When architect and developer Bruce Redman Becker envisioned the opportunity to create Hotel Marcel New Haven, Tapestry Collection by Hilton, which opened in May 2022, he set a goal to create a hotel that operated fully on renewable energy, without any use of fossil fuels.
That vision is now a reality and Hotel Marcel has also become the first Passive House-certified hotel in the country. The Passive House certification, managed by Passive House Institute (PHI), is an internationally recognized performance standard for air tightness and energy consumption, verified with field-tested energy modeling. There are 5,629 buildings globally that have been certified by Passive House Institute, of which only 140 are in the United States, and Hotel Marcel is the first hotel with over 100 rooms to be certified in the world. Earlier this year, Hotel Marcel also became one of fewer than a dozen LEED Platinum-certified hotels in the country.
The building that houses Hotel Marcel was originally designed in 1968 in a Brutalist architectural style by Marcel Breuer, whose teaching and designs influenced mid-century modern architects. Originally housing offices for a tire company, the building sat vacant for two decades when Becker stepped.
The building was redesigned with a holistic approach to sustainable design and operations, from its power-over-ethernet lighting system that reduced lighting energy use by more than 30 percent to its more than 1,000 solar panels that power the guestrooms, kitchen, laundry facilities, and 7,000-square-foot meeting space.
