I recently spent three nights at the Cleveland Fidelity Hotel, a newly minted Michelin Key property with 97 guest rooms including 11 suites and 2 penthouses. I was in Cleveland with the express purpose of attending the Association of Lodging Professionals Annual Conference, but chose to stay at the hotel on the recommendation of an active client. The decision added 10 minutes to my commute and a welcome opportunity to study a purpose built and design forward hospitality model.

One great benefit of this decision was the opportunity to walk in the shadows of the city’s landmark buildings, many formed with local Berea sandstone and at the forefront of Cleveland’s monumental program of adaptive reuse — a fitting backdrop for a hotel that has itself been restored from the bones of a corporate office building. 

Thoughtful design can be seen and felt in every square inch of the property which should be expected given the $21 million renovation overseen by the independent hospitality management group New Waterloo. Some of the design choices would challenge the budget of even well heeled Inn operators, including Waterworks fixtures and custom furniture and finish work throughout the hotel. The custom millwork — carried out by Ohio based Marous Brothers Construction — is a particularly striking feature. The hotel’s executive chef noted this was a driving force of the design and

The intentionality of the design is well represented by the tableau in the entrance to my suite. When is the last time you witnessed such an artfully cast shadow veiling a trash bin of all things?

The goal of this exercise was to compare the features and fantasies being sold by this high end, design forward hotel with the reality of the guest experience. When an asset is designed and finished in such an exacting manner, any fumbles in service appear as a scream.

Among the first and most consequential points of contact in any property is the arrival sequence. Hotel owners and operators seem to neglect the fact that the valet station, out of necessity, is often the first point of human contact when guests arrive at the property and at every consecutive exit and entry. Depending on the specific placement of the station, there are dozens of opportunities for this reality to fundamentally impact the guest experience. The valet station at the Fidelity Hotel was placed immediately in the vestibule which served a functional purpose but put a great deal of pressure on the staff to be constantly aware of the movement of guests but unable to preempt their needs. From my experience, this led to a tendency to avoid interaction rather than accept the result of a flawed design choice, or the need to elevate the level of service to ensure that pain points are reduced if not removed.

This pain point is naturally avoided through the practice of less formal check-in procedures at many Inn and B&B operations, offering a relationship forming and experience enhancing welcome to guests rather than placing emphasis on the financial transfer of goods that is underlying the stay.

The menu and care taken in the kitchen was evident throughout my stay, however, the design of the dining space combined with limited staffing levels in an slow season period created an almost comical refrain of guest and staff interactions. Guests would approach an unsupervised host station and wait, sometimes for several minutes, until their presence was noted (or not) by the two servers running through the various dining rooms, service stations and the kitchen. Having seated myself one morning out of necessity, I joined the band of surfeited diners who graciously waved hesitant guests into the dining room.

For Inn owners weighing their next capital or operational investment, the Fidelity’s design forward triumphs and occasional stumbles offer three takeaways that you might find instructive: 

I cannot overstate the elation I felt upon examining the guest amenities within the suite and finding not only tea cups but also a kettle that would allow me to control the water temperature and, thus, avoid brewing overly astringent cups of green tea. The kettle in question — a Fellow Corvo EKG, retailing at under $200 — delivered an outsized return on its modest investment in both function and aesthetic.

The hotel was overflowing with original artwork and art pieces that elevated the guest experience to that of a satellite gallery. I spent more time examining two pieces of art outside of the fourth floor elevator than I have at any institutional art gallery in many years — a reminder that a desire to elevate your property through quality and, ideally, personalized art pieces does not have to come with an excessive (or any) price tag. Our family’s Inn featured the art of celebrated New York and Boston based painters and sculptors and others through a simple relationship forged with a local art gallery. The partnership led to the sale of tens of thousand of dollars of artwork that benefitted the gallery owner (and Inn owners to a lesser degree), developed a strong referral network to the Inn’s restaurant, and associated a cutting edge art scene and related annual events (gallery and studio tours, etc.) with the property. 

The primal power of water pressure

For two consecutive mornings I listened to different groups of business travelers joyfully describe the quality of their morning ablutions with great and necessary emphasis on water pressure. My personal experience with the spa like bathrooms at Fidelity mirrors one guest’s claim that the hotel features one of the “best three showers in the United States”:

My experience at The Fidelity Hotel demonstrates what focused investment and a design forward vision can accomplish. In the same breath, it laid bare how quickly a single or continued neutral interaction with staff can bring the entire reverie to earth. While very few of our former, active, and future clients have the ability (or desire) to carry out renovations in the tens of millions of dollars, it’s rare to find Inn owners and operators without ample opportunities to improve the physical plant, support facilities and their overall business model to develop dynamic and inspired guest experience.

The world is moving at a breakneck pace. It’s a great reminder that well designed hospitality experiences allow guests to reconnect with their most fundamental and protected version of themselves. While technology and an awareness of trends can support short term business goals, creating an exceptionally clean and comfortable space for guests in combination with offering warm, attentive and personalized hospitality is, and will always be, the key to success in our industry.

Contact us to discuss your plans for development or to catch up generally.

Until Next Time,

Eben Viens

 

*This blog is the first in a series inspired by our founder’s tradition of capturing the essence of compelling hospitality experiences. “Plain and Fancy” was an oft-used phrase of Norman Simpson, author of Country Inns and Backroads (the precursor to Select Registry), that captures the spectrum of the most rewarding Inn experiences where rustic, refined, and often deeply personal expressions of hospitality coexist in harmony.