20 years of Ace: How the 'upstart' hotel brand that changed the face of travel is continuing to evolve
Like many of the best innovations, inspiration for the first Ace Hotel – which recently celebrated turning 20 years old – was born of personal need, rather than professional ambitions. The late Alex Calderwood owned an interactive marketing agency, a music venue and nightclub, and a hipster barbershop in Seattle, but “didn’t have a hotel that he would recommend to the people he was bringing to town, or that he loved staying at when he himself travelled,” says Ryan Buckstein, vice president of brand for the Ace group.
Even in major US cities, hotel options in the late Nineties were largely limited to generic chains of the Marriott and Hilton variety, or one of the new breed of design-led boutique brands, such as Kimpton or Morgans – edgy but not exactly homely.
The first Ace, housed in a former maritime workers’ hotel in Belltown, Seattle, was something different: mid-priced, stylish without being self-conscious, comfortable yet still casual, with a sleek, unfussy aesthetic and art by the likes of Shepard Fairey. Catering to creative sorts, rather than corporate travellers (a business centre? No. A destination bar? Absolutely) it rapidly became a hub for visiting musicians.
“Alex looked at the hotel as a way to engage with the music industry, the film industry, with artists, with a variety of creatives,” says Buckstein. “The idea was that a hotel could be a platform for collaboration with interesting people.”
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A second outpost opened in Portland, Oregon, in 2007, but it was the launch in 2009 of the Ace Hotel New York that sent the brand’s profile soaring. In the NoMad neighbourhood, formerly a no-man’s-land for hospitality, the vast airy lobby of the Ace fast became not only a hip spot for evening drinks, but the hottest place to set one’s laptop down for the day, a free, unofficial co-working space. The same year, the Ace Hotel & Swim Club, housed in a former motel in Palm Springs, became a hang-out for Hollywood A-listers.
In the decade since, the family has grown rapidly, branching out into Europe, with London’s Ace Hotel Shoreditch (not the strongest arrow in the quiver, a former Crowne Plaza, with, as one reviewer put it, a lick of “millennial make-up”), along with properties in Downtown Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, New Orleans and Chicago. Calderwood died in 2013, at the age of 47, from a fatal combination of alcohol and drugs.
His legacy, however, is secure, and his vision indisputably changed the industry. For evidence, look no further than the myriad imitations of the Ace’s particular combination of comfort and cool, from brands including The Hoxton, Arlo, Citizen M, Generator and Moxy, all prioritising social spaces and local produce and connections.
Few, however, have managed to capture as well as Ace the unique sense of place in each property. In LA, for example, the hotel is also home to a restored, 1,600-seat Twenties movie palace, in which concerts, screenings and talks are held seven nights a week. “We don’t really follow a formula – we like to take chances and risks, and every time we open a new hotel, we rethink the process and constantly challenge ourselves,” says Buckstein.
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Many of today’s travellers seek a spa-like experience rather than the highly social (by which I mean: party) atmosphere Ace has become synonymous with, so, in spring 2019, the group opened Sister City in New York’s Bowery district. “Thoughtfully minimalist” in style, with a Headspace meditation subscription for guests instead of a gym, the hotel is designed to offer respite from the hectic city outside. A couple of months later, the group also opened the elegant 64-room Maison de la Luz in New Orleans, its first five-star property, designed to feel like a stately neoclassical town house.
Buckstein confirms that the brand has plans for more spin-off hotels, while the Ace brand continues to grow. Opening imminently is Ace Hotel Toronto, the brand’s first Canadian outpost, with 124 rooms in the city’s fashion district, and the first Australian Ace will open in 2021, in Sydney’s fashionable Surry Hills. There’s a second New York property in the pipeline, this time in Brooklyn, though no official announcements have been made.
The opening of Ace Hotel Kyoto in spring 2020 will be the realisation of a long-held ambition. “We’ve been dreaming of doing a project in Japan since our first hotel opened in Seattle,” says Buckstein. “And our plan for that hotel is to create not just a local, but a global creative hub, pulling in creatives from all over the world.” With an exterior by architect Kengo Kuma, who has also designed the forthcoming Olympic Stadium for the Tokyo 2020 Games, the hotel is part of a redevelopment of the 92-year-old former Kyoto Central Telephone Office.
“Even though we’re into our 20th year, we still feel like a start-up in all the good ways,” says Buckstein. “We still feel like we are doing things our own way and getting away with something.”
