By Sean Ballent
The new SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills is a contemporary spectacle of design. Nightclub creator Sam Nazarian went way over the top in putting together his latest creation.
With it’s doors opening to the public yesterday, visitors got a taste of its fashionably daring allure. French architect Philippe Starck has been installed by Nazarian to handle to design aspects of the hotel. The chairs have been carefully designed in exactly 177 styles. A solid-glass deer head is mounted over a shiny fireplace, and the lamp stand next to it looks like a chromed assault riffle.
There is something special in every direction, a variety of specific details that are impossible to categorize give the hotel playfulness and sophistication. Traditional and modern European design elements speckle its Victorian parlor and hint at the intricate restaurant and cocktail lobby.
Nazarian who has been a millionaire since his early 20s, establishing his business reputation as head of the Nextel software distributorship and making a name for himself by creating premiere dance clubs, is an emerging hotelier who is finding his niche in the industry. But in the tough economy, it’s tough to be successful. Nazarian views the SLS as a long-term family investment and believes he has an appropriate strategy for the time. By slightly undercutting the nearby Four Seasons in prices and taking design elements one step further, Navarian looks to deliver a value to the luxury market.
Rooms at the SLS Los Angeles start at about $400, with a few large suites reaching $2,500 and $5,000 a night. Amenities include pool tables on every floor and mirror-like panels in every room that look like design elements. With the push of a button, television broadcasts appear and disappear so that nothing resembling a television can ever be seen.
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