As with our work in the other historic interiors at The Ahwahnee Hotel – a masterpiece of “parkitecture” – our intent in redecorating the lobby was to strip away layers and years of inappropriate decoration. Our first step was to remove excessive, unnecessary signage (like seven “No Smoking” signs visible from one vantage point), and then – with fresh paint and textiles — to generally steer the interior back in the direction of the original 1927 design intent, allowing the spectacular architecture to sing.
Informed by photos and documents we studied in the National Park Service archive and by vintage postcards purchased from eBay, we lobbied to re-paint the lobby’s massive support columns, coated during the late 1960’s in glossy, candy apple red. When the columns were finally re-painted with the same matte, ivory paint on the walls, the effect was immediate and dramatic. Changing the color and the visual weight of those columns allowed the eye to take in the original paint colors used in the stenciled borders just beneath the ceiling and which naturally dictated the color pallet. The orange tones of the antique Persian wool carpets we found in New York City enhanced those historic borders, as did the stain-resistant, high abrasion upholstery fabrics we selected. Finally, we framed the views through the French doors with orange drapery panels similar in color and texture to the linen ones that once hung from those same rods and rings some eighty years earlier.
Inspired by the hotel’s original chandeliers and by other archive photos, Richard also designed new floor and table lamps that we had fabricated in a shop in San Francisco – lamps any visitor might easily assume are original to the hotel.
