Yesterday we got an invite to check out the hotel guests-only rooftop pool and bar at Thompson Beverly Hills and since we've been waiting for this rooftop oasis since about February, we jumped at the chance to explore it.
ABH--"Above Beverly Hills"--officially opened in mid-June with a flashy party for Gucci attended by Rihanna. Since then, the rooftop--a joint partnership between Thompson Hotels and Bond Street Sushi--has been percolating with celeb guests like Britney Spears, Eva Longoria and David Beckham.
Rooftop pools have become a staple for Thompson Hotels. The A60 rooftop at 60 Thompson in Soho is a much sought-after venue for hotel guests and special card-carrying members. Donovan House in DC just opened their ADC rooftop over Memorial Weekend. And the upcoming Thompson LES and Thompson Toronto will feature rooftops areas as well.
Ask and you shall receive. In a story the other week about the possible cold war thaw between feuding hoteliers Gregory Peck and Matt Moss (actually, that was just wishful thinking. The frenemy war rages on still), we asked for a copy of the Page Six magazine featuring some of NYC's hottest hoteliers.
And a kind soul sent us a copy!
In it, you see Jason Pomeranc (with ever-present arm candy/fashion publicist/girlfriend Ali Wise), Matt Moss and Greg Peck (totally did not pose together), scary Sean MacPherson and partner Eric Goode, the ever-dapper Andre Balazs, grunge hotelier Alex Calderwood of the Ace Hotel brand and chefs/restauaranteurs Todd English and Ken Friedman.
However, we got a call from Stephen Brandman, a Thompson Hotels co-owner who adamantly insisted that Thompson Hotels and Jason Pomeranc were not involved at anytime with this project. Brandman counters:
We haven't looked at it. We haven't walked by it. We have nothing to do with that project.
Of course, that isn't to say that Thompson isn't looking to expand in Vegas anymore. The interest is still very much there. When and where, however, have yet to be determined.
Update 6/12/08:
Turns out David Landsel of the New York Post was the original source of the "is/was associated with Jason Pomeranc's Thompson Hotels" claim we talk about above.
The NYT has an article today on the boutique hotel business in which they interviewed several hotel execs and got them to sound off on why boutique hotels are so successful these days.
Yes, it's 2008. No, you are not reading a post from 2004 that we mistakenly put up.
There's not much of interest in the article except the paper managed to interview a few big hoteliers like Ian Schrager (who is ok with selling out to Marriott), Jason Pomeranc and Michael Achenbaum of the Gansevoort Hotel Group, along with Thomas F. O'Toole, chief marketing officer for Hyatt Hotels.
However we did like Achenbaum's description of what his hotels aim to do:
“I want guests to think, ‘I got five-star service, but it was a fun version of five-star service,’ ” Mr. Achenbaum said. That means providing ample meeting space, free Internet access and staff that is responsive whether a guest needs dinner reservations or a computer cable, he said. It also means offering signature touches like a rooftop pool and wow factors like the 50-foot shark tank in the lobby in Miami.
Shark tanks! We're so easy to please over here.
As we write, all the big hotels and hoteliers are wrapping up the final day of the Tisch Center Hospitality Conference taking place at a non-boutique hotel, the Waldorf-Astoria.
Pretty much all we've ever cared about in the opening of the Donovan House, the newest hotel from Thompson Hotels in D.C., is what the heck these cocoon spiral showers look like and how they work.
In the first extensive review of the hotel, which we got from Hotel Maven Flying Mermaid, we learned a lot about the property but nothing really about this "exotic" shower.
Now thanks to Scott Nash, we have some great photos and a helpful diagram of how it works:
If you looked down at the Cocoon shower, it would look like this.
· 1: The shower head is here, built in flush to the ceiling. · 2: Soap shelf · 3: On/off · 4: No door, but there's a lip to keep the water from running out. Unfortunately, water does tend to pool here, so if you're not careful you end up stepping in cold water when you're done.
Thanks Scott, now we can sleep at night!
So far, the Donovan House has gotten some decent reviews--decent for a hotel that's still in a soft-opening phase. Of course, the Blackbook-Thompson Hotels love affair continues with Blackbook's recent post on the new hotel saying, "[I]f anyone can get the capital grooving, it’s unquestionably that world leader of fashionable hotel-ing himself, Jason Pomeranc."
Jason, our Groove Meters are on. We're watching you.
The Gansevoort South will be getting another boutique hotel competitor soon. Already next door to the under-construction W South Beach, the Gansevoort will have to fight for guests with a planned 7-story development project across the street.
The Ankara project was supposed to be a condo development but now its developers want to put in a hotel and guess who they have been talking with? Miami Beach USA blog has this report:
"We have had several conversations with Thompson Hotels out of New York which we are hopeful to conclude," stated an attorney representing the project at a recent Board of Adjustments hearing.
The Ankara has had a few discussions with other hotel management companies but this one sounds the most promising.
Jason Pomeranc and co. were once the management company for the Sagamore Hotel but that ended pretty badly and Thompson Hotels haven't been back in Miami since. Let's hope they fare better this time around.
More news on the Thompson Hotel front. The Thompson LES Hotel will get a Pan-Asian restaurant from Susur Lee, considered Toronto's Rock Star Chef for his namesake restaurant, Susur.
And the Thompson Hotel peeps must be paying him good. Lee is closing down his fancy Toronto shop to move to NYC and open a restaurant inside Thompson LES. (His casual restaurant, Lee, will remain.) Here's what Lee and the National Post had to say about the project:
"Jason Pomeranc is great," he tells me, referring to the cool-dude hotel warrior who is considered by many as the "next Ian Schrager," and the one behind this up-and-coming crash pad. Called the "thinking person's sex symbol" by Vanity Fair recently, he's the chap responsible for the ever-popular 60 Thompson in New York's Soho District as well as the re-charged Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, among other properties.
Interestingly, Susur Lee comes from Toronto where Thompson Hotels is also opening The Thompson Toronto. Maybe he'll return to the city then. He's not saying anything for sure now.
As for the restaurant inside Thompson LES, that isn't expected until September's Fashion Week. Meanwhile the hotel is now set for a June 2 opening.
Much like Andre Balazs doing "Talk to Chuck" ads for Charles Schwab, fellow hotelier Jason Pomeranc is now hawking the Blackberry Curve.
Here is Jason speaking out about his job as co-founder of Thompson Hotels in BlackBerry's "Ask Me" promotion--a place where they "Ask someone why they love their BlackBerry."
Jason's reasons why he love his BlackBerry are no different from ours -- email in your pocket, web access in taxis, and ease of use. But one thing separates us from Jason:
I do use my BlackBerry as a creative tool. I could be in the jungle of Cambodia and take a photograph of a particular design idea that's been inspired out of a corner of an ancient temple."
We would give our left arm to hack his BlackBerry and get our hands on the original photo of the Colombian stone that ended up being help by guerillas -- allegedly.
