PUTTIN’ ON THE RITZ

The New York-based firm Meyer Davis has designed some of the world’s most spectacular hotels, restaurants, stores and private homes. Recent projects include the Ritz-Carlton Residences being developed by Miami’s Related Group on Bayshore Boulevard in Tampa. All 102 units of the first tower, due to be finished next year, have been sold. The second tower, with 100 residences starting at $1.7 million, is in presales. Will Meyer, a native Tennessean who founded the design firm with Gray Davis in 1999, spoke about the Ritz project and others. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

— Susan Taylor Martin

Your firm has done a lot of projects on Florida’s east coast but this is the first on the west coast. How do the two areas compare? The east coast has matured a lot over the last several years. What we find here on the west coast and Tampa in particular is that there’s a sense of the South, and being from Nashville I understand there’s an ease here, a serenity. At the beginning we started to think about the culture of the area, the vibe of the area. There’s a certain kind of relaxed way about the west coast of Florida but there’s also all the development and new energy in Tampa. It’s sort of rooted in the past, which provides the backbone, but it’s also future forward. I think those two things come together in a very interesting way and that’s how we tried to design this building.

In what way do they come together? You’ll see there’s kind of a celebration of things that relate to the past. You’ll see paneled walls with beautiful patterns on them but then that will be contrasted against a slab stone contrasted against beautiful plaster work. In tower one, when you walk in, you have this beautiful, gracious reception area. You have your big iconic views and then the central fireplace piece that kind of dials it down.

Any unusual features of the Ritz residences? For this particular project, which I think is very innovative, the Ritz-Carlton provides the hotel suites within the tower. When you have visitors it’s such a luxury to have that. You want to have your guests on hand but sometimes they don’t want to be in your house.

On projects like this do you work more with the architect or with the developer? It is really collaborative. We have a very close relationship with Arquitectonica (the architect), that is involved in this building, and Related, and we sit down together and we design those spaces together. It’s a very fluid process. It’s a lot of fun. The first rule is, there is no bad idea. Sometimes the best idea can come from an intern, or occasionally I even have a good idea.

Your firm has worked with Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental and top hotel companies. How do they compare with Ritz? They all have different nuances but we get along well. We love working with Marriott Ritz, Marriott has 30 brands now and they’re sharpening their brands. Ritz is about service and the expectation of polished luxury. That’s something that Ritz has always stood for.

I bet you get to stay in some nice hotel rooms. In Barcelona, at the Hotel Arts, they gave me the arts suite, which is the whole floor. I was really happy. They said, “We want you to think about the way we should design it.”

Do you have a favorite project? Our most favorite project is our most recent. We just finished an amazing building in Sydney, Australia, the Crown Tower, that’s the tallest building in Sydney. It’s a super luxury project with gaming, luxury retail, food and beverage and then apartments above that. We’ve just finished a really amazing tiny hotel in San Miguel, Mexico, that’s super luxurious.

What has been the most challenging project? Some of the residentials. We do one or two a year and I wouldn’t say they’re challenging but it’s just that you are venturing into private homes. But we started out as architects designing houses for people on a smaller scale and I think our knowledge of how people live in their houses shows how they like to live in larger-scale buildings.

Do you prefer retail and restaurant projects? Oscar de la Renta was our first really great commercial client. We’ve designed 16 stores for him. Looking back now we probably designed over 100 restaurants, and the restaurant sort of becomes a heart of the property for hotels or even some of the residential buildings we work on. We’ve designed restaurants for the top chefs in the world. It’s fun working with these crazy guys, surely crazier than we are.

You use a lot of wood and other organic material in your projects, right? People say, “Your architecture is very clean and very edited.” There is a warmth and tactile quality to it. We use lighting to create that warmth but also a lot of texture. If you look at our work over the last 25 years, I think there’s a timelessness to it. At least to me it doesn’t seem dated.

Are there any design trends you’re especially excited about? I’m in the middle of it so it’s hard to step back and see it. I will say this: The level of expectation in design in general over the past several years has risen just exponentially. It’s challenging to stay on the forefront of that, so we have a team of amazing creatives in our office and we’re just always trying to push it in a tasteful way.