Following the success of their original Manhattan hotel 60 Thompson, Thompson Hotels, with the backing of property firm the Pomeranc Group, have now made an impact on the West Coast with their relaunch of the Hollywood Roosevelt and the opening of Thompson Beverly Hills. Part-time LA resident Chrissy Iley meets Jason Pomeranc to find out more...
60 Thompson is one of those magical New York hotels. It makes you feel edgy, cool and cossetted. It's the kind of place where they have a casual sense of luxury. They are attentive but not claustrophobic. You feel more of who you are. You know the way that sometimes as you approach the check in desk you feel consumed by something corporate and you don't know who you are. With 60 Thompson the opposite happens. Everything about you is reinforced.
The bedrooms are soothing. You might be greeted with a plate of homemade cookies. You might want to nip straight up to the rooftop bar for a Big Apple martini. Since 1997 it has been the ultimate in New York chic. It knows who it is and it knows who its clients are.
Recently the Thompson group opened up the Roosevelt Hotel in LA. It reworked the landscape and made old Hollywood young. Thompson Beverly Hills is due to open later this year and 6 Columbus will provide a very different Manhattan experience in the autumn.
The Pomeranc Group owns Thompson Hotels. It's a family group. Founder is the father Jack who has built an exciting and diverse portfolio of real estate and complexes over the years. The three brothers Laurence, Michael and Jason deal with development, financing and construction. The youngest brother Jason is at the artistic helm. He probably is his ideal Thompson customer.
Intense and funny by turn, Dolce & Gabbana jacket and constant Marlboro. When we meet we're drinking rose-petal mint tea at Momos in London but he sips it like he's dreaming of espresso. He has just come back from a family holiday in Israel. The whole lot of them - brothers, nieces, nephews and the father who Jason says is "My absolute inspiration. My father is still in the property business. I love to see what he does from a distance. He finds places in upcoming areas and makes them inspirational. He is a man who has built whatever he did in his own way. He could have made other choices but he stuck to his principles. Any business is competitive. People are aggressive. But my father, I can honestly say, has always conducted himself in an altruistic and honourable way. This business is so vicious it's a guiding light to know you can be above it all."
Brothers Laurence and Michael are seventeen and fourteen years older so Jason has always been the youngest. Yet seems like he was born sophisticated and, at the same time, sweet. He says, "I've always had an older personality. My brothers and I respect our individual abilities and work as a team. You know it's fun to be able to work with your family."
There is something special and grounded about Jason. I like a man who wears bracelets. It kind of embraces the soft side. One is a red string. "It's not Kaballah," he stresses. "It's from the wailing wall." The second is leather and silver - from a local SoHo sculptor who made a few one off bracelets. It hangs with the bad eye charm to ward of all evil and the third was from Hermes - a gift. The bracelets seem to embrace the different aspects of his entire lifestyle; expensive, edgy, arty - good taste.
Jason grew up in hotels. His parents moved out of their building and they lived at the once chi chi Mark Hotel - the one that became famous when Johnny Depp threw a television out of the window. Because 60 Thompson didn't have room for me that's where I stayed on my last trip. Never again. They left hair in my bathtub from the previous guest and unbeknownst to me, Sony who were paying the bill had sent the wrong card. Without telling me they charged $1300 to my American Express Card. After many transatlantic phone calls to get the money back they did not even offer an apology, proving that some hotels put greed above service.
Jason started off life as an attorney but became intrigued with hotels because the mid-nineties was a time where smaller luxurious hotels in alternative locations, evolving areas were coming into their own. The family already owned 60 Thompson as a building.
"It was at the time where everyone was doing small rooms, limited service, cheaper rates, unluxurious concepts so we came about as the alternative. Better sheets, beauty products, more personalised service, better food. It's just a way to set the tone, putting in a lovely restaurant or bar. I think it's about being a psychologist. Understanding yourself as a guest - what you like - and giving it back to them.
I have a friend who stays at 60 Thompson and he said one of the most interesting things he found was the front of desk staff knew his routine so well by the third day they were doing everything for him." Don't you just love that instinctive knowingness? Hard to find in a lover, exquisite in a hotel.
The Roosevelt has a different kind of exquisiteness. Jason is tangibly excited. He's just produced a short film set in the Roosevelt as a kind of subliminal marketing plan, a bit like where Clive Owen was driving Madonna in a BMW but it wasn't about the car.
"It was borne out of a concept that I had of what happened to Elouise at the Plaza when she grew up. As a woman she lived an alternative lifestyle to the childhood world she lived in. It was the flip side of the Plaza. The Roosevelt is the oldest hotel in Hollywood so I took its history, its grandeur, its classical nature and turned it on its head. We see the clash of the old and new Hollywood. In my eyes this girl became beautiful, intelligent, enigmatic. A cross between educated aristocrat and a rock-and-roll bohemian, sort of every man's fantasy."
You mean she's Courtney Love meets Maggie Gyllenhall from 'The Secretary'? "We found a young actress called Olivia Wild who was strikingly gorgeous. She was up for the Bond girl. She ended up in Justin Timberlake's new film Alpha Dog. She's a new 'It' girl and we found her first."
Her love interest is played by another young Hollywooder, Enrique Marciano who was in Black Hawk Down. He is a photographer called Thompson. That's the only allusion to the group. It's directed by Mark Webb who is renowned for giving traditional popsters a little edgier, harder video.
The idea of Jason Pomeranc the producer sits well with me. He talks in graphic visuals. "The movie became more complicated as it wore on. I don't want to give the whole thing away but the idea is basically that sometimes you think maybe this is not so glamorous. In the end you're not really sure who they are. Do they know each other? Are they married? That sort of thing. It definitely gave me a taste for producing. In storytelling there is very much a thread that goes through in the same way as when you're creating a new project."
To remain uncorporate and individual in a bigger, grander hotel like the Roosevelt was a challenge. "I wanted to give it a different feel of a different era. 1960's Palm Springs, a Rat Pack experience. When you're in one of the cabana rooms having a drink poolside, that's the vibe."
Another challenge is making another boutique hotel in Manhattan work but in a different way. How will 6 Columbus be the ultimate Manhattan experience?
"We want to make it the feel of uptown but throw in a thread of 1960's bachelor. If it were a movie it would be 'Blow Up'. Its design is an ode to the designers of that era. We just made a deal with Guy Bourdain. We are using his photography inside the hotel. It's striking and timeless."
Thompson Beverly Hills will be open around Christmas time. "I have these visions of Robert Evans and Warren Beatty symbolising this hotel. It's very sedate but at the same time iconic."
I wonder if it's in any way like Evans's house with its famous oval shaped pool where so many 70's actresses like Ali McGraw were pictured with Evans. It has that Bel Air blue hopefulness which you know is only going to fade into devastation.
The Evans house is elegant but over the top. I remember sitting on his mink bedspread somewhere in between wives three and four. Jason says, "To me [Evans] epitomises the idea of Hollywood. The idea that Hollywood is not a location but a dream. I spoke to Evans briefly at the Oscars. What is so intriguing about LA is you can go to a party and see all the young starlets, directors around and it's such a mixture. It's about realising a dream but it's always so elusive. It's a constant chase no matter how big you are, how creative you are and who you are. If Thompson Beverly Hills were a movie it would be 'Shampoo'."
'Shampoo' is one of the ultimate Hollywood movies where shallowness for once does not win out.
The Roosevelt is a Rat Pack movie. "One thing that I've never experienced in this business is how an area exploded so fast." The Roosevelt is in the middle of young, edgy restaurants and Hollywood Walk of Fame and souvenir shops which are gradually fading out to become hipper, cooler, younger.
"The only thing I can draw a comparison to is when Delano opened up. It changed South Beach. In ten years time people will look at the Roosevelt in the same way."
Work is continuing on the Roosevelt. It's all about entertainment, nightlife. The Beverly Hills is more about afternoon poolside. "The rooftop on the Beverly Hills is actually one of the tallest buildings in the area. We have 360 degree views - snow capped mountains on one side, down town on the other. It's a gem."
He sees it as a perfect area in which to create in-cabana spa services. He doesn't approve of spas that are always in a basement. He doesn't like the idea that windows are money so put the spa in the basement. He thinks that people will feel more luxuriated if they receive innovative treatment in smaller spaces, whether that be in room or outdoor while they're sunbathing.
"I find the whole idea of making people go to a basement for a spa inverted. I think it should be about pampering the person where they are with great products. Setting them up with different music programmes in their rooms, personal catering so everybody gets the experience they want."
60 Thompson he thinks doesn't havea movie to be its theme. It's a book. "I see it as a Jack Kerouac book. I see Kerouac walking down Thompson street, overcoat, cigarette, maybe meeting Jackson Pollock for a coffee. Maybe a little bit of James Dean. Maybe a bit of inner struggle. New York downtown has a lot of depth to it. It's almost as if the guest of 60 Thompson in your mind is happy in the moment but he's not 100 per cent happy in his life. It feels as if he's wandering, escaping from something."
Isn't that exactly what hotels are about? One freak moment where you can have everything you want and the space to be free? "Exactly. It's about aspiration and fantasy meeting. It's about a suburban couple coming from outside New York. He might be a banker, she might be on the PTA but for those few days he's an artist, she's a director. If 60 Thompson was a movie it's the 'Out Of Towners' meets '91/2 weeks'."
Jason himself is a downtown New Yorker. He lives just around the corner from 60 Thompson but splits his time in LA. His world is jewelled with sparkling celebrities. He hangs out with J Lo because she's down to earth and has got star power. A bit like him. He has an understanding girlfriend who he has been together with for a year who is the Director of Public Relations for Dolce & Gabbana.
"Hence she understands the lifestyle and understands the nature of work relationships, and the responsibilities I have more so than couples who come from totally different backgrounds. They overlap so much, especially in New York where fashion is so entertwined with the restaurant, hotel and nightlife industry. I have an interesting life made more dynamic and exciting when you're with someone appreciative and special. Every day is different. I'm seeing people from traditional banking and real estate backgrounds, as well as people who are creative, adventurous, and interesting, all mixed together."
Perhaps he needs to marinade in this mix to make sure he can give back something that's exclusive and special to the Thompson Group. Next will be Washington DC. He would absolutely love to do one in London. We ponder for a while where in the UK has anything like what the Pomeranc group offer. Nothing quite comes up to the mark.
"You know I see hotels today like lifestyle laboratories. You take a company like Ralph Lauren, you see they took fashion and made it a lifestyle. I think hotels would be next in a way that encompasses other areas like media, furniture. It's not necessarily about growing into a massive brand. It's about sharing it, letting people have some of it. I think we are at an interesting point of evolution."
I think the evolution has already happened. Everybody who experiences Thompson wants to share in it.
www.thompsonhotels.com
