Paul Taylor

Photo courtesy of Crosby Street Hotel

When Tim and Kit Kemp decided to open the Crosby Street Hotel in New York City, they turned to the Manhattan-based architect Paul Taylor. We interviewed him for the upcoming Americas 2010 edition of our Tablet10 magazine, and we had more material than we could print. Here’s the whole conversation.

We were surprised that it was a new build.

That is, for them, atypical. Basically they are renovators, not new building people. But being an architect for a discerning client like Firmdale Hotels, and more specifically Tim and Kit, how would you translate them into New York City?

We were very familiar with the site, and actually found that site for them. Our offices were on the corner of Prince and Lafayette for 22 years, and we were priced out of the neighborhood. That was actually our parking lot that we parked at. I think we created a building that is clearly a new building, but a building that I think very much is appropriate to the area.

What did the Kemps ask you for? What was the concept or the vision?

They always say they wanted to bring their product to New York. When they say that, you say, Can you just tell me what your product is? They can’t tell you.

They had suggested that I stay in London and visit every one of their properties, every room type. There is definitely something which is Firmdale. I’ve eaten at their home, I’ve spent time with them, I’ve been to their place in Barbados. Essentially Kit is an eclectic designer. She has whimsy, she likes to get stuff from all over the world and put it together in fun ways, use color.

In a hotel room a bathroom is very important, and they have a strong vision of the Firmdale bathroom. They have this idea of doing screenings with the theater. So there’s a series of what makes Firmdale Firmdale. And you have to weave that together with the fact that we’re not actually renovating a building. We have to create a new building.

This building’s unique site contributed something that they don’t exactly have in London, which are these exterior spaces. You’ve got that interior courtyard that we call the sculpture garden, which is for private use of the guests, and the other one which is basically the café, which is an extension of the bar area, which goes out to Lafayette.

Some of the unusual things would be: in London, Tim has his own chickens that lay eggs. He actually brings them in from his country residence and serves them in his restaurants. Well, we’re going to have chickens in this place. On the eleventh floor we’re going to have a vegetable garden and chickens laying eggs.

A green rooftop space?

A vegetable garden, literally with chickens.

And bringing a bit of that country life.

Exactly. It’s very city-formal, but down-dressed. That’s the way that they are.

Is it difficult putting up a new building in SoHo?

SoHo is actually a manufacturing district, what they call an M15B zoning district, and in that district, hotel use below the level of the second floor is not permitted — and neither is retail, neither are restaurants. How is that possible? There are more restaurants in SoHo than anywhere else. They’re all grandfathered in because they existed before the zoning.

When you look at the Soho Grand, they used to have their lobby on the second floor. They did that because they had to. 60 Thompson had the same thing. If you look at the Mercer, it has the lobby on the first floor. They’re in the historic district, and the zoning resolution says that if you’re in the landmark district, city planning has the option of changing the use requirements.

So we had to go through a two-and-a-half-year special permit process to even have a restaurant, lobby on the first floor, theater in the cellar, all of that. That entire development required advertising in Italian, Chinese, English, Irish newspapers. Had to get a real estate broker to market it for the permitted uses, which includes taxidermists, automotive repair plants, nuclear waste storage — these are the things that are permitted.

And so I had to present to community boards, we had to work with neighbors, we had to work with the city council, we had to work with the Manhattan borough president. So that was a very complex thing. We did get it approved. The SoHo Alliance actually said that we were a model for developers working with the community.

How old are those zoning regulations? That doesn’t sound like the SoHo that we know now.

Right, that came in in, I think, 1968. The idea was to protect the texture of the areas. You know, technically you can’t own a loft or an apartment. It’s a non-residential neighborhood. And the only way you can actually live there is to get a certificate as a professional artist from the city, which requires a whole procedure and five years of certificates. So those attorneys and investment bankers that you see living there have fake artists that they have paid, and nobody wants to change it, because it’s politically infeasible.

What do you find to be the greatest challenge in designing for hotels?

The greatest challenge in designing anything that’s well done, whether it’s hospitality or not, is being responsive to the particular client. In the English term they call that “bespoke.” So in order to do a really bespoke project, it’s really challenging, and you have to have a client that wants to do it. The expectation level is very high. The same kind of high expectation that you would have in a wealthy person’s home. It becomes a residential project, as opposed to a commercial project. So that’s the greatest challenge — to work at that level you’re not designing a commercial project, you’re designing a home.