Back to the fifties
Fraser Robertson and Sarah Robarts breeze into our interview, all smiles and Californian suntans and excitement over their first venture into the world of hospitality.
In between feeding and entertaining their baby daughter, Daisy ("She comes everywhere, to all our business meetings," says Sarah), the British couple discuss their plans for a new hotel brand in the USA.
The first step has been a hotel opening in the Californian desert city of Palm Springs, 100 miles south-east of Los Angeles. In a coals-to-Newcastle move that's bold, if not downright cheeky, the couple has attempted to bring back 1950s Hollywood glamour to a town that made its name celebrating just that.
Palm Springs was a holiday hideaway and a romantic rendezvous for some of Hollywood's old film stars, a place where they could escape the studios and, in the early days at least, the media. From the 1940s on, the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley were regular visitors. Today it's still a holiday Mecca for stars (part-time residents include Bob Hope, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jay Leno) but the 1950s glamour is long gone.
Robertson and Robarts say they were amazed when, on first visiting the town with the intention solely of buying a residence, there seemed to be no mid-20th-century retro-style hotels. "We thought it would be like it is in Miami. But it was all Spanish and south-western style," says Robarts. Her husband grimaces: "Done to death."
Immediately spotting a gap in the market, they bought a hotel a couple of miles from the centre of town, one in dire need of renovation. The Mira Loma, as it was called, had been a romantic meeting place for film stars, many of them having affairs. The couple moved in and put their respective talents to work: Robarts is a painter and sometime interior designer; Robertson was a branding expert and venture capitalist.
"It was a fleapit," says Robarts, "but in its heyday it had been fantastic."
They decided to go for not just a retro theme but over-the-top 1950s and 1960s kitsch - "to get us on the map", Robertson says. Two-and-a-half months and several hundreds of thousands of dollars later (financial help came from business partner friends), and after shopping all over the country, on the internet and through catalogues for furniture and artefacts, they opened the 13-room Ballantines Original on New Year's Eve 1999.
Robarts and Robertson have been scrupulous in the room design. Everything, from the 1950s crockery and rotary phones to the vinyl headboards and candlewick bedspreads, looks like it's from the middle of last century. It's a mix, they say, of bargain buys and designer pieces such as Charles Eames-designed rocking chairs - worth up to $1,500 (£905) for originals. "Art is crucial to what we do," Robertson says. "We're both keen collectors, and Sarah is a painter."
Robarts used to have her own studio on London's King's Road. Robertson was an independent marketing consultant who lists among his former clients the Scottish Rugby Union and Bell's Scottish Open.
There's a distinct playfulness to their property - the blue Astroturf sun deck, the Brat Pack music blaring around the pool, the theme behind each bedroom (powder pink and Marilyn Monroe screen prints for the Pretty In Pink Suite, surfboards and lei flower garlands in the Hawaiian Surf Room). "We're not luxury-orientated but rather fun-orientated," Robertson says. "And it caught on. We made the cover of the Los Angeles Times travel section by the February after we opened, and that month we were full."
The fun was limited for him and his wife, however. For a year they lived in the manager's office and did practically everything themselves, including serving breakfast. As novices to the industry, they found it tough going. Today, they leave the day-to-day running and management to David and Jodee Smith, who lease the property from them.
Now living in Los Angeles, Robertson and Robarts have set their sights on expanding the concept to more hotels and possibly to apartment buildings. Robertson says he is looking at four more possible Ballantines, in LA and elsewhere on the southern California coast. They are also considering Las Vegas. The plan is to develop other 1950s and 1960s buildings, taking them back into their era, Robertson says.
Ninety per cent of Ballantines Original's business is from the USA and, according to Robertson, these are mainly people from the country's major cities - New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco - who want to stay somewhere with individuality.
Thirty per cent of the hotel's custom is gay (Palm Springs is a growing gay Mecca), and many guests are in the film or music industries. It is also a popular location for magazine and advertising photo shoots, which make up 15% of business.
Ironically, the couple's biggest competition is less than a mile down the same street in Palm Springs - and they helped to build that brand too. The 17-bedroom Movie Colony hotel, named after the town's Movie Colony district, was built in 1935 and designed by renowned architect Albert Frey, a leader in mid-20th-century modernism.
1990s revival
Like other small hotels in the area, the then San Jacinto hotel struggled in the 1980s and eventually went out of business. In the 1990s it was revived by a German couple, fans of Frey, and was sold again in 1999 to the Haake family from near San Francisco.
The Haakes, who made their money converting buildings into retail and office space, renovated the property and introduced a 1950s and 1960s theme. For a time, they had Robarts and Robertson running it. The couple's stamp is still evident, and the similarities with Ballantines Original are unmistakable: the Surf Suite, with surf boards, grass skirts and leis; three Marilyn Monroe-inspired rooms, with screen prints of Norma Jean (although not a pink thing in sight); the "marshmallow" benches by the pool; the same brand of bath products in the rooms; the black and white photographs and old covers of Life magazine on the walls; the identical white wood plantation shutters on the windows.
The two parties ended their partnership last summer. Although neither will discuss what went wrong, suffice to say there have been expensive legal bills and each vows never to enter into such a partnership again.
O'Meara Haake is now co-general manager at the Movie Colony (along with local interior designer Donald Lloyd Smith, who is also an owner). Her sister, currently studying hospitality, is expected to join the business too.
Compared with Ballantines Original, the Movie Colony hotel is low on kitsch. O'Meara's father, Walter Haake, seems intent on setting his hotel apart from its former sister property. "We want a hip, edgy feel to it," he says.
There are plans to install a bar in the central patio area, and turn a set of aluminium horse troughs into private outdoor bubble baths.
Whereas Ballantines has brash colour and a party feel and style to it, the Movie Colony is more composed, both in atmosphere and decor, with mostly green and pastels in the public areas. But both are going for the same markets of film and media types, private parties, gays, and in the summer - when desert temperatures rocket to 106°F and the natives retreat indoors - the sun-seeking and less affected Europeans.
The two are not the only hotels in the city celebrating the middle of last century; the nearby Orbit In, has received lavish media praise for its 1950s design and decor. But Ballantines and the Movie Colony are pushing the film connection hard.
The Movie Colony sponsored this year's Palm Springs International Film Festival and held an Oscars night party. Magazine and advertising photo shoots make up 20% of business here, says O'Meara Haake, with many of them hiring out the whole property at once so that they have constant access to all the rooms.
But, unlike Robertson and Robarts, the Haake family has no desire to expand its hotel empire. "Operating retail or office space is totally different from a hotel," Walter Haake says. "Hotels are the toughest business in which to make money. This is a minimum 12 hours a day, seven days a week and you're only as good as your next month's bookings. If we had realised [what it entailed] we wouldn't have done it."
Haake denies reports that the property is up for sale. Like Robarts and Robertson, he has secured financial investment for the hotel from private individuals. One of his backers is long-time friend Steve Pinetti, senior vice-president, sales and marketing with the Kimpton Hotel and Restaurant Group, an influential boutique hotel company based in San Francisco.
Haake prides himself on what he believes is a good investment, buying in an area that seems to be on the up again. Judging by the proliferation of vintage furniture, jewellery and clothes shops nearby - many of them selling 1950s-era stuff - the mid-century is trendy once more in Palm Springs.
"The city considers the modernism movement to be important to Palm Springs," says Haake, who wants Palm Springs council to make his hotel a historic landmark.
Ballantines original
Rooms: 14
Average daily rate: $190 (£114.75)
Occupancy, year to April 2003: 50%
Occupancy, peak season (November-May): 70s and 80s
www.ballantineshotels.com
The movie colony hotel
Rooms: 17 including 3 townhouses
Average daily rate: $210 (£126.80)
Occupancy: 40% weekdays, 100% weekends
www.moviecolonyhotel.com
