Historic Lancaster Hotel to reopen in August in an artful way
When the storied Lancaster Hotel reopens in August, it will be with a new look and a new image as perhaps the city’s most artful hotel.
Purchased last year by the Shinn family — which owns Magnolia Lodging, a handful of hotels in the Dallas area — the Lancaster was already facing a renovation to update its exterior with a coat of taupe paint and deep-navy-blue awnings and an interior redesign to return it to its Regencystyle beginnings. (Magnolia Lodging is not related to the Magnolia Hotel or Magnolia Ballroom.)
Jay Shinn, principal partner at the Lancaster, and his nephew, managing partner Matthew Newton, sat down to talk about their plans. They’ve hired Dallas interior designer David Cadwallader to rid the hotel of its Ralph Lauren/English manor décor and install a timeless and classic aesthetic.
“David works with a lot of art collectors around the country and is known for meshing art with interiors. We wanted a more residential feel and style rather than the norm because the hotel’s not the norm,” Shinn said.
When it reopens, that will be evident on walls throughout, as some of Shinn’s own work and pieces from his vast collection of contemporary Texas art will be on display. The more than 200 pieces of art coming to the Lancaster include works by Texas artists such as Mark Flood, Terrell James, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Aaron Parazette, Margo Sawyer, Robert Rauschenberg and James Surls.
“We’ll have a 40-year survey of Texas contemporary art,” Shinn said proudly of the pieces he plans to share with Houston guests. Shinn’s own abstract contemporary art is in galleries in New York, Berlin and Italy, and you’ll find a substantial installation of his light-based work at George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
Newton explained that though the style update was already planned, the job was stretched way beyond that when Hurricane Harvey’s floodwaters filled its 15-foot-deep basement and sent a couple more feet of water into the hotel’s first floor. Located in downtown Houston’s Theater District, it was one of many buildings knocked out of commission by the hurricane. The Alley Theatre and Wortham Center also suffered substantial flood damage.
Every bit of electrical work, heating and air conditioning and other mechanical equipment sat in the hotel’s basement and was ruined. In getting all of that out, workers discovered layers of other infrastructure that had been abandoned and covered up. It’s all getting removed, too.
The Lancaster’s 93 guest rooms weren’t damaged, and, in fact, had gotten a makeover in a $10 million renovation in 2013. Some of the rooms’ bathrooms will get new wall coverings, but updates in the rooms will mostly consist of some furniture and bedding.
The lobby and groundfloor restaurant — Cultivated F+B, previously Bistro Lancaster — will get complete makeovers. It will be lighter and have more windows and will open up to the sidewalk for an outdoor cafe, capitalizing on its Theater District location and proximity to Jones Plaza.
The Lancaster first opened in 1926 as the Auditorium Hotel — the City Auditorium was across the street — and some of its earliest guests were vaudeville performers, actors and wrestlers who worked shows across the street. Michele DeGeorge — who immigrated to America from Sicily as Michele DiGiorgio — then hired architect Joseph Finger to design the 12-story structure.
Until the Shinn family bought it, the Lancaster had always been operated by DeGeorge’s descendants. That family closed the Auditorium Hotel in 1981 for a big update, and it reopened in 1983 as the Lancaster.
In 1984, the hotel received Recorded Texas Historic Landmark status and in 2010 was accepted into the prestigious Historic Hotels of America representing the Jazz Age.