Yesterday afternoon, I sat down with Royce Ring & Alex Urrunaga of Plan B group, the company that is developing the new Bolla restaurant and bar at the Stoneleigh. They had a lot of great information to share and I’ve included the interview below.
The above images are digital renderings of the new restaurant, bar, and patio.
D: First off, how did you approach building the new Stoneleigh Bar & Restaurant?
A: Well, whenever we come across a hotel/restaurant bar, we try to separate the two entities so that we create an individual single-standing restaurant that can stand alone from the hotel. We create two brands.
R: Right. Separate ids, separate entrances, separate sort of feel. A good example is a project we worked on up in Minnesota, Nicollet Island Inn, where they wanted it to be one of the city’s great restaurants with a great hotel attached to it. As opposed to, here’s your hotel and the after-through dining option tucked away. A lot of times hotels will do a food and beverage outlet that is tucked inside, where you have to go through the hotel to get to it, you can’t access from the street, it’s invisible, or it’s on the second or third floor. If you commute by the hotel back and forth, you’d never see it, you’d never know it was even there.
D: So, with the Stoneleigh, how have you all been able to tackle bringing in a new restaurant to a property that is known for it’s famous bar/restaurant, the Lion’s Den?
R: There’s a lot of history with the Lion’s Den. I’ve been to the Lion’s Den, you’ve been to the Lion’s Den, and Alex here has been to the Lion’s Den. It was a hideaway bar, it was off the radar. You had to really know Dallas to know about it, and when Alex and I first looked at it, we studied the building layout and we decided that a new restaurant & bar would need to have its own entrance, its own ID, its own visibility, so we moved everything forward. For example, we moved the bar out to the Maple street side and we moved the banquet room to the opposite corner of the first floor, so that it was opened up so that the front desk and the lobby public space area could play back and forth through the building in multiple directions. Plus, with the bar being on the corner of Maple and Wolf and having an outdoor bar patio, all of a sudden I could be sitting out there on the bar patio and I look across the street and my friend could be leaving from Nick & Sam’s or the Stoneleigh P and think ‘hey there’s something going on over there’, as opposed to burying it all inside.
A: By positioning the bar & restaurant that way, we were able to create a synergy. It was the most logical place to put it we thought.
R: It’s because it plays in four corners. When facing the Stoneleigh from Maple Avenue, the restaurant will be in the back right of the first floor. The bar will extend out towards Maple from the restaurant into an outdoor patio. Also, the bar will play back towards the left, in the direction of the main lobby, so I could walk in and check into the front desk, I can see the bar, and I can fall in. Also, here’s the other thing, the guest elevators are right in between the bar and restaurant, just right of the main lobby, so as you go between your room and the first floor you intuitively know there’s where to check in to go to the restaurant, and there’s where to go get a drink. Plus, there’s another big patio in the back of the hotel (opposite Maple avenue), which plays together with the lobby, which will be incorporated with the outdoor pool, which will also connect to the residential tower. This outdoor dining option will be really special.
I can remember the day when we were looking at the plan, and Alex said, “move the banquet room here and let’s do the bar right over there on the corner”. That changed the whole thing for us, really bringing it all together.
A: It was a very challenging project for us, because it’s an historical building and we kept looking at these plans and we kept hearing ‘no, it can’t be done’. But, when it came down to it, it wasn’t going to work any other way. If you want to take this old lady and giver her a facelift, you have to change some things. So, we threw it out there, checked everything with the State Historical folks, got the OK, and we were able to start putting the project together.
R: Also, through our meetings we found ways to incorporate the historical elements of the hotel. For example, there’s a historic terrazzo floor throughout the main floor. Initially, we were trying to find out how to use the terrazzo floors. Terrazzo is great because it does last forever, and you can sand it and re-finish it to bring it back to scratch. But, after over 75 years in the hotel, the floor had enough damage over the years that in lieu of making adequate repairs to it all and have it flow throughout the building, the best option was to cover it. Thus, the entire historic terrazzo floor is actually being covered with an ebony wood and deco pattern wood floor system throughout the public space, restaurant, and bar. What’s great about it is that by putting the membrane down and putting the floor down without any penetrations, we aren’t damaging it any further, which is the right thing to do, and thirty years from now if someone wants to take up the floor, they can and they’ll find the terrazzo in the same shape it was when he found it. That’s great news. Plus, we were able to verify that Dorothy Draper utilized a herringbone pattern wood floor which really allowed the designs to be tied together after all these years.
We’ve had some experience with some historical projects before in Miami & Chicago. They are always a little tricky. You have to really have to think through it, it’s definitely a balance. We are all about maintaining the integrity, the great bones that are there, but as Alex said it was more about making the flow work, make the site lines work, make the room less claustrophobic. 75 years ago design was to a much smaller scale. It didn’t matter what you were designing: hotel rooms were smaller; homes were smaller, rooms, closets, everything, kitchens, bathrooms. The way things were laid-out before at the Lion’s Den, there were a series of chopped up little areas, and you really had to know where to go.
A: I think that as we did more and more research and looked into the actual building, at one point we decided that we were going to go with the Art Deco look and bring it back into what it really was.
R: In two ways, first to bring it back, and second to give it new life. That is to take something that is Art Deco inspired and has Art Deco characteristics, but in more of a modern application. Paying homage to the era, the design paradigm.
A: You sit here and look at all the hotels that are being put up in Dallas. To me, they are all following the same scheme, like the Zaza, Ritz, the W. A lot of them have a modern feel, but there’s not much else there.
D: I think that’s what sets the Stoneleigh apart from all the others.
R: Exactly, it’s Dallas, it’s got heritage, it’s Deco, and it’s the one that has really paid attention to its roots throughout, and it’ll have character, sitting under 75 year old oak trees in a residential neighborhood. It will look good for a really long time, because it has changed so much and will retain its former glory.
D: I speak with David Bull a lot about the food and restaurant concept with Bolla. Is there a lot of exchange between you two and him in regards to the design of the new project?
R: Absolutely. On the front end, when we were going over the schematic phase and the design presentations, the team didn’t miss a single meeting. Plus, with Alex and I’s background with restaurant and hospitality, we were always able to offer some thinking on the right flow, how service can happen, and what makes sense operationally. When Bull asked Alex and I to meet him to go over the menu, we were honored to be able to sit down and go over it all with the executive chef.
A: It was an interesting project because we started working on the project before we knew what type of restaurant it was going to be. Bull had not been officially hired at that point. So, when he approached us and said that he was thinking of doing Modern Italian and presented the menu to us. He wanted to know if it would fit in the space, with the décor and everything, because something could go off the rails it we weren’t all under the same understanding. So, it was really great to be able work so closely with him on everything.
R: There are some aspects of it that fit hand and glove, and will still work really well. It all comes back to our Brand DNA process, which is a pivotal part of what we do. DNA is a proprietary product that we sell. Our notion is this. Biological DNA gives you blues eyes and brown eyes. It’s what’s hardwired into our system in a way that we can’t change it. You could put contacts on, so could I, but at the end of the day you’d still have blue eyes and I’ll have brown eyes period. So, DNA and the genetic code literally determine physical and behavioral characteristics. It will determine if I’m susceptible to diabetes, have musical ability, be able to write a best-selling novel; many things both physically and behaviorally. It defines who you are. We think that all brands, restaurants, and businesses are organic and have a life, soul, and a living entity. Given that’s the same, they too should have some sort of defined DNA. Part of our process is working as DNA codecrackers. What we do is sit down with the stakeholders very early in the game, and we simply ask what is this going to be when it grows up?
While breaking down the project’s DNA, the prism we look through is the consumer. It’s the experience that the consumer has with the brand relative to the design, food, beverage, service, and any other touch points that could be relative.
As for the Stoneleigh, we knew we had a historic property, we were in a neighborhood; had a loyal following, we knew we were in Dallas, we knew that is was going to be a special place that was still approachable. The initial challenge was not knowing what the food was going to be from the start.
A: From the beginning, the Forrest Perkins design group envisioned that the property would be Art Deco with a modern twist. Yet, the Art Deco wasn’t anchored by any sort of food.
R: However, we knew all along that the room was supposed to be romantic, not sexy, but romantic and sophisticated. In other words, a place for a romantic weekend, romantic dinner, and when the Bolla concept was brought into it, it really fit well and accounted for all of this. Part of the experience was food that could be shared, not family style, but like a shared experience. Also, we wanted to re-establish the Stoneleigh restaurant as a neighborhood fixture, where people could not only enjoy dinner, but also breakfast and lunch, which was an important facet of the previous restaurant. The tables that we designed were developed from the project’s DNA. DNA drives design. For instance, we know the feel and characteristics of the place are supposed to be, but how does that play out, how does it interpret itself?
Well, a couple of the large tables we designed have lazy susans. They are from B & B Italia, and they are these unbelievably gorgeous, very large lazy susans that can be added or removed from the table. They have this incredible German ball-bearing mechanism that keeps their function flawless, and it facilitates sharing. It also sets it apart from any other sort of restaurant that you would see, and also it’s a little retro, which fits the Deco feel. Actually, in research we found some lazy susans built into some real deco-looking tables, but the tables weren’t exactly what we were looking for.
A: Again, the romantic feel was very important. Rather than using just chairs, we used a double bench or a sofa, instead of using banquettes. We used a design that you’d find in the Art Deco era, which could seat two people, and it was a little nook where you could sit with someone you care about right next to you.
R: Instead of you take the booth, I’ll take the chair, you and your partner are sitting right next to each other.
A: It was also the use of sheers, candles, lighting; we kept replaying this romantic feel with an Art Deco ambiance. The paint is a pearlescent paint that shimmers.
R: Another important part of the DNA was glamour. If you look at this 75 year old lady that was really glamorous in her day, we wanted to re-awaken that glamour that put her on the map back in the 30’s. We added a lot of shimmer and shine, but not in a glary, garish, or glitzy way.
People decorate the room. It’s the final decoration. So, what they wear, who they are, how they carry themselves: these all add up to the final icing on the cake for every design that we do. We knew too that when people see something that has this glamorous feel, then they are going to dress in a glamorous way. Even if they don’t dress up in that way, they will look more glamorous just because they are in that setting. It’s all tied in together. So, we’re blending together this concept of glamour, romance, and Italian (and not rustic Tuscan, much more like modern Milan). However, at the same time, we wanted this restaurant to be a classy neighborhood place where you could find a great setting for breakfast and lunch as well.
Developing the brand DNA has been an incredible process, and in the end the DNA list comes back very concise and compact. It’s a list of six or seven keyphrases that epitomize that brand experience. From that we use a filter, and our rule is very simple. Our rule is that any design or operational decision would need to match two parts of this DNA and not contradict any other point. That’s a pretty easy rule to follow. It makes something that is subjective suddenly objective, because you can always ask, ‘how does it match the DNA?’ It is the blueprint for the brand just like the contracts for the building. Everyone involved works together, and everyone is playing off the same sheet of music. This has all been an incredible collaboration and it will really be something special when the first dish is served, whether it’s for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
