Hospitality Design - November 2018 - 26

perspectives memoir
sophisticated, and more refined. We had worked
with [the late] French designer Andrée Putman,
which guaranteed our approach would be different
by definition. We learned every rule, and those that
made sense, we followed. If it didn't make sense-
patterned sheets and carpets, indestructible
bedspreads, vinyl on walls-we didn't follow it.
I remember a financial backer and I talking about
a table in the guestroom, whether it should be
25, 26, or 27 inches tall, and he said to me, 'You're
never going to be able to get this thing done if
you're going to be involved in every single detail.'
I don't know how else to do it. When you amass
all of the details, like when you put diverse people
together, a [natural] alchemy happens. Every detail
is important because I don't know which detail is
the detail that pushes something over the top.

Philippe Starck created a dramatic entrance hallway at the
Delano in South Beach with white curtains and columns

The name Morgans was because it was in the
neighborhood of the J.P. Morgan library, which
was a very significant architectural building by
Stanford White, and the Morgan was also my
favorite car when I was growing up. We just added
the 's.' Since that was the first name we used, we
adopted it as the name of the company as well.
The Royalton in 1988 [the first of many
collaborations with Philippe Starck] had a big
lobby with a very low ceiling, and it was the place
to go. The restaurant [helmed by chef Geoffrey
Zakarian] and bar were crowded with people who
weren't staying in the hotel, which was a new
idea. We wanted people hanging out in the lobby.
The secret was that the restaurant had to appeal
to people who live in the city because hotel guests
want to go where people in the know go. That was
the fundamental change the industry realized: You
didn't have to have [F&B] as loss leaders.
Philippe is an iconoclast. He's one of the most
creative people I've ever worked with, in a very
undisciplined way. He's a great product designer.
The thing that made me want to work with him
is when I saw the project Café Costes with a
bathroom no one seemed to know how to use.
He reinvented the French brasserie, which is
hundreds of years old, and I thought if he could
reinvent that and a bathroom, he can certainly
reinvent a hotel.

Steve's job as well as mine. But I found I wasn't
shy when I was talking about the work.
We were best friends. We shared houses
together. He was my first phone call in the
morning, and my last phone call at night. I never
had another friend like Steve.

When my father died, it changed me. It felt like
the rug got pulled out from under me. But in a
funny way, Steve's death [from AIDS in 1989] had
a bigger, more profound impact on me because
he was deeply involved in my everyday life. My
life had to change from one day to the next. There
were a lot of people that were doubters-I didn't
know how to deal with the media, and I had to do

We couldn't get a liquor license [at first because
of our conviction], so we opened Morgans and
eventually Royalton without one. It's like having a
nightclub without music. But if you do something
outside of the box, it strikes people in a different
way. That's when you have a chance to excite
people. They liked the hotels. Plain and simple.
I can't tell you how much it meant to get the

026

November 2018 hospitalitydesign.com

A blue runway carpet defines the lobby of the
Royalton, another Starck creation

liquor license six years later-it was the vehicle to
a successful business. And it was the beginning of
getting back all that we lost. Steve and I applied,
and got it in due course, but unfortunately, Steve
had already passed. It, of course, culminated
when I got the pardon from President Obama
[in 2017], because then I got back everything that
was taken.
Going to Miami [with the Delano and then the
Shore Club] was very important because it was
the first location outside New York, and the
first indicator that we weren't just a New York
phenomenon. We were a catalyst for development
in Miami and then the Sunset Strip in Los
http://www.hospitalitydesign.com
Hospitality Design - November 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Hospitality Design - November 2018
