The Little Nell

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40 l www . Architectural Digest.com ABOVE AND LEFT: Junior suites, each about 800 square feet, offer comfortable living and dining areas with private balconies. Caio Fonseca litho- graphs. Michael Eastman photograph. All fur- nishings, Holly Hunt. Great Plains drapery and upholstery fabrics. Sofa pillow, Hunt Leather. ABOVE LEFT: Aspen’s Little Nell hotel, built by Hagman Yaw Architects, recently asked designer (and seasonal resident) Holly Hunt to rethink its 86 standard rooms and junior suites. With the old furnishings given to charity, Hunt embarked on a smart, sustainable and texture-driven design. HOTELS | COLORADO The Little Nell ON ITS 20TH ANNIVERSARY, ASPEN’S STORIED RESORT GETS A BREATH OF FRESH AIR Interior Design by Holly Hunt Text by Susan Sheehan | Photography by David O. Marlow

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Editor, Architectural Digest, June 2010

Transcript of The Little Nell

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ABOVE AND LEFT: Junior suites, each about 800 square feet, offer comfortable living and dining areas with private balconies. Caio Fonseca litho-graphs. Michael Eastman photograph. All fur-nishings, Holly Hunt. Great Plains drapery and upholstery fabrics. Sofa pillow, Hunt Leather.

ABOVE LEFT: Aspen’s Little Nell hotel, built by Hagman Yaw Architects, recently asked designer (and seasonal resident) Holly Hunt to rethink its 86 standard rooms and junior suites. With the old furnishings given to charity, Hunt embarked on a smart, sustainable and texture-driven design.

HOTELS | COLORADO

The Little NellON ITS 20TH ANNIVERSARY, ASPEN’S STORIED

RESORT GETS A BREATH OF FRESH AIRInterior Design by Holly Hunt

Text by Susan Sheehan | Photography by David O. Marlow

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The Little Nell has been the chicest of hotels in chic Aspen, Colorado, since its opening in !989. Nonetheless, late last July

a guest posted these words on TripAdvisor.com: “Oh my … it is time for a renovation. This hotel has an amazing reputation but let’s just say that it is time to stop resting on one’s laurels. It is tired. The furniture is stained, the rugs are dreary.”

Months earlier the Little Nell’s own-

ers had reached a similar conclusion and engaged Holly Hunt to redesign 86 of the hotel’s 92 rooms and suites, with the help of local architectural "rm Rowland + Broughton. From early last Septem-ber until early December, the hotel was closed and the work was done. “The own-ers donated almost all the old furniture, draperies and light "xtures to Habitat for Humanity,” Hunt says.

The Little Nell was Hunt’s "rst for-

ay into hotel rejuvenation. “I’ve been fortunate enough in my personal and professional travels to stay in quite a few high-end hotels and acquired diverse guest experiences,” she says. “Since !987 I’ve owned places in Snowmass, so I’m famil-iar with the Aspen vibe.”

Hunt’s makeover is in a style she char-acterizes as “Aspen modern.” The rooms are in one of three palettes: terra-cotta (“Some of the hotel’s rooms have a view

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of Red Mountain, a nonskiing mountain,” the designer says), blue (“think late-night skies”) and white (“snow, white-water rafting”). All the color schemes, she adds, complement their western setting. The "oors have been covered with sturdy wall-to-wall carpets throughout—a mixture of cream, heather and taupe tones that com-bine to give the look of rocks in streams. The walls, previously papered in white, are now painted beige. “It’s a very neutral beige,” Hunt says. “And it stays neutral. It doesn’t go pink or green or yellow. I really don’t like things to go yellow.” The art that had previously decorated The Little Nell’s walls—described by Hunt as “a mixture of "owers and this and that”—came down as

well. Colorful limited-edition lithographs by contemporary artists like Robert Kelly and Caio Fonseca, as well as black-and-white prints by Michael Eastman, are now on display. Guests will also #nd a 42-piece installation by photographer Walter Nie-dermayr, commissioned for the renovation by the hotel’s owners.

The rooms already had gas #replaces. “They made the rooms feel cozy, but they were too small,” Hunt observes. “I enhanced the original #replaces with steel, stone and wire-brushed #r. Now they’re a beautiful focal point.”

While the #replaces were simply re-vised, all of the original pine beds are gone and the !989 bifold closet doors have

been replaced by barnlike walnut doors that glide on metal rails. For most rooms Hunt designed two-poster oak beds, linked by horizontal strips of darkened steel; throws reminiscent of horse blan-kets are #tted over the linen headboards. Pendant lights designed for Hunt by José Solís Betancourt add a warm glow.

Leather armchairs, banquettes, lounge chairs on casters and trestle tables have helped to declutter rooms once #lled by overstuffed chairs. Large minibars set flush with the wall, and stocked with full-size premium offerings, add to the residential feel, something the hotel’s guests—many of whom stay for a week at a time—particularly appreciate. And energy

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ABOVE: A standard mountainside room features an intimate nook for private dining below a lithograph by Robert Kelly. Banquette velvet, Great Outdoors. LEFT: A marble-lined standard bath. CaesarStone countertops. Kohler faucets.

Hunt’s new design brings !reside easy chairs, organic-cotton throws and indulgent minibars to every accommodation. FAR LEFT: Tucked below the rafters, a standard town-view room puts the emphasis on cozy. LG television, at Abt.com.

ef"ciency has improved substantially, too, thanks to an innovative remote-control system operated by the concierge.

The Little Nell, always Aspen’s only ski-in, ski-out resort, continues to offer guests a two-minute walk to a gondola that will transport them up Aspen Mountain. After its Holly Hunt facelift, Little Nell also of-fers them an up-to-date hotel that would look strange in Miami or Los Angeles but is just right for Aspen. “That,” says Hunt, “was precisely my intention.”

The Little Nell

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