Premier provided interior design, architecture, procurement, corporate engineering, and project management expertise on the hotel conversion, and activated a design program inspired by Key West’s Latin tropical heritage

Premier, an end-to-end architecture, interior design, procurement, project management, and corporate engineering firm with specialization in hospitality, multi-family residential, student housing, adaptive reuse, and mixed-use development, is pleased to announce the completion of its latest boutique hotel project: the La Concha Key West, an Autograph Collection Hotel.  More than a monumental hotel renovation, the project was also a significant historic conservation project that saw Premier convert the former Crowne Plaza La Concha Hotel and reposition the property as the new upscale boutique La Concha Key West.  Premier provided interior design, architecture, procurement, corporate engineering, and project management expertise on the project.

Premier’s hotel renovation preserves and reimagines the historic “Grande Dame of Key West”

As part of a multi-year $35 million renovation, Premier was commissioned to historically restore and elegantly modernize the La Concha Key West’s lobby, destination bar, three-meal restaurant, café, 160 guestrooms, 14 suites, corridors, public spaces, hotel pool, and façade.  Premier’s restoration of La Concha Key West effectively restores the historic “Grande Dame of Key West” to its original grandeur, creating a new upscale boutique destination that authentically captures Key West’s vintage Cuban cultural heritage, and reinterprets it with luxurious modern sensibilities.

Beyond simply reflagging the property and updating its spaces, Premier also helped to improve the hotel’s potential by converting the property’s underutilized top floor spa into a collection of premium and individually styled rooftop villas, each uniquely blending local history with refined luxury.  The Hemingway Villa, eponymously named after the famous writer’s frequent stays in the original hotel, features a design mused by Hemingway’s Finca la Vigia home in Cuba, incorporating modern rattan wing chairs, scrivener-inspired design accents including an antique typewriter and writer’s desk, and a bar cart stocked with “Papa’s” most cherished tipples.  Similarly one-of-a-kind and locally inspired, the Tortuga Villa, named after the Dry Tortugas in the nearby Florida Keys National Park, features a nature-inspired theme rich with subtle conch, turtle, and palm patterns applied throughout the villa’s soft goods, while the Flagler Villa, named after Henry Morrison Flagler who built the Over-Sea Railroad to Key West, includes subtle turn-of-the-century industrial design cues including a brass tripod-mounted telescope and textiles popping with railway signal colors.

The reorganization of La Concha’s top floor to accommodate the hotel’s new villas was made possible with the expertise of Premier’s Corporate Engineering, Architecture, and Project Management teams, which expertly led the remapping of the building’s mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and life safety systems to make room for the suites.

Premier expertly captures Key West’s Cuban tropical heritage in the hotel’s interior design

Premier’s design program for La Concha Key West expertly activates a vision that seamlessly harmonizes the bygone Latin tropical charm of Key West with the luxurious expectations of the Autograph brand.  Originally constructed in 1926, and listed on the Historic Hotels of America register since 1991, La Concha Key West’s iconic Spanish Colonial Revival architecture unabashedly inspired Premier’s design across the property.

Entering the hotel through the new main entrance veranda lounge, guests are instantly immersed in La Concha Key West’s soothing yet vibrant tropical design.  A palette of muted blush pink and dusty pearl – inspired by conch shell mother of pearl – serves as a harmonizing background canvas across the lobby’s functional spaces.  Further unifying the design, a consistent but subtly varied application of rattan furniture and wall coverings coordinated with leather and wood accents underscores the hotel’s Cuban tropical heritage.  Drawing guests into the heart of the lobby, and serving as a community destination unto itself, the hotel’s Tropicado mojito bar and lounge draws inspiration from the island’s lush tropical vegetation and coastal surroundings.  With walls and tessellated floor tiles in a dramatically deeper palette of emerald and dark turquoise, and with the addition of wooden Spanish Colonial archways, the bar and lounge enjoy a space-defining design that instinctively sets it apart from the rest of the lobby.

In the hotel’s guestrooms, La Concha Key West’s Cuban tropical-inspired design is advanced even further.  Guestrooms are clad with dynamic-patterned wood flooring dressed with woven jute and seagrass rugs evoked by the nearby seascape, while feature walls behind the custom rattan headboards incorporate organic palm patterns in muted pastel colors of coral, peach, and loam.  Built-in furniture and fixtures in the guestrooms are capped with luxurious marble tops and are finished with rattan accents and oxidized brass hardware, replicating the styling of the built-in furniture at the reception desk and pool bar, and seamlessly bridging Premier’s interior design program from space to space and experience to experience. 

About Premier 

Dallas-based Premier is a full-service firm with over 30 years of expertise across architecture, interior design, procurement, project management, construction development, and contract administration.  With all services yielded under one roof, Premier’s team is in constant pursuit of finding innovative solutions to the hospitality, multi-family, and student housing industry’s increasingly complex problems.  From straightforward soft goods refreshes to transformative custom designs for renovations, redevelopments, and new developments, Premier’s team of professionals is dedicated to excellence across a multitude of market sectors.  From concept to completion, Premier provides consultative services that are unmatched, bringing our clients’ vision for the built environment to life.  For more information visit www.premierpm.com.