8 minute read
DESIGN & BUILD: SAINT HOTEL
Secrets to uncover at Saint Hotel
Saint Hotel has given Melbourne five chic new venues all under one roof.
- By Caoimhe Hanrahan-Lawrence.
- Photography by Sharyn Cairns and Griffin Simm
MELBOURNE’S BEACHSIDE suburb of St Kilda is home to Saint Hotel, which has recently undergone an extensive renovation and reopened in March. The stately historic building has previously housed a bank, a pub, a nightclub, and is now host to five unique drinking and dining concepts.
Alongside Public Hospitality, key partners James D Field Jr and James M Field Sr took over the venue in February 2022. Neither of the Fields had a hospitality background, but the father-and-son duo are part of family construction business Field Group, and the pair immediately embarked on an extensive renovation of the venue. For Field Jr, the building at 54 Fitzroy Street held personal significance.
“I grew up in Melbourne, and St. Kilda has always been close to my heart. I always knew the building well, being there in previous years as a patron. [Myself and] a partner of mine, we always had the dream of renovating it and taking it over. We knew the potential it could have with a quality refurbishment, and just went for it,” Field Jr recalled.
The venue had previously been renovated in 2012, with the steel structure being added adjacent to the historic façade.
“Being an old bank building, it’s as solid as a rock. Great foundations,” Field Sr commented.
From the project’s beginning, the Fields were acutely aware of the importance of the building’s heritage elements. The overall design concept recognised the historic elements of the building, while introducing modern elements to the space. The venue is host to five distinct spaces, each of which express this concept in different ways.
“We wanted to transform the building into something new while championing the existing heritage, the bones of the building,” Field Jr said.
“We wanted to keep a mix of the old versus new, to keep the character of the building and of the existing masonry,” he added.
The venue is split into two levels, distinguished by different offerings and design choices. On the ground floor of Saint Hotel, guests are welcomed to Saint Bar, a pub-style offering; Saint Dining, a casual fine-dining space; and the Vault wine bar. Upstairs is the vibrant Bar 54, and the adjacent listening lounge Stellas. The venue is licensed for a total capacity of 430 people and holds a 3am license.
“The vision was to explore this whole performative dining experience, and we hope to be a stable spot for locals while still attracting a whole new group of guests and looking for something new and unique across the river,” Field Jr explained.
MOODY MARBLE
Saint Bar is immediately different from other pubs due to its dark and moody atmosphere, which the Fields curated to elevate the traditional pub experience. Dark wood and chrome accents sit alongside the exposed brick of the original building, with barstool seating along marble benchtops and a number of dark upholstered booths.
“The feel of that ground floor area is much more upmarket than your ordinary pub. It’s dark and moody, there’s heavy dark curtaining mixed with fairly dark marble finishes and black and steel tables. It’s to give a chic, upmarket appeal to people,” described Field Sr.
Adjacent to the bar is the casual fine-dining offering, Saint Dining. The menu is centred around the Josper charcoal grill, and this flows into the design through the use of scorched timber cladding. The high ceilings and French windows open the space up, and guests are treated with a view into the kitchen. For guests seeking a more intimate location, there is an additional semiprivate dining space for groups of up to 10 people. The space has quickly proved popular, with Field Sr reporting that a number of Christmas party bookings have already been placed.
The final space on the ground floor is the Vault, a wine bar that the Fields hope will soon be licensed as a street-facing takeaway bottle shop as well. The Vault is home to Field Jr’s favourite element of the entire build, the marble tasting table.
“It’s a solid piece of marble that has a concave element. It’s pretty stunning. I was hands on putting it into the actual space, and it really brings that whole Vault wine bar to life. […] The concave element is pretty special, something I haven’t seen before or dealt with,” he said.
The table was hand-carved by Pazzi Stone, who painstakingly vein-matched the marble at the joints. Above the table is a feature pendant created by local lighting designer Daniel Giffin of Giffin Design, who designed the feature lighting throughout the venue.
“Every piece in that space is carefully thought out and works well together,” Field Jr concluded.
VIVID AND VIBRANT
While the ground floor is dominated by darker shades, the upstairs spaces have a distinctly different vibe, all the way down to a different scent being used in the air fresheners. In Bar 54, the mood is light and fun, with striking booths upholstered in mustard yellow velvet, and gold accents rather than the chrome of downstairs. Despite the change in tone, there are still visual links to the other spaces.
“The materiality is more velvets and leathers while also still using the same natural stones,” Field Jr described.
The name pays homage both to Saint Hotel’s street number and to the infamous Studio 54, often referred to as New York’s greatest nightclub. The space is table service only, adding to the luxurious feel of the space.
Adjacent to Bar 54 is Stellas, which is inspired by Japanese vinyl bars, also known as jazz kissatens. Jazz kissatens first cropped up in the 1960s in Japan as a casual space to drink and listen to vinyl records, and have recently seen an Australian revival with the opening of a number of relaxed, music-focused venues.
Naturally, sound plays a key role, with two 9-feet tall speakers clad in Blackbutt timber created especially for Stellas by Tasmanian audio design duo Pitt & Giblin. Pitt & Giblin also designed the DJ booth, which slots seamlessly into the room with light wood panelling and marble accents.
“The room is treated acoustically with ceiling insulation, the windows have a secondary and third layer of glazing, and special seals to mask off the room. The idea is that you you’re immersed in this experience of sound. […] It’s this whole immersive listening experience in the room itself, which is a whole separate entity to the building,” Field Jr detailed.
Design elements from the lower level are echoed in Stellas, with a Verdi Alpi marble bar contrasting against the exposed brick of the building’s original infrastructure. The alternating levels of seating offer a relaxed atmosphere, and the Fields envision Stellas as the place to cap off a night in the other Saint Hotel offerings.
TYING IT TOGETHER
Though Saint Hotel is comprised of five distinct spaces, the repetition of elements like exposed brick, marble, and metal accents create a cohesive venue. The spaces are ideally experienced in succession, with guests taking a journey throughout the venue depending on the time of day or night.
“We wanted to have a deliberate experience. Whether you came for lunch, or a snack, you could have something and continue on, throughout the day into the evening into each revenue centre,” Field Jr explained.
This is made possible because of the links between different sections of Saint Hotel. For the Fields, it is not enough to have all these offerings under the same roof, there needs to be a connection between them in order to draw guests through the venue. Of course, there are the design choices that echo across the venue, but there are also a number of shared menu items and a focus on local drinks throughout the venue.
“We deliver this experience because each revenue centre does talk to each other, whether it be materiality or also in the offering,” Field Jr concluded.
