, Paris-based designer Charles Zana and Humbert & Poyet, the Monaco firm handling the California-inspired restaurant, will imbue the property with a minimalist Art Nouveau aesthetic that channels Parisian chic.

After the Neri&Hu-crafted Kimpton Da An made its 2019 Taipei debut, development in Asia skyrocketed with locations in Tokyo (designed by Rockwell Group) and Bangkok. Hotels in Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Sanya, China are also on the boards. Most immediately, the villa-strewn Kimpton Naranta Bali resort by Singapore’s White Jacket will open on the Nusa Dua coast this year.

The brand has seen tremendous growth, debuting 11 new hotels in 2020 with plans to open an additional seven in 2021. Such rapid expansion means that finding the right design partners is key. “Getting to know people is an important part of the process because they’re going to spend three or four years working with me,” Bradley says. More importantly, she seeks out designers who understand Kimpton’s playful and community-minded personality. It’s this common thread that links all of the brand’s collaborators, who infuse each property with a lighthearted, but timeless design. “Kimpton guests are looking for wit,” says Bradley. “They want levity and joy.”

Kimpton Pittman Hotel Dallas

William Sidney Pittman, son-in-law of Booker T. Washington, designed the Knights of Pythias Temple, a Dallas social hub for the Black community, in 1916. Now, the Beaux-Arts building in the city’s Deep Ellum neighborhood honors its trailblazing Black architect as the 165-room Kimpton Pittman Hotel Dallas.

Part of the Epic, a Perkins & Will-designed mixed-use development, the hotel features a contemporary addition from the architecture firm as well as interiors by Litchfield, Connecticut-based Busta Studio. Given the building’s heritage, the Dallas Historical Society also offered its preservation guidance.

The colorful lobby, flaunting geometric artwork, is balanced with warm brown hues

Busta Studio founder Anna Busta was eager to “tell the story of the artistic and creative Deep Ellum area” through the hotel’s design, she says. She embraced “raw and honest materials,” including cast concrete, reclaimed wood, and white plaster, because “we felt those worked well with the architecture and stayed true to the Deep Ellum vibe,” she says. Blackened steel, aged bronze, and natural fiber upholstery all underscore the purity of the palette.

Guestrooms pair velvet furniture with custom wall lamps and “handsome but simple casework,” Busta says. In the lobby, situated in the new building, guests check-in at a reception desk accented with pill-shaped light fixtures melding handblown glass and chains, or settle into one of Busta Studio’s bespoke metal and leather-clad armchairs.

A chandelier crowns the semiprivate lounge at Elm & Good restaurant

An original exposed brick wall serves as a transitory portal between the lobby and the landmark building, where the restaurant Elm & Good mixes restored moldings, beams, and columns with an open kitchen, large-scale chandeliers, and factory windows. Local artworks curated in tandem with Dallas studio Art-Centric, like a street art-style canvas and handpainted dinner plate installation, also brighten the space. A backyard pool lounge, Deep End, is forthcoming.

At the core of the Kimpton Pittman Hotel Dallas’ design, says Busta, “is the idea of connecting the past with the present, the constant juxtaposition of the new and the old.”

Kimpton Maa-Lai Bangkok

Equal parts calming and energizing, the 231-room Kimpton Maa-Lai Bangkok (which also features 131 serviced apartments) resides in the capital’s Lang Suan district, in a development adjacent to the large, lush Lumpini Park.

The chiseled wood reception desk is flanked by a resin sculpture and a handpainted wall panel

Other than the tropical inflected 40th-floor rooftop hangout Bar.Yard, local firm P49 Deesign inflected the spaces with serene moments, including the spare, softly lit Amaranth spa by Harnn, the airy restaurant Stock Room—where suspended plants mesh with books and exposed brick—and the spacious guestrooms, accentuated by natural light. There is even an outdoor infinity pool nestled inside a secret garden. “The hotel is essentially an extension of the landscape, except interpreted through an urban lens,” explains P49 Deesign partner Carl Almeida. “This is the story of textures, materials, arts and crafts, and social engagement.”

To evoke the warmth and character that mirror Bangkok’s edginess, Almeida left the hotel devoid of polished surfaces, turning instead to the likes of glass, stone, and broken concrete. “If you look closely, there is beauty everywhere,” he says. In the industrial-tinged lobby, wood plays a dominant role, covering the ceilings and walls in scraped and overscale “bark” forms that contrast with the floor’s matte-finished tiles.

The Thai coffee scene is illuminated at Craft, inside the Kimpton Maa-Lai Bangkok

Standout elements also emphasize Thai craftsmanship, such as handmade reed mats and a floor-to-ceiling art installation fashioned from woven fabric that “captures your attention upon entering the hotel,” says Almeida. Floating above the chiseled wood reception desk is a graceful resin sculpture, and behind it is a panel emblazoned with a hand-embroidered floral pattern. Such artistry, Almeida adds, complements the “raw and textured background of the interiors.”

Kimpton Cottonwood Hotel

When the Blackstone, an Omaha, Nebraska grande dame that opened in 1916, was converted into an office building in the 1980s, little of its original beauty remained except for a marble staircase and terracotta floor tiles. Tasked with reviving it as the Kimpton Cottonwood Hotel, DLR Group pieced together the Blackstone’s original details from historic imagery in the Durham Museum’s archive.

At the Kimpton Cottonwood Hotel, the airy garden tea lounge reinvents a historic courtyard

“We wanted to create a place that became a transcendent social playground,” says Staci Patton, hospitality leader and principal at DLR Group’s Minneapolis office, who was buoyed by the photographs and memories shared by former Blackstone guests of celebrity sightings and jazz band socials. “We couldn’t turn our back on that legacy, so we sought to rebuild the story with a modern muse.”

DLR Group honed in on the lobby, creating an ethereal space that is bolstered by a collection of works from Nebraska artists. Acting as the connective tissue of the property, it blends “a white framework of millwork, plaster, and new glass introductions” with furniture crafted from “contemporary metals and leathers to breathe a relevant Kimpton conversation into the design,” Patton says.

Different pathways lead to F&B destinations such as the garden tea lounge situated in a former outdoor courtyard, the masculine-infused Committee Chophouse, the breezy mint-hued Petit Orleans café, and the ochre-colored Orleans Room awash in dark woodwork and ornate moldings. A sunlight-filled corridor, lined with plants and black and white striped tile, paves the way to the Pool Club.

A plant-lined corridor is an extension of the lobby garden lounge

Informed by the hotel’s lawns, the 205 guestrooms feature arched headboards with custom chinoiserie linens that depict pastoral vignettes evocative of the Blackstone’s old lace canopy beds.

Ultimately, Patton likens the Kimpton Cottonwood’s revamp to a sequence of cinematic moments. “We created scenes and moods from one destination to the next,” she says. “They feel one part rooted in yesterday and yet alive in today’s sentiment for enriched social experiences.”

Kimpton Sylvan Hotel

Despite an awkward 1990s renovation, Matthew Goodrich fell in love with the circa-1952 residential building in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood slated to become the Kimpton Sylvan Hotel. “Because it was hacked up so much, it was easier to reimagine its ethos. We wanted to go back to the bare bones and bring in that gorgeous, clean, white midcentury look,” explains the founder and principal of New York design studio Goodrich, which handled all the public spaces. (The 217 moss- and gray-hued guestrooms were completed in-house.)

Set against a curvaceous tile wall, the marble fireplace is a highlight of the Kimpton Sylvan Hotel’s lobby

An elegant tone is set in the lobby, where a marble fireplace set against a backdrop of undulating tile takes centerstage. Softly colored stained-glass windows also filter in natural light and provide glimpses of the abundant surrounding greenery. Meanwhile, at the forthcoming Willow Bar, a covered alfresco haunt hidden inside a secret garden behind the hotel, “you’re literally sheltering under a tree canopy,” he says. That immersion in nature is also felt at the soon-to-open rooftop destination St. Julep. Ensconced on the wraparound terrace, “there are so many large trees around you, it feels like you’re in a treehouse.”

Unlike these light, verdant spaces, the Betty takes an intentionally moodier path. Reminiscent of bygone Hollywood supper clubs, the restaurant has a glamorous air, expressed through leather, deep blue tones, and wooden blinds, but Goodrich ensured the room wasn’t too polished. Tongue-in-cheek retro velvet paintings, for example—artworks that Goodrich says “straddle the precious and accessible”—are on display, harmonizing with the custom sinuous banquettes made from the same material

After watching a documentary about the late madcap Atlanta landscape designer Ryan Gainey, who purposely placed weeds and discordant plants to underscore the beauty of a garden, Goodrich and his team were compelled “to add our own little sparks to the hotel. The vintage details, the patterns, and the textures that catch your eye, they make it feel human.”

A communal table in the lobby is backed by black and white artwork

This article originally appeared in HD’s February/March 2021 issue.

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