For her first project after stepping down following almost three decades as the director of design for hotelier Ian Schrager, Anda Andrei didn’t want it to be just any hotel—she wanted to take on something special, “a bigger-picture challenge,” she says. So when iStar founder and CEO Jay Sugarman approached her to help rehabilitate a 1.25-mile stretch of waterfront in Asbury Park, New Jersey with his groundbreaking mixed-use development, the veteran designer jumped at the opportunity. “I fell in love with the area—its amazing history and architecture, the project, and his vision,” explains Andrei, who is creative director of the entire multibillion-dollar endeavor that, when complete, will include some 300 hotel rooms, 2,100 residential units, retail, and a redo of a historic bowling and music venue. “Jay didn’t want to lose the soul of Asbury Park. He felt his legacy was to bring it back to another life.” 

The debut piece of the puzzle is the Asbury, the area’s first new hotel in 50 years, housed in a derelict red brick-clad Salvation Army building. To make her “bungalow on the beach with a bit of rock ’n’ roll and elegance” vision come to life, Andrei brought in a powerhouse team, many of whom she had worked with before—Stonehill & Taylor for architecture, David Bowd of Salt Hotels for operations and part ownership (who ran a free hotel school to attract local employees), and Bonetti/Kozerski Studio for interior design.

Knowing she wanted to create programmed public space that would act “as the new center of town” for locals, Andrei had to open up the low-ceilinged, small-windowed building that had little of the space she was looking for. The team removed a portion of the second level, and attached a greenhouse-inspired addition to the front of the building to push the footprint out (nearly doubling the space), resulting in a dramatic, double-height envelope—an idea from one of her original sketches. “Since New Jersey is the Garden State, the initial concept was to take a greenhouse and slice it in half,” says Vince Stroop, principal of New York-based Stonehill & Taylor, but because of hurricane restrictions, the structure had to be custom designed (a second greenhouse addition was added to the events space).

Thanks to the original building’s brick façade with its window and door openings that now serves as an interior wall, the lobby is naturally divided into intimate nooks—like a “great house,” says Andrei. There’s the white marble reception desk backed by white oak shelving that doubles as a grab and go, set off by a series of picnic tables and a cloud-like chandelier made of various sized rattan shades hanging at different lengths (the light fixture shows up elsewhere in the lobby). On the other side of the wall, a cozy sunken seating area (lower by 18 inches from the finished concrete floor) is fashioned in a colorful mix of velvet, linen, and silk and wrapped with bookshelves. “It’s a room in a room,” she explains.

To tie into Asbury Park’s rich musical history, the Soundbooth bar features a wall filled with retro music media—from vinyl records to cassettes and CDs—hand-selected by the team. For the bar next to the music library, they clad the front in stacked white swimming pool gutter tiles, covered the back wall in aqua green-painted fluted paneling (which mirrors the wall by reception), and scattered custom plywood stools, tables, and benches that are easily movable in front of it. “We like finding materials that may not be used for a particular purpose and repurposing them,” explains New York-based Bonetti/Kozerski principal Dominic Kozerski, adding they selected plywood for its ease to make forms. To bring music even deeper into the fabric of the hotel, guests can enjoy nightly live performances in the atrium space while sitting on bright blue wooden bleachers. “We didn’t put a stage in so that it would be more touchable, more connected,” explains Dowd, Salt’s chief executive, who remembers watching an entertainer while sitting on his dad’s shoulders during a family vacation. “We wanted to create that feeling of family and nostalgia, where everyone’s welcome.”

The 110 guestrooms—some with bunk beds and large trough-like sinks for families—are like cabins on the beach, with gray-and-white checkerboard rubber flooring, a colorful striped rug, and a black macramé chair found on Etsy. Budget-friendly solutions come in the form of the plywood headboard crafted by Amish carpenters that curves to form a side table, and a series of black and white Asbury Park images (beach scenes, concerts, etc.) that run along the top of the bed. Instead of framing them, Kozerski glued them to the wall— à la band posters outside a music venue—“for a more casual feel,” he says.

Fittingly, many of the property’s standouts are outdoor spaces. Rooftop bar Salvation is done in mostly black and white and boasts a long bar beneath a twinkling trellis, various lantern-lit seating areas, and amazing views; a VW van painted aqua blue and white has new life as a beer tap in the Beergarden; and around the pool are Andrei’s budget-conscious cabanas—inspired by city scaffolding, teak furniture sits beneath (and some is suspended from) a trellis made of blue metal poles and bamboo. Yet she points to Baronet, the American Dream-meets-Alice in Wonderland fifth-floor rooftop space complete with a Central Park-inspired artificial lawn surrounded by a white picket fence and punctuated with a lifeguard station. During the day, guests can lounge or play outdoor games, and at night, watch movies projected on a large wall from lawn chairs and beanbags.

From the beginning, the hotel—and the entire iStar project—was all about building something for guests as well as the community. “It’s changing the lives of people there,” says Andrei. “It’s not just about the design—it’s much more. And I love that.”