If anyone is wondering what the Kimpton Hotel Group is up to in San Francisco, it looks like they may be taking a cue from the Ace Hotel properties. The darling of the hospitality scene these last few years, Ace made an impact on young urban travelers by turning rundown fleabag budget hotels into the local hotbed of hip. By way of a quirky design aesthetic with warehouse flourishes and simple retro style, your hotel room was suddenly a club room or maybe what your treehouse looked like when you were a kid. OK, I exaggerate, but let it be said that the unexpected was suddenly cool and the old plumbing stayed. Enter the Hotel Buchanan in San Francisco, where hotels are hit or miss but mostly miss. A boutique property tucked away in Japantown, it makes up for its shortcomings, namely size and gawky outward appearance, by upping the ante on service, style and amenities. By that I mean what you see is not what you get.
When I visited recently the bandages from the property’s recent June, 2015 face lift were not completely off. The lobby and the interior accommodations were looking spiffed up and just about ready to meet the public but the hallways were still right out of the penitentiary.
To be fair Kimpton took the time to remind guests in the elevator that they knew the hallway was ghastly but just wait till you see what we’ve got planned. Cute! And in fact a tiny color schematic by NICOLEHOLLIS Interior Design hanging on the wall proved that indeed it was going to be swell just like the rooms, just wait (coming December, 2015). Similarly, a couple of uncomfortable plastic armchairs pulled up to the awfully sweet café table in my room were soon going to be relegated to the trash heap when the supple leather slinky ones came in and Kimpton admitted that, too. So, here is where the parent company takes the time to hammer home the fact that the DNA of their properties is cool and offbeat and get ready to walk on the wild side of design.
So, were they able to pull off their peculiar style here? Like the perfect frame that brings a painting to life, I think the hallways will help immensely. The dazzling white painted walls in the rooms and blinding white bathrooms recall the Japanese aesthetic and allow the somber notes of the dark blue and slick black casegoods to stand out. The furnishings reek of industrial chic, with lots of metal and raw leather. And the nod to the Ace in the retrofitted lighting with dark oxidized brass hardware is very much today’s design statement– old is new again in case you’ve forgotten. I personally loved the tailored striped grey flannel drapes on the lone window as well as the unusual wallhangings by local artists in the bath and above the long black wooden headboard.
Comfort, you ask? You got it here with plush high thread count linens and thick, fluffy duvets piped in black. A double set of pillows is a subtle reminder that the hotel is trying to give you some value for your dollar but lest you forget it the nightly Happy Hour with sake tastings in the lobby, real wooden hangers in the wardrobe (black, of course), wonderful batik Kabuki robes and a Keurig coffee maker in every room drive home this fact. I personally would have thrown in a daily bottle of water by the bedside every day especially since after dark you’ll be hard pressed to find anything open in the neighborhood which turns into a ghost town come sundown. But hey, perhaps that’s a good thing. You can take your pick from a cornucopia of Japanese, Korean and Chinese restaurants close by for dinner and get back to the peace and quiet of your room to finish up your work. The internet is on Kimpton here and if you’re bored the snazzy corner communal table off the lobby can easily become an observation deck for all that is happening. This is San Francisco, after all, a city full of surprises.
