Hotel Bardo
Left Lane transforms a 19th-century Gothic mansion into an urban resort and neighbourhood clubhouse in the heart of Forsyth Park.
t’s not every day that a new brand promises to disrupt the market, hybridising the hotel and members’ club in a way that hasn’t been seen Stateside. Conceptualised by New York-based real estate development firm Left Lane, Bardo does just that.
“Bardo is a Tibetan term that means transition or inbetween states,” explains Left Lane’s Chief Brand Officer Jess Berkin. “We want our resorts to be spaces where time is suspended and you can fully immerse yourself in the moment – whatever that moment may be,” she adds, touting Bardo’s ‘always rare’ tagline that promises to combine the comforting consistency of large-scale brands with the spontaneity and whimsy of independents.
The nascent brand was born in the booming Southern town of Savannah, Georgia, famed for its arts scene, as well as an emerging culinary destination. With big-city folk flocking to the promising tertiary city for this very reason, Left Lane identified a gap in Savannah’s luxury hotel market.
To bring the first Bardo outpost to life, the developer turned to adaptive re-use and the inherent sustainability that comes with it, a process that has since become a core pillar for the brand. “When you say you want it to be part
A study in contrasts, the design scheme pairs original mouldings with contemporary murals and pops of colour
of the fabric of a community, a responsible way to do that is to bring a historic asset back to life instead of knocking it down and rebuilding,” explains Berkin. Overlooking famed Forsyth Park, the two-acre resort, now known as Hotel Bardo, was previously the home of an insurance tycoon and a funeral parlour, until the 19thcentury Southern Gothic-style mansion was purchased in 2005 and converted to a hotel with the addition of an annex designed to mimic the building’s original red façade and tower.
Left Lane acquired the property in 2022, and set about putting its own stamp on it, introducing a new guestroom block, a carriage house for events, and a showstopping pool that cements Bardo Savannah’s status as an urban resort. Featuring green and white striped tiling offset by parasols in soft peach hues, the pool is the place to see and be seen. A whimsical green solarium and curtained bar pavilion add to the playfulness. Garden-level guestrooms even feature individual planted patios that lead directly to the pool.
Inside, Left Lane’s Executive Vice President of Design & Development Huxley Hogeboom teamed up with design consultants Atelier Pond to develop an entirely new design scheme.
“We wanted the lobby to look nothing like it did before,” Hogeboom explains. “The original design had Venetian columns and English details; our aim was to make it more refined and calm to put guests in the mood to relax.”
A delightful reception space is adorned with a mural by artist Vanessa Platacis. Murals continue in the elevators with walls and ceilings decked out to mimic a quaint gazebo in Forsyth Park. Guests are then led through calming monochrome blue corridors, which are a notable departure from their previous iteration.
Guestrooms pair the au courant Mid-Century resort aesthetic with unexpected pops of colour and mis-matched furniture to conjure “your eccentric aunt or uncle’s home, much like Savannah itself that has this interesting history”.
Designed to complement the complexion, peach-toned bathrooms feature warm lighting
surrounding perfectly proportioned vanity mirrors and patterned shower cubicles. The flagship property also marks the introduction of the brand’s in-house spa concept Saltgrass, featuring local botanicals and biophilia set in a light and airy space.
And that brings us to the members’ club aspect of Bardo, or social neighbourhood club, as they like to call it. Left Lane believes that Bardo is unique in that it is a hotel first and member’s club second. “Hotels are interesting building types,” notes Hogeboom. “They’re inherently a facility occupied by transient visitors, so how do you reconcile that and make a guest feel like they’re part of the city?” he asks. “From the very beginning, we wanted locals to be able to meet like-minded out-of-towners and for guests to feel like they’re part of this small local community that they would never be able to get into on their own.”
On the ground floor, the mansion houses Saint Bibiana, a 100-cover coastal Italian restaurant, while the velvet-roped members’ club and bar
sits on the second floor. Guestrooms throughout stay true to the residential origins of the building. One room, named Peggy, is dressed in all-pink as a tribute to its fictitious inhabitant. Another, a more masculine blue-toned room, houses games tables.
Throughout the design process, Hogeboom and his team sought to retain various original features of the building. “We love the patina of the existing mouldings, the flooring and the hardware. We wanted to keep those layers of time intact,” he recalls, joking that his design collaborators and contractors may not have always shared in his love of antiquity. With one successful test case in place, Bardo is soon to expand into further emerging tertiary cities, bringing members’ clubs, original sitespecific F&B outlets and Saltgrass Spa outposts to Bozeman Montana, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and Providence Rhode Island. And that’s not all – Left Lane is poised to take the US by storm with a new lifestyle brand currently in the works.
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Owner / Operator:
Left Lane Development
Architecture: LS3P
Interior Design: Left Lane, Atelier Pond
Art Consultant: Nine dot Arts
Procurement: Carroll Adams Group
Landscaping: Fernando Wong Outdoor Living Design
Main Contractor: Choate Construction www.staybardo.com