Co-creator of Edition hotel group, Ian Schrager on how to build a brand with personality

From exuberant street performers hamming it up for passersby to street food vendors hawking their wares and the sheer hordes of humanity passing through, the chaos and cacophony of Times Square in New York is overwhelming, to say the least.

Yet, all it takes to get away from it all is to duck into the cool minimalist entryway to the Times Square Edition hotel on 47th Street, where a floating custom green mirrored stainless sphere inspired by artist Anish Kapoor hanging at the end of a narrow white corridor offers a calming counterpoint to the bustling city.

It is what hotelier and nightlife maestro Ian Schrager, who co-created the Edition hotel brand in partnership with Marriott International, describes as a “transitional space”.

"It is a luxury hotel in a non-luxury area. So the question was how to get the honky-tonk, the excitement, the frenetic activity and encapsulate that into the hotel, but still be elegant," said Schrager, who is also the co-founder of the legendary Studio 54 and Palladium nightclubs.

“It is a delicate balancing act but when you walk into the ground floor entrance, that is supposed to be a transitional space, and you are getting ready to go upstairs into a different kind of feeling.”

Indeed, the hotel’s main lobby on the 10th floor of the building, stylishly demarcated in black and white spaces, exudes that frisson of energy so palpable on the streets of Manhattan but in an elevated, highly stylised manner. It helps that there are almost always seriously cool people hanging around, ranging from chic Manhattanites at happy hour to celebrities like actress Lana Condor who was a recent guest at the hotel.

And up on my 38th floor balcony suite, a luxuriously appointed space in soothing tones of white and cream, the floor to ceiling glass windows offer panoramic views of the neon-lit concrete jungle spread out before me. At this height, the subtle sounds of the city below, from the honking of horns and music from the billboards drift into the room, just muffled enough to remind the lucky guest that they are smack dab yet elevated above this city that never sleeps.

It is this uncanny ability to encapsulate the essence of a destination within a hotel that has set Schrager apart when it comes to creating one-of-a-kind hotel concepts.

The Edition hotel group currently operates 16 hotels globally in cities such as London, Miami Beach, Barcelona, Shanghai and Rome. It is also slated to launch in Singapore in November as well as other cities including Tokyo Ginza and Doha.

Schrager first cut his teeth in hospitality during the 1970s and 1980s when he and his late business partner, Steve Rubell, created the legendary Studio 54 and Palladium nightclubs. They soon turned their attention to the hotel business by opening Morgans Hotel in 1984, thus introducing the concept of the "boutique hotel" to the world.

“I always thought completely out of the box," Schrager explained. "I did not know what the rules were, and I was not tied down to any particular way of doing something. I think, being an outsider, this is a virtue if you want to do something that has never been done before.”

Following this, came a string of anti-convention hotels like the Royalton Hotel and Paramount Hotel, where he introduced the idea of "lobby socialising" ‒ the hotel lobby became a new kind of gathering place. Other hotels he has created include the Delano Hotel in Miami and Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood.

What he did differently was to offer the hotel as a lifestyle space that spoke to one’s personality and aesthetic preference in a time when the hotel industry was characterised by general offerings.

"We just thought that the hotel industry at that time was completely generic," Schrager remarked. "There was no emphasis on a product or product distinction. Everything was about the efficiency of execution, the location or things like that. Nobody was really focused on the experience and trying to create a desirability about being in a particular place, lifting the spirits, touching people in visceral ways. We just wanted to do that."

For instance, he got rid of the role of the traditional concierge. “We never had a concierge. We thought everybody who worked in the hotel should be a concierge. Everybody should be able to make the effort," he said.

Schrager also drew upon his New York City roots as well as his experience in the nightlife scene to figure out the intangible secret sauce in creating an electric atmosphere. “I was born in the Bronx, raised in Brooklyn and I live in Manhattan”, he declared.

"In a nightclub, you don't have any distinguishable product, other than the vibe, the feel that you create," Schrager reflected, on how the diverse, sophisticated crowd at Studio 54 played a crucial role in capturing the spirit of the moment. "It's very difficult to put that in a brand book, and very difficult to make rules about that. You have to kind of feel what it is that makes something distinctive."

Besides the range of Edition luxury boutique hotels, he also has his own hotel brand Public, which aims to offer the best of the boutique and lifestyle hotel set at more accessible price points.

“What Public is, is to have something that is less expensive, but just as sophisticated as anything else out there as well as exciting food and beverage concepts and entertainment ‒ a visceral experience ‒ but at a less expensive price. I think there is something democratic and attractive about doing something that is accessible to a lot of people but not dumbing it down and treating it with the same fervour and standards of excellence,” he said.

There is currently one Public Hotel in the Bowery District and he plans to open about eight to 10 more in quick succession including one in Los Angeles and possibly Miami Beach.

One key misconception that people have about a standout boutique hotel, he pointed out, is that it is not merely about the design of a space. "Design is one of the elements of it, in the same way a special effect can make a good movie better, but it cannot make a bad movie good. If what you are going to do is replicate what somebody else does, it lacks gravitas and an underlying foundation. It is just a copy."

It is one of the reasons why he continues to be closely involved in the conceptualisation of upcoming Edition hotels, like the forthcoming one in Singapore, which is slated to launch in November and is the brand’s first hotel in Southeast Asia.

“When we do something in another country, we have to stay true to ourselves, but we have to try and capture something of the location and the time. Something of that has to be manifested in the product,” he said.

In the case of the 204-room Singapore Edition (it is undergoing the final touches during the time of the interview), Schrager, who had just seen the most recent renders of the hotel, said: “In Singapore, we incorporated a lot of greenery in the lobby but in a glamorous, unique and distinct way. I think the rooms are really well done and the public space is really spectacular. We are happy with the way that it turned out.”