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1674-12 Ian Schrager OOMMW dab dr N(40 [RETURN] to continue or type q to return to Menu: ❑ mh95 THE AN WHO WANT TO REINVENT MIAMI 06/28/1995 THE MIAMI HERALD Copyright (c) 1995, The Miami Herald DATE: Wednesday, June 28, 1995 EDITION: FINAL SECTION: LIVING PAGE: lE LENGTH: 142 lines ILLUSTRATION: color photo: French Designer Philippe Starck with the Delano hotel in background (a) , Arquitectonica Times Square project? (r) , Delano hotel (a) ; photo: Ian Schrager in the Delano hotel Lobby (a) SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: PETER WHORISKEY Herald Staff Writer THE AN WHO WANT TO REINVENT MIAMI The melody keeps popping into his head. It's More Than a Woman, the old Bee Gees song. Off and on for an hour, superstar French designer Philippe Starck whistles bits of the refrain. Exuberantly. With feeling. Oh say you'll always be my baby. We can make it shine. Starck is whisking visitors through his recent remodeling of the Delano Hotel in Miami Beach, the 1947 beach tower at 1685 Collins Ave. , where he has Press [RETURN] to continue or type q to return to Menu: Gdesigned rooms that are at once glamorous and austere: white floors, white walls, white beds, white chairs, white TVs, even white stereos. "The target of my work is to make the people at their best, their most beautiful, " says Starck, voice dallying tenderly over the last word. Byootefool. "And to give them happiness and love. " Starck and haute hotelier Ian Schrager, one of the founders of Studio 54, have arrived in South Florida amid the clamoring of out-of-town television and newspaper cameras, the whirling pixie dust of their own celebrity. The New York Times, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous -- they all want to tell the world how fabulous the hotel will be when it opens Friday. But Starck has a message for the local audience, too: The cosmopolite, it seems, would like to serve as a model for South Florida in matters of taste. You see, in his view, something is wrong with Miami. This is not exactly news. He told The New York Times last year: "Miami style, to me, is terrible. " Then, in a six-page spread in the June issue of Vanity Fair, Schrager recalls asking the designer, "Philippe, can you envision a new kind of Miami?" And Philippe tells the magazine writer: "Miami is a good place, but I think it is not very sophisticated." We can take forever Just a minute at a time. As the cameras attest, the tall, wide-bodied Frenchman carries with him the glowing embers of hip wherever he goes, whether in Manhattan, creating the Press [RETURN] to continue or type q to return to Menu: Ccelebrated Royalton and Paramount hotels, or at home in Paris, designing photogenic furniture. He can set fire anywhere. And where he starts the blaze in Miami is the color scheme. One afternoon last week, Stark, dressed in black jacket, black T-shirt, black jeans and black boots, explained: "This sort of fluorescent pink caricature, " Starck says, waving and frowning. "Where the vulgarity is less rare than the quality." Quillitee. His prescription for Miami Beach amounts to chromatic cold turkey. Not only are the Delano's rooms white on white. So is the hulking exterior. Against the colorful, sometimes garish, pinks and blues and greens on Collins Avenue, the Delano stands either as a model of classic simplicity, or of corpse-like pallor. It depends on your point of view. "I designed this building especially elegant to show to the people that Miami is not obliged to become an amusement park, " Starck says. "That it is possible to have elegance, quality and honesty. "In Miami we have the feeling that Everybody Must Have Fun, " he says, clearly annoyed by the imperative. "Fun-loving. I want to show people that to smile is better than to laugh." The grand tour begins out back by the pool, where you find Starck pottering and plashing his way around the shallow end. A very slight incline begins at the pool edge, and it is as gentle as the beach. Walk 20 feet into the water and you are still only in shin deep. Momentarily freed of his dark Euro garb, and wearing only faded gray Press [RETURN] to continue or type q to return to Menu: _!trunks, Starck lies down flat in the shallow end, the water lapping at his snowy girth. He loves his new toy. "Bon, " he says, locking his hands behind his head and looking up at the sky. "It works. It works ! " Later, while toweling off, heaving rapid breaths of invigoration, he pronounces: "The swimming pool is a dream. It is the only swimming pool where you are not obliged to swim. " Back in the black, Starck presents the hotel lobby, perhaps one of the most elegant in South Florida. The central focus of the high-ceiling wood-paneled room is a double row of fat round plaster columns that marches down the middle. On either side of the columned passageway, immense floating white cotton curtains segment the room into smaller portions. It is furnished with a variety of styles: There is Gaudi, Dali and Eames. "You can see silhouettes and movement behind the curtains, but not much more, " says Anda Andrei, Schrager's design director, while Starck busies himself elsewhere, presumably still whistling. "The point was to avoid giving everything away immediately. The curtains are meant to create intimacy within each space and from outside, to create mystery." Upstairs, the rooms have more to them than simple whiteness. The design is apparently guided by a sense of faux happenstance. An immense mirror leans diagonally against a corner, as if recently moved in. The towel rack is a five-runged ladder. And this fey innovation: a small metal platform jutting Press [RETURN] to continue or type q to return to Menu: ❑from the wall where guests will find an apple. The inscription reads, "An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away." Starck explains: "In a society that becomes more and more complex, and sometimes dirty, you want to know somewhere there is a room completely white that is just purity and serenity." Starck is not content to whistle the Bee Gees and discuss his own $22 million design, however. What the remarkably creamy floors are made of, or what type of wood lines the lobby, Starck doesn't know and, in fact, doesn't seem to care. "Details, " he shrugs. He'd rather expound on what Miamians should learn from his design philosophy -- and offer us some sermons on, well, the attitude around here. Talking to Starck, or reading Vanity Fair ("Part of what's right about the Delano is its array of New York-caliber venues") , you could get the impression that the cultural exchange between Miami and New York flows only one way -- south. Who knows, really, how much one influences the other. But another item of cultural news that popped up last month surely shows that Miami exports culture to New York, too. The Miami Beach architecture firm Arquitectonica soon will be making its mark in the Manhattan skyline. Arquitectonica, working for Tishman Urban Development Corp. and its partner, Disney Development Corp., beat out two other world-renowned design firms in May to develop one of the most prominent Press [RETURN] to continue or type q to return to Menu: Ocorners of New York City's Times Square. "It is a tension of two pieces, " architect Bernardo Fort- Brescia says of the design. "One is concave and one is convex. We wanted to find a new genre of building. Something more slender. Something sophisticated. " But leave aside the question of sophistication, of New York vs. Miami, the debate's as tiresome as the Marlins vs. the Mets. Starck believes the real test is time. "Trend is an old and obsolete idea, " he says. "Today the real elegance, the real modernity is longevity, timelessness." He predicts: "This place will become a classic." At last, he walks off, jauntily, back into the hotel for another appointment. The last you hear of him is the tune that squeaks once more from his pursed lips, recalling all the distant memories of Gibb falsettos, bad haircuts and pantsuits. Oh more than a woman. More than a woman to me. cutlines MARICE COHN BAND / Herald Staff NEW MANAGEMENT: Ian Schrager, one of the founders of Studio 54 who now owns the newly renovated Delano Hotel, lounges in the lobby, which features a double row of fat round plaster columns and immense floating white cotton curtains. TIM CHAPMAN / Herald Staff credit for hotel pic in back Press [RETURN] to continue or type q to return to Menu: ROBERT BROWMAN / For the Herald credit for pic of starck VISIONARY: French designer Philippe Starck, who favors black-on-black clothing, poses before the white-on-white Delano Hotel in Miami Beach, which he just finished remodeling. MIAMI STYLE 'TERRIBLE'? Then why is New York importing Arquitectonica for its Times Square project? TAG: 9502110390 15 of 19, 14 Terms mh95 HOTEL CHIC 06/25/1995 THE MIAMI HERALD Copyright (c) 1995, The Miami Herald DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 EDITION: FINAL SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1K LENGTH: 121 lines ILLUSTRATION: color photo: Ian Schrager with the Delano hotel in the background (a) , inside the Delano room (a) ; photo: air freshner in Delano hotel room (a) , bathroom at the Delano hotel (a) SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: ANNE MONCREIFF ARRARTE Herald Business Writer HOTEL CHIC Press [RETURN] to continue or type q to return to Menu: FAMOUS EVEN BEFORE IT OPENS THE DELANO BRINGS IAN SCHRAGER'S STUDIO 54 MYSTIQUE TO SOUTH BEACH Miami Beach's renovated Delano Hotel may be the most famous hotel that hasn't had a guest. The New York Times wrote about the project last year. This month, Vanity Fair devoted a six-page color spread to the hotel. Next week, the place finally opens for business. The advance publicity buzz should come as no surprise. The Delano is owned by Ian Schrager, one of New York's leading arbiters of hip. Since he founded Studio 54, Manhattan's trendy 1970s disco where potential patrons lingered outside hoping to be invited in, Schrager has been setting style for the stylish. Today, Schrager owns three Manhattan boutique hotels that vary in price and cater to Schrager's core clientele: the cool, the rich and the famous. Now he's bringing his cache to South Beach with the Delano, a small beachfront estate-style resort that Schrager calls "a theme park that's not cartoon characters, but sophistication and sophisticated people. " The idea, as Schrager explains it, is to re-create the past grandeur of the Delano -- a 238-room hotel he visited as a child -- but do it with a '90s feel. Rooms are decorated in white, furniture is eclectic, children are Press [RETURN] to continue or type q to return to Menu: Ewe l c ome. "People never lose the desire to be part of what's going on -- that's what we sell, " said Schrager, 48, who recently married and had his first child. "I want this hotel to be glamorous, but easy. " To that end, Schrager has cast his employees a la A Chorus Line, personally selecting attractive, eager kids who "want to be involved in what's going on." He has staged his hotel design like "a three-act play," dark lobby, breezy outdoor porch and glistening beach and pool. And, he has brought some of New York's most chic names south. The hotel redesign is by celebrated French designer Philippe Starck. David Barton, who owns Manhattan's trendiest workout spot, is opening the Delano's David Barton Gym. Brian McNally and partner Madonna, who own 44, a New York restaurant in Schrager's Royalton Hotel, will run the hotel's Blue Door restaurant. And Rita Norona Schrager, Schrager's Cuban-born, Miami-bred wife, has designed the Delano's spa, Agua, with friends Kelly Klein and Leila Fazel. Average room rates will be $150 a night, a pricey standard for most Miami Beach hotels. But Schrager prides himself on offering a range of rates. Delano accommodations start at $100 and rise to $450 a night for one of eight Hollywood-style bungalows. "I think of this like I do organizing a party. You want an interesting mix of people, not guests that are too homogeneous, " Schrager said. "It's a Press [RETURN] to continue or type q to return to Menu: Dvertical market that makes it fun. I learned in the nightclub business that it's irrelevant what people make and where they live, it's something else they have in common that's interesting. It's ball gowns dancing next to blue jeans. " If Schrager can re-create his ball gown/blue jean mystique in a white linen market, analysts say, the Delano will bring Miami a new wave of upscale New Yorkers, appeal to the luxury international market and create a hip oasis for locals. "Ian Schrager has a very distinctive position in the hotel industry and he is the kind of guy who can go after the high- end, artistic market, " said Chase Burritt, managing director of hospitality services group for Ernst & Young Kenneth Leventhal in Coral Gables. "He appeals to the crowd that are trend-setters. And there's a lot of interest among that group in a high-end, full-service destination hotel here." Still, to keep his hotel at his goal of 67 percent occupancy, Schrager also will have to draw some meeting and small convention business. "We're not talking Fontainebleau-style conventions here, " Burritt said. "We're talking Emilio Estefan getting his people together for a corporate meeting. " For that kind of business, neighboring South Beach doesn't offer much. Though the hotels are notoriously hip, they also are very small and can't cater to travelers looking for a touch of luxury. None offers full-service amenities, said Scott Berman, director of hospitality for the Miami office of Press [RETURN] to continue or type q to return to Menu: ❑Coopers & Lybrand. Schrager agrees. "I make a distinction between myself and Ocean Drive because I worry about its trendiness, " Schrager said. "Sure, it is a magnet like Versace, Sylvester Stallone and Madonna are magnets, but you don't invest this kind of money in a fad." Schrager paid $4 million for the Delano three years ago and has invested $22 million in the renovation. The Delano is Schrager's first property outside New York. He bought the Mondrian Hotel in Los Angeles last year. It is slated to open next February. "I am interested in international gateway cities, " Schrager said. "I think there is a real circuit between New York, Miami and Los Angeles. " Schrager also is interested in expansion. He is convinced the consumer trend toward shorter vacations will continue, and he is eager to create a small hotel chain of some 15 properties that can tap the highest end of that market. "I want to get as big as I can and still be an entertainment business." Schrager said he would like to work around a spoke-and- wheel theory, clustering hotels in adjacent markets under regional management. He is looking at San Francisco and Seattle to compliment his Los Angeles hotel; Washington, D.C. , to tie into New York; as well as Houston, Atlanta and New Orleans. In Europe, London, Paris, Milan, Belgium and Dusseldorf, all fashion industry cities, are under consideration. Press [RETURN] to continue or type q to return to Menu: As for South Florida, if the Delano takes off, Schrager plans to expand to Palm Beach, the Keys and maybe Naples, he said. "The Delano will be a very good test to see if Schrager can bring his panache to South Beach and transfer his New York business here, " said Burritt. "If he can, Palm Beach and Key West would be great options." Meanwhile, Schrager said, he will continue doing what he does best. "I sell magic, " Schrager explains. "Not sleep." cutlines Photos by MARICE COHN BAND / Herald Staff NEW AND OLD: A brand new bathroom features an old-fashioned sink. Don't worry, it's hooked up to a drain. SWEET TOUCH: Rooms feature sconces that hold fresh apples for guests to snack on. Photos by MARICE COHN BAND / Herald Staff VISION IN WHITE: No splashy tropical colors will be found in rooms at the Delano. The theme is white and light. READY TO MAKE A SPLASH: Ian Schrager hopes to re-create the high-style party atmosphere of Studio 54 when the Delano Hotel re-opens next week. 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