W Magazine | April 2000

URBAN RENEWAL

By James Fallon

The latest addition to 's hotel empire, London's Sanderson, is a chic chill-out zone.

just wants to have fun. That's what keeps him opening more and more hotels.

"Each new one is different," Schrager says, standing in the construction site debris of his latest London hotel, the Sanderson, which opens in early April. "We always change. That's what makes it interesting and that's what keeps it fun. Otherwise, why do it?"

His schedule over the next few years indicates that Schrager is in for a pretty good time. Adding to his existing fleet of chic hotels-which includes New York's Royalton, L.A.'s Mondrian and Miami's Delano-the Sanderson will be followed by the 800 room Hudson hotel in New York this fall. The 15 acre Miramar resort hotel in Santa Barbara, the Clift in San Francisco and the Empire in New York will open in 2001.

"We want to do three to five projects a year," Schrager say. "We think there's still lots of potential for us. We could go on like this for 25 more years."

Schrager talks of opening a string of places in Latin America-the first, in Buenos Aires, will be a joint venture with former fashion retailer Alan Fueng-as well as in Europe. He and partner Nigel Wray, of the property and development company Burford p1c, plan to buy a shell company this spring so they can convert their joint venture into a public company listed on tile London Stock Exchange. With access to more capital, they'll be able to open still more hotels.

"We're really excited about Europe," says Schrager, 53. "We want to open a lot of properties in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Germany, Italy..."

Schrager's barrel chest grows broader with pride as he shows off the 150 room Sanderson, located on a side street off Oxford Street, north of Soho. The project is a follow-up to his first London hotel, St. Martins Lane, which opened last fall and rapidly established itself as one of the hippest places in town, drawing such Schrager regulars as Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Jade Jagger.

"We didn't want to do just another St. Martins Lane," says Schrager as he weaves around construction workers. "That would have been boring. The Sanderson was actually the first place I saw and is really more our style. It's in a quiet neighborhood that's off the beaten path."

The hotel is in a Sixties building that formerly housed the home furnishings showroom of the British company Sanderson. Schrager and his team, led by design guru Philippe Starck, in house designer Anda Andrei and developer Michael Overington, have turned the site into an "urban spa."

"St. Martins Lane is for the extrovert; this is for the introvert," says Andrei who, like Starck and Overington, works on all of Schrager's hotels. "We want to create a feeling of being enveloped in calm and comfort the moment you step through the door. It's a sanctuary." To that end, the garden with have a fountain, a magnolia tree, potted plants and ivy crawling up the walls.

The design challenge for Starck and Andrei was adapting their ideas to the existing structure, which is protected as a historic monument. They couldn't rip out the staircase, the stucco covered columns, the mosaic-covered wall in the garden or even the company's former sign out front (which is why the hotel is called the Sanderson). And if they replaced anything, they had do it with a replica of the original, down to the floorboards in the lobby.

Their solution was to cover anything they didn't like in semi-sheer or silver opaque curtains. The lobby mixes classic style furniture with surrealistic designs right out of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The reception desk is made up of a string of sandblasted video screens that will transmit muted images of underwater scenes and people. The lobby's floor to ceiling windows are draped with Curtains, between which hang mirrors and paintings to create a sense of isolation from the outside world.

For socializing, there's the Purple Bar, a jewel box of black granite and upholstery (complete with carpeted ceiling). The hotel's two restaurants will be operated by French chef Alain Ducasse, and a spa has been created by Schrager's wife, Rita Norona, and her partner, Leila Fazel-who also devised the spa at the Delano in Miami's South Beach. It will include a fully equipped gym, 14 treatment rooms using Agua and Eve Lom products, men's and women's dressing rooms and a "quiet zone" where guests can relax after their workout or treatment.

But Norona stresses that the spa is aimed more at well being and relaxation than at rigorous exercise. "An urban spa isn't about how much time you spend there," she says. "It's the quality of time. We want our guests to see and feel an immediate effect."

And for those who don't wish to venture into the gym, some of the rooms come equipped with a treadmill or stationary bicycle and all contain the chicest dumbbells in town-designed by Starck-together with a plaque outlining mini weight workout.

The rooms, decorated in pale yellow, cream and silver, come with dividing curtains and a glass wall that separates the bathroom from the bedroom. A painting of a peaceful country scene is attached to the ceiling and designed to lull guests to sleep.

"We wanted to create a collision of styles," Starck says, pointing to the mix of French Empire and minimalist design, from a silver chair decorated with swans to the stainless steel tables and cupboards. "There is no style. Our job is to make people blossom, not to show our talent. It's giving them the minimum so they can find out about themselves as individuals."

That individualism is what propels all of Schrager's hotels. He recognizes the Sanderson won't appeal to everyone-but nor do the St. Martins Lane, the Paramount or Morgans. With a hotel empire estimated at $1 billion, Schrager has learned the importance of niche marketing-especially in the cases where his main competitor is himself.

"There's no point in opening a new hotel," he says, "that is simply going to take guests from another one."

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