Redbury is the kind of place where young creatives stay up all night, write poetry, have a great meal, make love, and sleep until noon with their sunglasses on. Situated at the convergence of Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles, the Redbury is SLS Hotels’ scrappy younger brother. Its 57 guest flats exude a warm, bohemian counter-culture vibe with design elements drawn from old-world cultures. Cleo, the hotel’s signature restaurant from SBE Executive Chef Daniel Elmaleh, serves up reasonably priced Mediterranean cuisine.
“We’re getting a lot of inquiries about Redburys,” Nazarian says. “We’re really trying to hone in on where the brand would work in other key markets, and we’re excited about potentially growing.”
Nazarian acquired the former condo building in May of 2010, and wanted to turn the property around fast. He enlisted leading photographer and director Matthew Rolston, who is most known for his photography of film, music, and TV stars, as the hotel’s creative director. “I don’t think of myself as a photographer or director anymore,” Rolston says. “I think of myself as an idea person.”
Rolston was tasked with creating a top-to-bottom concept that would cater to a younger, creative community at a lower price point than SLS Hotels while maintaining the same attention to detail that has served him so well when shooting videos and commercials. When those shoots wrapped, however, the set came down and the crew went home. At the hotel, Rolston’s stage remains up 24/7.
“It’s been a success since the day it opened the door,” Rolston says. “The concept just seems to really have caught people. Everybody that looks at the rooms says, ‘I could live here.’ That’s the first thing out of their mouth.”
To launch the hotel, Rolston worked with a team that included an architect, interior designer, graphic designer, music and scent experts, and uniform company. “I was involved in every aspect of the hotel, from the naming of the fragrance in the lobby to the scent and design of the amenities like the body lotion and liquid soap,” Rolston says. “It’s all part of a branding effort to create a complete experience.”
His style may be modern and minimal one day and maximal and ornate the next, but romance is always a unifying factor. “It’s a romantic thrill that I’m after in every project that I do,” Rolston says, “regardless of the style.”
