Ace Hotel is a chain of hotels headquartered in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Founded in 1999 in Seattle, it operates

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

s primarily in the United States, with locations in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

; Brooklyn,

;

Palm Springs, California Palm Springs (Cahuilla: ''Séc-he'') is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. The city covers approximately , making it the largest city in Riverside County by land a ...

;

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, Washington;

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, Pennsylvania;

, California;

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

, Louisiana;

Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ci ...

, Japan; Toronto, Canada; Sydney, Australia; and

Panama City, Panama Panama City ( es, Ciudad de Panamá, links=no; ), also known as Panama (or Panamá in Spanish), is the capital and largest city of Panama. It has an urban population of 880,691, with over 1.5 million in its metropolitan area. The city is locat ...

History

In 1999, the first Ace Hotel was opened. Friends Alex Calderwood, Wade Weigel, and Doug Herrick purchased and transformed a

halfway house A halfway house is an institute for people with criminal backgrounds or substance use disorder problems to learn (or relearn) the necessary skills to re-integrate into society and better support and care for themselves. As well as serving as a ...

into an affordable hotel that would appeal to the

creative class The creative class is the posit of American urban studies theorist Richard Florida for an ostensible socioeconomic class. Florida, a professor and head of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management at the University of To ...

. Calderwood and Weigel had previously founded Rudy's, a reinvigorated traditional barbershop concept they started in Seattle, which eventually expanded to more than a dozen locations, along with an experiential marketing company known as Neverstop, and an audiovisual arts platform known as ARO.Space with

Pearl Jam Pearl Jam is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. The band's lineup consists of founding members Jeff Ament (bass guitar), Stone Gossard (rhythm guitar), Mike McCready (lead guitar), and Eddie Vedder (lead vocals, guita ...

co-founder Stone Gossard and

Kung Faux ''Kung Faux'' is an international action comedy television series and audiovisual art assemblage created by Mic Neumann, an American creator–developer showrunner, conceptual artist and multimedia entrepreneur, who remixes classic kung fu films ...

creator Mic Neumann, who is credited for bringing in such artists as

Kaws Brian Donnelly (born November 4, 1974), known professionally as Kaws (stylized as KAWS), is an American artist and designer. His work includes repeated use of a cast of figurative characters and motifs, some dating back to the beginning of his c ...

and

Shepard Fairey Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970) is an American contemporary artist, activist and founder of OBEY Clothing who emerged from the skateboarding scene. In 1989 he designed the " Andre the Giant Has a Posse" (...OBEY...) sticker cam ...

to decorate the walls of various Rudy's and Ace Hotel locations. In 2006, Jack Barron and Tungsten Partners founder Michael Bisordi joined as owners. The group then opened a second hotel in Portland, Oregon followed by properties in Palm Springs, California and New York City in 2009. In 2011, Ace Hotel collaborated with Uslu Airlines to create a nail polish sold exclusively in the hotels' mini-bars. In 2013, an Ace Hotel opened in the Shoreditch neighborhood of

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, where Calderwood had defined a goal of opening a new Ace Hotel every "one to two years", before his untimely death at age 47 on November 16, 2013. In 2014, a downtown Los Angeles location of the Ace Hotel opened in a former theatre, followed by Ace Hotel locations in Pittsburgh in 2015, New Orleans in 2016, and Chicago in 2017. In 2020, an Ace Hotel location opened in

Kyoto, Japan Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the city ...

that was designed by

Kengo Kuma is a Japanese architect and professor in the Department of Architecture (Graduate School of Engineering) at the University of Tokyo. Frequently compared to contemporaries Shigeru Ban and Kazuyo Sejima, Kuma is also noted for his prolific writings ...

. In September 2020, it was announced that Ace Hotel London Shoreditch would not reopen after being closed because of the

Covid-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

pandemic. In 2021, Ace Hotel opened locations in Brooklyn, New York; Toronto, Canada and Sydney, Australia. In 2022, Ace Hotel filed for arbitration, alleging the property owner of a Manhattan location hurt the hotel's brand and future earnings by taking a deal with the city of New York to house homeless during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Locations

According to Calderwood, the style and furnishing of each Ace property is designed to reflect its location, with an eye towards re-imagining properties that are "challenged." *Ace Hotel Seattle is a former

Salvation Army Salvation (from Latin: ''salvatio'', from ''salva'', 'safe, saved') is the state of being saved or protected from harm or a dire situation. In religion and theology, ''salvation'' generally refers to the deliverance of the soul from sin and its c ...

halfway house located in the Belltown neighborhood. *Ace Hotel & Swim Club in

Palm Springs, CA Palm Springs (Cahuilla: ''Séc-he'') is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. The city covers approximately , making it the largest city in Riverside County by land a ...

is a converted Howard Johnson motel, formerly a Westward Ho. King's Highway, the hotel's on-site diner, is a converted

Denny's Denny's (also known as Denny's Diner on some of the locations' signage) is an American table service diner-style restaurant chain. It operates over 1,700 restaurants in many countries. Description Originally opened as a Diner, coffee shop un ...

. There are two bars, the Amigo Room, and poolside, the Short Bus. The remodel was a collaboration with L.A.-based design firm,

Commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

. *Ace Hotel Portland occupies the former

Clyde Hotel The Clyde Hotel is a historic hotel located in the downtown area of Portland, Oregon, United States. It was renamed to ''Ben Stark Hotel'' in 1987, then became the Ace Hotel Portland in 2005. National Register The building was added to the Nat ...

in downtown Portland. In its former incarnation, the hotel's lobby served as the setting for a scene from the film

Drugstore Cowboy ''Drugstore Cowboy'' is a 1989 American crime drama film directed by the American filmmaker Gus Van Sant. Written by Van Sant and Daniel Yost and based on an autobiographical novel by James Fogle, the film stars Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, Heather ...

. The property is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. *Ace Hotel New York worked with

Roman and Williams Roman and Williams Building and Interiors is an American-owned, New York-based design studio known for its work on hotels, restaurants, retail spaces, homes and product design. Founded in 2002 by Robin Standefer and Stephen Alesch, the firm enco ...

to redesign the former Hotel Breslin, a 1904 building in

Midtown Manhattan Midtown Manhattan is the central portion of the New York City borough of Manhattan and serves as the city's primary central business district. Midtown is home to some of the city's most prominent buildings, including the Empire State Buildin ...

. This location features a Stumptown Coffee and Chef

April Bloomfield April Bloomfield (born 1974) is a British chef who has opened two New York restaurants: The Spotted Pig (closed January 26, 2020) and The Breslin Bar & Dining Room. Bloomfield had previously worked at several restaurants in the United Kingdom, ...

's Michelin-starred The Breslin restaurant. *Ace Hotel London is in London's

Shoreditch Shoreditch is a district in the East End of London in England, and forms the southern part of the London Borough of Hackney. Neighbouring parts of Tower Hamlets are also perceived as part of the area. In the 16th century, Shoreditch was an impor ...

arts district, on the site of the original Shoreditch Empire music hall. The groups first location outside of the US, Ace Hotel London Shoreditch closed in September 2020. *American Trade Hotel is a restored five-story stucco building in the

Casco Viejo or in Spanish or or in Basque are different names for the medieval neighbourhood of Bilbao, part of the Ibaiondo district. The names mean ''Seven Streets'' or ''Old Town'' respectively and it used to be the walled part of the town until the e ...

historical district of Panama City. * Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles opened in January 2014 in the historic United Artists Building, with 180 rooms and a restored United Artists Theater performance venue. *Ace Hotel Pittsburgh opened in an historic

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

building in the city's East Liberty neighborhood in December 2015, and closed in 2021. *Ace Hotel New Orleans opened in March 2016 in a 1928

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

building in New Orleans' Warehouse District. *Ace Hotel Kyoto opened on June 11, 2020. This is Ace Hotel's first property in Japan. *Ace Hotel Brooklyn *Ace Hotel Toronto *Ace Hotel Sydney

In popular culture

The 2011 episode "Blunderbuss" of the sketch comedy series ''

Portlandia ''Portlandia'' is an American sketch comedy television series starring Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, set in and around Portland, Oregon, and spoofing the city's reputation as a haven for eccentric hipsters. The show was produced by Broa ...

'' had a sketch set at the "Deuce Hotel", where the obnoxiously hip staff hand out complimentary

turntables A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

and

typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...

s to all guests; it was a parody specifically of Ace Hotel Portland. On her song

Ace An ace is a playing card, Dice, die or domino with a single Pip (counting), pip. In the standard French deck, an ace has a single suit (cards), suit symbol (a heart, diamond, spade, or club) located in the middle of the card, sometimes large a ...

, rapper Noname talks about being at Ace Hotel in London.

Bon Iver Bon Iver ( ) is an American indie folk band founded in 2006 by singer-songwriter Justin Vernon. Vernon released Bon Iver's debut album, ''For Emma, Forever Ago,'' independently in July 2007. The majority of the album was recorded while Vernon ...

makes a reference to the

Ace Hotel Los Angeles Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles, originally built as the California Petroleum Corporation Building and later known as the Texaco Building, is a , 13-story highrise hotel and theater building located at 937 South Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, ...

in the song "33 "GOD"" on the album

22, A Million ''22, A Million'' is the third studio album by American indie folk band Bon Iver, released on September 30, 2016. Recorded in lead member Justin Vernon's April Base studio in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the album marks a major shift in the band's soun ...

References

External links

*
Creative team website

Ace Hotel blog
{{Hotel chains Hotel chains in the United States Companies based in Portland, Oregon Hotels in Washington (state) Hotels in Portland, Oregon Privately held companies based in Oregon 1999 establishments in Oregon Boutique resort chains Hotels in London Hotels in Manhattan