St. Regis Aspen’s 40-Million Facelift

“Some people ask me why I would put something like the urns and Chinoiserie cabinets in Aspen. When I do a space, I try to not make everything look like Aspen or Arizona. At that point in time when I was writing my script, late 1800s, the family might have a mountain manor but they also might have traveled to China and those pieces would have shown up in their homes.”

“I really wanted it to feel summer and winter-appropriate and like someone’s personal grand manor. I kind of envisioned the Astors as they had been back then and how they would have lived today. How they would have wanted unusual antique pieces mixed with more contemporary pieces.”

“One of the senior designers in my office likes to collect etchings and drawings and things. I went over to his house one day and we went through his collection and then we blew these prints up. When you sit in here you really feel like you are surrounded by the mountains.”

“This room used to be a bank of phone booths. We created the library—I imagine this room was decorated later in the family’s travels—late 20s or early 30s.”

“The hotel before was one color of wood. The bulk of the hotel stayed sort of a warm wood color, but then where the focal points are: the bar [above], the reception desk, and the library, we switched to gray cerused wood. It is as if the family might have been influenced by the grays in Paris. The snowflakes here are by Mike and Doug Starn. No two prints are alike and they had to approve the exact order in which they were hung. I tried to work with local galleries. People in Aspen are very proud of their community.”

“I had stayed there, just coincidentally, four or five times before getting the commission. The hotel was nice and the building was nice, but when I got to the room, I was like, ‘Oh my goodness’ because it was not traditional and it was not contemporary. It was somewhat in-between. What they call transitional. It wasn’t what you would expect either from Aspen or a St. Regis. So I really spent a lot of times in the room. I wanted to make them as magical as when you’re sent to a guest suite in a grand manor.”