Ace Hotels' Power of Design

Going against the mass market can yield a different kind of success.

By Jay Greene | November 2010 | FROM THE PRINT EDITION

Editor’s Note: The most creative companies in the world understand that design is about creating experiences that consumers crave. In a new book, Design Is How It Works: How Smart Companies Turn Products Into Icons, former BusinessWeek reporter Jay Greene explains how several companies, including Ace Hotels, which was founded in Seattle, use design to address needs consumers never knew they had. Here’s an excerpt:


Rooms at the Seattle Ace Hotel feature custom prints by the artist KAWS. Photo courtesy Ace Hotel.

The thermometer shows 102 degrees, but the proprietors of the Ace Hotel & Swim Club, one of the newest and hippest hotels in Palm Springs, California, aren’t cooling off by the pool. Ace partners Alex Calderwood and Doug Herrick, and hotel manager Jonathan Heath are scouring local consignment shops and used-furniture stores for a few pieces to add a bit more character to the place.

At the moment, Calderwood is obsessed with macramé. He’d love a huge piece to hang in The Commune, the event center at the hotel. Heath, though, has stumbled on something else that catches his fancy. “There’s a pretty cool coyote out there,” he tells Calderwood at a consignment store where a handful of gems nestle amid the second-rate chaises, dining tables, and sofas.

“Oh, my god, that’s really great,” Calderwood enthuses upon seeing the stuffed but still slightly cheerful coyote perched on a piece of wood. He looks at the price tag—$350. “That’s really cheap for taxidermy,” he says, the voice of a man who’s clearly purchased a few dead animals in his time. The three debate whether to put the coyote in the bar, the restaurant or the lobby before Herrick encourages the others to hold off on the purchase. The budget is limited and macramé is the order of the day. “I’m the voice of reason,” Herrick says.

Since 1999, Ace, launched from the imagination of three Seattle friends, Calderwood, Herrick and Wade Weigel, has opened four of the most talked about new hotels in the travel press. The first was the Ace Hotel Seattle, once a down-and-out maritime flophouse just north of downtown. Calderwood and company spit-polished the place more than refurbished it. The hotel retains much of its well-worn charm, still