I am just back from New York City!  It was such fun and the weather was fabulous.  It felt like fall was on it’s way.  After 80 days of 100 degree weather here in Austin it was great to catch a break.

I was in New York for the “Business of Design” conference.  The conference meets once a year and covers topic such as marketing, business operations and software programs for the design industry.  Many people think that with Interior Design everything is just fun and pretty all the time and they don’t consider the day to day realities of a complex business behind the scenes.  This group meets to help address and streamline some of these issues.

The big theme of this year’s conference was “Designing Happiness” and it was a lot of fun.  We heard from a comedian, Maureen Langan, who made us laugh hysterically.  Stefan Stagmeister spoke about his project, The Happiness Film, where he goes on a journey to discover how one can be happier.   The overall conference agenda was an interesting approach which covered business topics while helping everyone try to incorporate happiness into our lives on a daily basis.

Here is a picture of some of the ladies I spent the two days with at the conference.  Almost everyone in the picture is also in my Tobi Fairley group from Little Rock, whom I will see next weekend.

I didn’t have a single free minute while I was in New York, but I did get to see two very interesting yet dramatically different hotels.  As you may know by now, I learned a long time ago to appreciate a variety of creative styles, even if they aren’t the look I’d like to live with in my home.

The first hotel caught my eye as we passed by on the street.  I wanted to peek into the windows and see what was going on inside.  The rich black paint contrasted with the surrounding gray concrete.  The green shrubs were manicured perfectly.

I tried to get a close up photo of the building, but you can only imagine how hard it is to stop on a New York street at 5:30 pm to take a picture.  Hence, the photo is a little blurry.

I went online to see if I could grab some better pictures from the hotel’s website, but not so much.  I did peak through the window and saw a scene something like this:

Looks like it could be a fun ‘late night’ hang out place!

This is a photo of the ‘penthouse’ room.  The design team obviously selected a theme (‘Gothic’), a color scheme (black and white) and executed it through out the hotel nicely.  It is fun to see a vision implemented consistently.

While this hotel had caught my eye, I was on my way to the Peninsula Hotel, a decidedly different design atmosphere.  Going from a dark and slightly naughty atmosphere to an environment with timeless elegance and class was an interesting juxtaposition.  I do have to say, I would have comfortably spent the entire evening at the Peninsula and not felt the need to leave anytime soon. I felt my stress level go down the minute I walked through the doors into the quiet, refined atmosphere (all photos but one from the hotel website).

Hotel bar:

Hotel Room:

This hotel makes me want to take my shoes off and relax.  It is so classy and timeless.  While the Night hotel looks fun and exciting, I think the trendiness of the design will fade and look dated long before the Peninsula Hotel needs to update it’s décor.  For me, this is another demonstration that while you can like a variety of styles, you want to pick the one that is classy and chic, as opposed to trendy, to enjoy the overall feeling for the long run (unless of course, you like to change your look with the fashion trends more often).  It was great fun to have the opportunity to travel and see new designs, as well as be able to appreciate two so diametrically opposed concepts.