PaperCity Magazine

PaperCity_Houston_June_July_August_2020

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TK Above: Al fresco dining at the refreshed La Colombe d'Or Hotel, reopening this fall. Below, from top: Tenth-floor amenity-level social lounge; The Residences' first-floor gallery connects the new tower lobby with the mansion. including a boutique hotel, a restaurant, residences, plus an art gallery and parks." This pedigreed building will be the opposite of prosaic, big-developer architecture. Abutting the stately La Colombe d'Or mansion, designed by Alfred C. Finn in 1923 for oil magnate Walter W. Fondren, is the soaring residential skyscraper by Munoz + Albin, with interiors by Rottet Studios. The Houston-based architecture and design teams are led by principals Jorge Muñoz, Enrique Albin, and Lauren Rottet. Rottet Studios is also revamping La Colombe d'Or, a National Register historic hotel, from its restaurant and reception areas to five serenely appointed second-floor suites. A third Houston firm is also involved: Gin Braverman's Gin Design Group has been tapped to envision the interiors of the hotel's nine new Garden Bungalows, which line the tropical courtyard. Architecture firm Munoz + Albin is known for dramatic, elegant residential towers that stand as beacons of light and repose. Rottet Studios adds the human scale, carving out intimate spaces for gathering, fostering an evocative dialogue between contemporary modernism and the past. Rottet is adept at including understated yet important contemporary artworks in its projects. Houston-based artist Troy Stanley, represented by Barbara Davis Gallery, has been commissioned for the calling card of the sky-rise's lobby, a 140-by-225-inch site-specific wall painting. Stanley says that the work was "inspired by the views of the vast concrete city … and shadows of leaves upon the ground." Preservationist Anna Mod weighed in on issues of tax credits in the project's delicate dance between the 1920s and today's investment in this prime one-acre lot in the heart of one of Houston's most desirable neighborhoods. Lauren Rottet's firm designs both La Colombe d'Or mansion's hotel rooms, renewed lobby, dining room, and bar, as well as signature interiors in the tower: its entry/reception desk, 18 guest suites, ground-floor living room, and the 10th- floor indoor/outdoor spaces encircling the pool. "We saw this as the perfect opportunity to c o m b i n e t h e charm of old- world Houston with the grace and elegance of c o n t e m p o r a r y a r c h i t e c t u r e , " Rottet says. "We d e v e l o p e d a strategy where neither old or new would be watered down or made 'transitional.' We chose to celebrate the historic and the new in their pure forms with the landscape being the uniting element." This ambitious Museum District pairing of the 1920s and the 2020s wouldn't have been possible if Steve Zimmerman hadn't saved the neglected mansion in 1979, buying it directly from the grandchildren of Walter and Ella Fondren, then birthing the hotel the following year. Dan Zimmerman, who originally reached out to the development office at Hines in 2014, and his family have been the drivers of the new La Colombe d'Or, with Dan even introducing Rottet to the Hines team to realize both interiors for the hotel and the new tower. When it unveils in the fall, The Residences at La Colombe d'Or will become an exemplary model for preserving the past while striding confidently into the future. livelacolombedor.com. (continued from page 82)

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