Ames Building Hotel

Newbury Comics stores are like twinkies and cockroaches, they'd survive a nuclear war.
 
The Globe said:
An elegant makeover for a classic
Ames Building interiors to be a New England first for 'boutique' designer Rockwell

By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff | September 7, 2007

The New York design firm that wowed guests at the boutique W hotels and trendy Nobu sushi restaurants has signed on to create interiors for a new hotel in the historic Ames Building in Boston.

In its first major project in New England, the Rockwell Group has been hired by hotel developer Normandy Real Estate Partners to design the rooms, lobby, common areas, and a restaurant at One Court Street, in the ornate 14-floor building that was Boston's first "tower."

"They kind of started the boutique industry and designed the first W hotel," said Justin Krebs, a principal of Normandy, who with his partners interviewed several interior designers for the centrally located Boston property, which dates from 1889. "They saw the space, and they just fell in love with it."

The unique exterior of the Ames building, designed in a combination of Byzantine and Romanesque styles, is an intricately carved and varied facade of granite, sandstone, and blue slate, with cornices, corbels, and carved-in-stone human heads, all of which the developers will preserve.

Rockwell Group is just getting started on the project, assessing the largely gutted structure, and won't have drawings for a couple of months. But designers and architects of the firm are working with club and restaurant owner Seth Greenberg, who is advising Normandy on restaurant and bar space and may operate the restaurant. It will occupy a large part of the first floor, opening onto Washington Street Mall, with views of State Street and the Old State House.

"It's a fabulous building, actually," said Gregory Stanford of Rockwell, which has also created spaces in Chambers hotels, the Venetian Theater in Las Vegas, and the wine bar at the St. Regis Hotel in New York.

"From a decor point of view, you really want the building to speak to you," said Stanford, who with his team will come up with a modern interior that nonetheless evokes the 1891 exterior. "That building has a lot it wants to give up. The grandeur of the outside has to match the inside."

Rockwell Group, whose website says, "Dreaming is one of our most important missions," specializes in restaurants and has dreamed up interiors at dozens of other high-profile eateries, hotels, residences, libraries, and cultural institutions. In the Boston area, Rockwell designed the interior for Best Cellars, a wine store at Coolidge Corner.

The firm said its design work doesn't have a "signature style," but rather "reflects a quirky pluralism." Its work on hotel lobbies seem to be characterized by a refined elegance, the spaces filled with high-quality materials rendered in styles, shapes, and at scales that evoke several eras.

Normandy, based in New Jersey, has aggressively bought property in the Boston area in the last few years and is currently renovating and rebranding the Holiday Inn in Newton to become an Indigo hotel, the first of InterContinental Hotels Group PLC's boutique brand to come to New England. The company is also converting a Holiday Inn in Atlantic City into the Chelsea Hotel.

Rockwell is working with Cambridge Seven Architects on the Ames's interiors. "It's a blank canvas with great bones," Stanford said. "With the customer for that location and where they want to be in terms of service, we think the expression would be modern."

"One thing we find most interesting is a building that has such a grand scale and at the same time is so intimate," he said. "It's curious how plain it is on the inside."

It's tricky to bring a building a century forward, Stanford said. "We want to respect the historical, but we don't really think people are looking for things to be sentimental." Architecturally, "Boston's got a lot of muscle," he said. "We're looking to create something that makes a strong statement. We're not looking to be wimpy."

Thomas C. Palmer Jr. can be reached at tpalmer@globe.com.
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Link
 
Re: Hotel co. ditches Hub plan: Ames to be sold

Looks like work has resumed.

AmesBldgSign_20071202-030.jpg


AmesBldg_20071224-107.jpg
 
Re: Hotel co. ditches Hub plan: Ames to be sold

I like seeing the name 'Ames Hotel'; hope it will keep that name when finished.
 
Re: Hotel co. ditches Hub plan: Ames to be sold

Since the architects are Cambridge Seven and the construction company doing the work is Tishman, I expect it will be very similar to the lauded Charles Street Jail makeover into the Liberty Hotel.

There is a small blurb at the Cambridge Seven web site: http://www.c7a.com/Portfolio/hospitality/the_ames_hotel.asp

and this rather uninspiring rendering:
AMES_0112_2_M_Entry-Sketch.jpg
 
Re: Hotel co. ditches Hub plan: Ames to be sold

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Today. Was the outside painted before? I don't remember the polychromatic decoration.
 
Re: Hotel co. ditches Hub plan: Ames to be sold

That might be stone decoration, inset like a mosaic. I never noticed it before, either, but then I never saw the building from this vantage point either.
 
Re: Hotel co. ditches Hub plan: Ames to be sold

I agree that these are insets. I thought the building used to be white, and wonder if my memory is at fault, or if the owner has stripped off the white (?) paint in preparation for a proper stone cleaning.
 
Re: Hotel co. ditches Hub plan: Ames to be sold

Should the name of this thread be changed since the hotel found a buyer and the project seems to be on track?
 
Re: Hotel co. ditches Hub plan: Ames to be sold

tobyjug said:
I agree that these are insets. I thought the building used to be white, and wonder if my memory is at fault, or if the owner has stripped off the white (?) paint in preparation for a proper stone cleaning.
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No, the building's never been white, though it appears cleaner than I remember it. But I don't recall anyone cleaning the exterior lately...but then?
 
Re: Hotel co. ditches Hub plan: Ames to be sold

Yes, I'd appreciate it if a moderator could change the thread title to something like "New Hotel in Ames Building".

Do we know yet what name the hotel will have when it opens?
 
Re: Hotel co. ditches Hub plan: Ames to be sold

http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/3760/001393zm0.jpg The F.L.Ames building replaced by The current White building post WWI. The lot where the White building stands was combined with the Carter building on the corner to create 10 West Street. The original building names were ignored when the project went from offices to condos, and finally the Suffolk dormitories.


The mosaics were common on a lot of Richardson's late commercial work and SRC's practice in the late 1880-90s. The original lobby had similar ornament. Norcross builders was involved in all of these late Boston projects, also including Peabody and Stearns Fiske building, so naturally they were all very similar in detailing.


www.asbuiltsurveys.com/ec/pdfs/client6.pdf
Is the rather bland survey done for the original Irish hotel chain.
 
Re: Hotel co. ditches Hub plan: Ames to be sold

001393zm0.jpg
 
Ames Building set to become boutique hotel

By Angel Jennings, Globe Correspondent | June 17, 2008

The New York company that attracts celebrities to its chic hotels, including the Hudson in New York and the Delano in Miami Beach, has signed on to develop a boutique hotel in the historic Ames Building in downtown Boston.
Morgans Hotel Group is expected to disclose today that it will join with developers Ames Hotel Partners and Normandy Real Estate Partners to operate a hip modern hotel in the 1889 building that was Boston's first skyscraper.

The property, which will be known as The Ames Hotel, joins a growing list of luxury hotels coming to Boston. The W Boston hotel, which has been in the pipeline since 2006, will open in the Theatre District next year, for example.

Morgans said it will spend $75 million to turn the 14-story Ames building into a hotel with 115 guest rooms, a restaurant, a bar, and a gym. And while the company is mum on the decor of the hotel, which will open in 2009, it said it will embody the avant-garde feel of its other properties.

"We are really known for hotels with a design focus," Marc Gordon, the chief investment officer of Morgans Hotel Group, said in an interview. "We are talking about new, interesting, noteworthy, and edgy."

In September, The Rockwell Group, the New York design firm behind the W hotels and Nobu sushi restaurant, signed on to create the interior for the new Ames building. Rockwell said it planned to play up the classic structure of the Byzantine and Romanesque-style former office building, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Justin D. Krebs, a Normandy principal, said in a statement the renovation would return "this landmark property to its former glory."

Each of the 10 hotels Morgans owns and operates has its own style. The Hudson in Manhattan has neon-lit escalators that take guests up 40 feet to the ivy-covered lobby.

"They have a reputation that people are following," said Reed Woodworth, vice president of PKF Consulting in Boston, which follows the hospitality industry. "The hotels are hip and chic. It's not the standard boutique-style hotel. They are high energy and tend to draw a younger crowd. They are a little bit more of a party hotel."

And celebrities hang out there, too. Hollywood stars like actress Eva Longoria Parker frequent the company's Los Angeles hotel, the Mondrian.

Woodworth said the Ames could become a party scene, too, especially with so many movies being shot in and around Boston these days, but questioned whether that alone would sustain the hotel operations.

"Movies being filmed here will bring the high-end celebrity types. But will that be enough to fill a hotel?" he asked.
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http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/06/17/ames_building_set_to_become_boutique_hotel/
 
That looks awesome.

Maybe they can move over to City Hall when they are done.
 
First impression: it's supposed to be white?!?

Follow-up: I think I prefer it brown-beige.
 
I agree the Ames Hotel sounds like a fine small project -- should have called it Ames House however -- I keep waiting for someone to comeback to old Boston-style names like Adams House


as for working on City Hall -- Maybe they can move over to City Hall when they are done.

I agree -- we need to get rid of that rust that seems to be covering the a lot of the magnificent concrete structure City Hall -- soon to be the new home for the New England Aquarium?

Oh what's that -- its brick and the city hall is moving to the old home of the New England Aquarium -- er oh never mind

Westy
 
A century worth of coal soot, non-low sulfur diesel, and pre-catalytic converter automotive exhaust darkens the hell of out of granite.

http://www.dumondchemicals.com/html/picbc.htm

Many of the dark buildings around the city are simply filthy with a century worth of pollutants and would look very different if cleaned. There's a lot of beautiful color patterns that masons and architects developed over the years hidden behind grime.
 
Has anybody been inside the Hotel Indigo in Newton? Same developers (Normandy) - and while the outside of the Indigo can't help but retain it's 1960s-era look, the inside is absolutely unbelievable - a total grand slam. Beautiful, well-designed and well-executed. I'm glad they're behind this project too. They get the details right - the Ames hotel will need a detail-oriented developer. (And I would love it if they called it the 'Ames House' - I actually just suggested your comment to Normandy's branding firm - would you waive your "copyright" if they used it?!!)
 
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