For Hotel Saint Augustine, her first project in Houston, Tenaya Hills explored the Montrose neighborhood and how it was shaped by John and Dominique de Menil, the late philanthropists and founders of the Menil Collection museum just steps from the property.
“It was a nice intro to Houston and set a foundation for us in a lot of ways, not only looking through the lens of what the de Menils brought to Houston but the house that Philip Johnson designed for them,” explains Hills, head of design for Bunkhouse and JDV Hotels, part of Hyatt’s Lifestyle Group.
It wasn’t long before Hills deepened her appreciation of the city with the 49-room Hotel Daphne, Bunkhouse’s second offering, in the Victorian-lined Houston Heights area. Although it’s a new-build, courtesy of Arlington, Massachusetts-based blanchardA + D, “it looks like it has historic bones and a residential, industrial feel,” she points out.
The interiors, designed in-house, embrace an Arts and Crafts aesthetic, with casement windows and wood beams and floors that evoke a layered, longstanding mansion where “subsequent generations might have added to it with a hippie fabric or stoneware but they’re sitting on a beautiful antique couch,” adds Hills.
Antiques, scattered throughout, reinforce the notion of lived-in comfort. When Hills attended the Round Top Antiques Show and visited local shops Heights Antiques On Yale and Lovejoy’s Antiques & Collectibles, she sought out pieces that resonated with the story of Daphne, the ancient Greek river nymph embodying freedom and transformation.
Materials like mohair and silk bring a sense of understated grandeur, as does the vintage Murano chandelier suspended over the cozy lobby seating arrangement reminiscent of a sunken living room. The mood is heightened by the reception desk clad in bespoke tiles and a hypnotic painting from local artist Kent Dorn, culled from the owners’ extensive Texas-centered personal collection, which admits Hills, turned out to be the hotel’s crown jewel.
In the library, done up in contrasting shades of blue, guests find reprieve in books and onyx chess sets, while Hypsi, the restaurant helmed by James Beard-nominated chef Terrence Gallivan, entices with a blueberry lava stone bar, clubby chairs, and an outdoor courtyard. “It’s loungey and lively,” as Hills puts it.
The Heights guided Hotel Daphne’s design narrative. Hills was compelled by its origins as an elevated utopian suburb as well as its shifts over the years, and this fascination is most pronounced in the guestrooms. Here, the headboards are wrapped in a brazen textile evoking a “1960s garden on acid,” she says. “The Heights was built as a community for people to live and work away from the mosquitoes. The rooms were feeling classic and a little too perfect and we wanted an element of utopia gone wrong.”
