“For the owner to qualify for historic tax credits through the National Park Service, we weren’t allowed to attach anything structural to the building,” Adams says. So in addition to the hotel’s stand-alone entrance outside the building, the team designed cantilevered screens and beams to demarcate spaces in the large, open lounge, library and bar areas. The bar’s cantilevered ceiling, for example, “helps mitigate the vastness of the space, gives the bar a sense of intimacy and brings the scale down to a human level,” Adams says. Similarly, in the library, the walnut trellis structure and bookcases “do the same thing, and you can see through to the building’s original ceiling,” Adams says. Designed to resemble sleek and simple mid-century furnishings, the slatted walnut additions add a sculptural quality to the room that wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of “Mad Men.”
13