Designers HKS Hill Glazier Studio have fused luxury with sustainability to create the Montage Beverly Hills, California, which has earned LEED Gold certification.
Beverly Hills. The celebrated enclave conjures images of elegance, affluence, palm-lined streets, movie star mansions and ...green. One certainly associates this famously stylish Mecca with currency, given Rodeo Drive is one of the world’s most fashionable shopping destinations. But this time, we’re talking about the ‘new’ green, as in environmentally conscious, and at Montage Beverly Hills – designed by HKS Hill Glazier Studio – luxury and sustainability coexist gracefully and transparently. The 5-star, eight-story, 201-key urban gem in the heart of Beverly Hills opened in November 2008. In spring 2009, Montage Beverly Hills earned Gold certification under the United States Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED for New Construction (LEED-NC) rating system.
Montage Beverly Hills is the first LEED-NC certified ultra-luxury hotel in southern California, and one of just five Gold certified hotels worldwide, designated by this third-party benchmarking system devised to encourage the design, construction and operation of sustainable buildings. The project is also the first newly constructed mixed-use hotel and residential project to be LEED certified as a single development, denoting it as a high performance building that is responsible, and efficient.
Located between Canon and Beverly Drives in the city’s Golden Triangle district, the $350 million hotel and residential/mixed-use project, one block from the posh retailers on Rodeo Drive, pays homage to the city’s historic residences and glamorous Gilded Age of Hollywood in a modern-day aesthetic. Its design is inspired by the Spanish Colonial Revival roots and Mediterranean architecture prevalent throughout the city, expressed through the use of arches, courtyards, plaster wall surfaces and terracotta tile roofs with authentic detailing.
“The design evokes a timeless elegance, capturing the sophisticated residential character of southern California’s glamorous estates of the 1920s and 30s,” says John C. Hill, Jr., AIA, principal for HKS Hill Glazier Studio. “The architecture suggests the mood of a refined time and place – a sumptuous, creative period, which defined Beverly Hills and the Golden Age of Hollywood,” adds Hill.
“Our design aspires to create an iconic place for people. It is a modern yet timeless re-interpretation, and by design, not historically accurate,” explains Robert C. Glazier, AIA, principal for HKS Hill Glazier Studio. “It feels fresh and comfortable and reflects the character of its location,” says Glazier.
The hotel’s interior, designed by Darrell Schmitt Design Associates of Los Angeles, features pristine white public spaces with pale golden stone floors, accented in some rooms with black walnut flooring and custom-designed carpets. Hand painted ceilings add depth, and classically elegant furnishings conjure Spanish, Italian and Moroccan aesthetics in sun-drenched colours of gold, salmon, coral and cream.
The hotel features an expansive art collection, featuring American and European-influenced paintings and objects d’arte juxtaposed with set drawings and original costume designs from great film classics. This one-of-a-kind collection also includes sculpture, architectural studies, sketches and vintage photographs that showcase iconic works of noted architects and interior designers of the era. And while the hotel’s exterior and interior may portend another era, its green features are purely 21st Century – and virtually transparent to Montage’s guests, which is critical to delivering a luxury hotel experience.
The 2.5-acre property, constructed on an abandoned retail site, is located within immediate access to local infrastructure, making it easy for guests to get around and see the sights without driving. In-room electronic systems provide guests with the latest in technological advances for lighting, temperature and media controls. And the hotel does not ask its guests to opt out of laundering bedding and towels – it does everything possible back-of-house in its laundry operations to reduce energy and water usage.
During construction, 28 per cent of the projects’ building materials were sourced from within 500
miles of the site, and 83 per cent of the projects’ construction waste was recycled. Its energy efficient systems are 43 percent more efficient than a standard mixed-use building. The roof-top pool uses a saline chemical treatment system to keep pool water clean, and Montage’s 28,500 square-foot public gardens, an urban sanctuary reminiscent of California gardens of the 1920s and 1930s, is the first public green space in the Golden Triangle district. And its four-level, 1,100-car shared-use parking structure, directly beneath the project’s footprint, boasts a garage exhaust system that monitors carbon monoxide levels.
HKS’s chief sustainability officer, Kirk Teske, LEED AP, believes that designing green is good business. “Securing a more sustainable environment for future generations, we create environmentally conscious architecture that benefits our clients, communities and planet.” The firm is a hospitality industry leader in the advancement of sustainable design. HKS’s USGBC LEED certified and registered projects total more than 30 million square feet, and more than 350 HKS staff members are LEED Accredited Professionals.
“Montage Beverly Hill’s LEED certification demonstrates tremendous green building leadership,” said Rick Fedrizzi, president, CEO and founding chair, U.S. Green Building Council. “The urgency of USGBC’s mission has challenged the industry to move faster and reach further than ever before, and Montage Beverly Hills serves as a prime example with just how much we can accomplish.”