Ace Hotel is a chain of hotels headquartered in Los Angeles and New York City. Founded in 1999 in Seattle, it operates hotels Internationally in 4 continents, with locations in; Brooklyn, New York City; Palm Springs, California; Seattle, Washington; Kyoto, Japan; Toronto, Canada; and Sydney, Australia with hotels soon to open in Athens, Greece and Fukuoka, Japan.
History
[edit]Ace Hotel PortlandAce Hotel New YorkGuest room at Ace Hotel New YorkAce Hotel Kyoto
In 1999, the first Ace Hotel was opened. Friends Alex Calderwood, Wade Weigel, and Doug Herrick purchased and transformed a Seattlehalfway house into an affordable hotel that would appeal to the creative class. Calderwood and Weigel had previously founded Rudy's, a reinvigorated traditional barbershop concept they started in Seattle, which eventually expanded to more than a dozen locations, along with an experiential marketing company known as Neverstop, and an audiovisual arts platform known as ARO.Space with Pearl Jam co-founder Stone Gossard and Kung Faux creator Mic Neumann, who is credited for bringing in such artists as Kaws and Shepard Fairey to decorate the walls of various Rudy's and Ace Hotel locations.[1]
In 2006, the group opened a second hotel in Portland, Oregon followed by properties in Palm Springs, California and New York City in 2009.[2]
In 2013, an Ace Hotel opened in the Shoreditch neighborhood of London,[3] where Calderwood had defined a goal of opening a new Ace Hotel every "one to two years", before his untimely death at age 47 on November 16, 2013.[4]
In 2014, a downtown Los Angeles location of the Ace Hotel opened in a former theatre, followed by Ace Hotel locations in Pittsburgh in 2015, New Orleans in 2016, and Chicago in 2017.[citation needed]
In 2020, an Ace Hotel location opened in Kyoto, Japan that was designed by Kengo Kuma.[5] In September 2020, it was announced that Ace Hotel London Shoreditch would not reopen after being closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.[6]
In 2021, Ace Hotel opened locations in Brooklyn, New York; Toronto, Canada and Sydney, Australia.[citation needed]
In 2024 Ace is poised to open a hotel on the Athens Riviera in Greece.
According to Calderwood, the style and furnishing of each Ace property is designed to reflect its location, with an eye towards re-imagining properties that are "challenged."[7]
Ace Hotel Brooklyn
Ace Hotel Kyoto opened on June 11, 2020, in a building originally designed by Tetsuro Yoshida for the Kyoto Central Telephone Company in 1926. The registeredTaishō era property was redesigned by Kengo Kuma.[8][9]
Ace Hotel New Orleans opened in March 2016 in a 1928 Art Deco building in New Orleans' Warehouse District.[10]
Ace Hotel & Swim ClubinPalm Springs, CA is a converted Howard Johnson motel, formerly a Westward Ho. King's Highway, the hotel's on-site diner, is a converted Denny's. There are two bars, the Amigo Room, and poolside, the Short Bus. The remodel was a collaboration with L.A.-based design firm, Commune.
Ace Hotel Seattle is a former Salvation Army halfway house located in the Belltown neighborhood.
Ace Hotel Sydney
Ace Hotel Toronto opened July 2022. The first Canadian site for the Ace Hotel, the property is notable as their first original build.[15]
Former locations:
The American Trade Hotel is a restored five-story stucco building in the Casco Viejo historical district of Panama City.[16] It was associated with Ace Hotels for a number of years after its opening.
Ace Hotel London was in London's Shoreditch arts district, on the site of the original Shoreditch Empire music hall.[17] The groups first location outside of the US, Ace Hotel London Shoreditch closed in September 2020.[6]
Ace Hotel Pittsburgh opened in an historic YMCA building in the city's East Liberty neighborhood in December 2015, and closed in 2021.
Ace Hotel Downtown Los Angeles opened in January 2014 in the historic United Artists Building, with 180 rooms and a restored United Artists Theater performance venue. Closed in 2024.
The 2011 episode "Blunderbuss" of the sketch comedy series Portlandia had a sketch set at the "Deuce Hotel", where the obnoxiously hip staff hand out complimentary turntables and typewriters to all guests;[18] it was a parody specifically of Ace Hotel Portland.[19]
On her song Ace, rapper Noname talks about being at Ace Hotel in London.[20]
