Beauty Mogul Bobbi Brown's Latest Venture Is a Hotel
Bobbi Brown has never been one to color inside the lines. The 60-year-old beauty icon got her start creating products that completely opposed the popular aesthetics of the 1990s, and now, almost two years after giving up the helm of her namesake cosmetics company, Brown is yet again creating something wholly unexpected: a boutique hotel. In partnership with her husband, Steven Plofker, a real estate developer and attorney with a master’s degree in urban planning from Harvard University, Brown is set to open The George Inn in Montclair, New Jersey, the suburban town they’ve called home since their honeymoon in the ’80s. From the outside, the stately, formal brick building with large white pillars seems to indicate that its name could reference the first name of a president, as in Washington or Carver. The interiors, however, are much more in the style of a different variety of George: Clooney or perhaps Harrison. And names are important here; each of the 32 rooms is delineated by a theme and decorated in accordance. In the “Jack” room, one can find a book about Jacqueline Kennedy, sourced from Brown’s personal collection, next to black-and-white photos of Jack Black and Jack Nicholson.
Originally built as a private residence for the father of architect Charles Van Vleck—the architect for the Rockefeller family and one of the most prominent and important people in Montclair’s history—in 1902, The George Inn got its start in the hotel world as The Georgian Inn in 1940 and was deemed a historic landmark in 2008. Today, the interiors are firmly planted in the 21st century. Industrial touches like flat gray paint, original exposed brick, and matte black finishes feel cozy with the addition of tartan-covered headboards and deep, tufted couches. Not to mention Brown has partnered with brands like Smeg, Casper, and Flanuer to highlight her personal favorite bedsheets, hair dryer, and coffee machine. She even trekked to Brooklyn—“I took the subway. We were on a budget!” she says—to create a custom scent for the place that can be found bottled in linen spray, candles, and even perfume oil, all for sale. The pleasant patchouli and grapefruit smell is essentially the only element not locally sourced—there will be a tea time sourced from local tea companies and bakeries (the napkins are even designed with the local zip code, 07042). “We put a modern spin on whatever we do,” says Brown. And it certainly shows. While Erykah Badu plays over the speakers and their dog Biggie, the unofficial mascot roams about, Plofker literally knocks on a wooden table in hopes that the new venture will be successful. Certainly, with Montclair residents already wandering in asking to book a room, no luck is needed.
Read below to learn how the high-powered couple designed their first hotel—sans an interior decorator.
Architectural Digest: What was the design process like? Did you work with a decorator?
Bobbi Brown: No! My husband has teams of people he works with [as a developer], but he is the guy who walks through a room, and if he sees a wall he doesn’t like, is just like, “No, that doesn’t work anymore. Take it down.” So we just did it ourselves.
Steven Plofker: We’re in Montclair, so in order for this to make money—which I hope it will [knocks on wood]—we had to be very conscious of the cost of everything. We’ve had some very positive experiences with a lot of interior designers, but not at this price point.
BB: The interesting thing about this hotel is that we’re not in the hotel business. This is a one-off and I can’t see us doing anything else in the hotel space. The fun part about this space is that every room is a different size and shape, so we started with where the bed goes and then built the room out from there. We had a warehouse full of furniture. For example, my husband an I were walking on 23rd Street in New York City and saw one of those resale shops, and these lamps were in the window. There was an auction, so we bid on them. I don’t even know who makes them, but we love them. It’s eclectic. Everything in the inn is for sale, so we’ll be constantly be changing things.
AD: What are some of your other favorite pieces?
SP: For the most part, we don’t have trophy things here. If we can find something similar at a lower price point, I’d rather just replace it and sort of let it evolve instead of being tied to something specific. In our homes, we’re wedded to certain pieces, but I hope here that things will change a lot.
BB: We’re people who love homes, love decorating, love design, and we own a couple of residences, so we’re always decorating. We’re constantly looking. Even when looking for things here, believe it or not, we found some amazing things at HomeGoods. One-off things that, if it was among everything else, you wouldn’t know the difference.
AD: When did you start construction?
BB: He started working on this two years ago, and I started with him literally the day I left Bobbi Brown Cosmetics. I had no concept or time to do this before that, but when I told him I was done, he said “Okay, good. Now you can work on this project with me.” So it's been about a year and a half.
AD: You've partnered with a bunch of brands, from bed sheets to toothpaste. Well-known brands like Nespresso and smaller companies. What has the process been like of choosing those partnerships?
BB: Well, it was a combination of really thinking what makes a difference for me and turning the hotel into a lifestyle hotel. [Plofker] says design-inspired and I say lifestyle, so it’s a design-inspired lifestyle hotel. I started with Nespresso because I like my espresso first thing in the morning, and I don’t want to have to get dressed to go get it, and I don’t want to call room service. So, that was the first one, and then we just started thinking about what else we loved. You can’t imagine a better hairdryer than the Dyson hairdryer, so that’s why we chose that one. There will be others, too.
AD: What about the photographs?
BB: It’s a combination of many different things, and it’s still a work in progress. I’m curating the photographs, and it’s not just individual photos, it’s themes. There are paintings too; one of my favorites is George Costanza, which I love, and I bought on Etsy. Some of the photographs are from our personal collection, some are through Getty, some are things I found in flea markets. Now we’re going to start looking for concert tickets. If it’s a name like Frank it could be Frank Sinatra concert tickets. I just looked around my house to start with.
AD: How did you come up with the room names?
SP: We had a list of about 100 names, and we said “All right, which ones can we actually find enough images that people will know?” You pick a name like Ethel, and there’s just not that many Ethels in the world that people will recognize.
BB: And, by the way, different ages. A lot of people who work for us are young and they don’t know who Ethel Mertz is.
AD: Do you envision people of all ages staying here? Who do you hope comes to visit?
SP: Anyone who wants to pay! [laughs]
BB: In Montclair, we’re 12 miles from the city; I know there are people who will stay at the inn and travel back and forth because there are some who don’t love to stay in the city. We have a university, an art museum, we have the Wellmont Theater, which is a concert venue. Up until now, the closest hotel was a Courtyard by Marriott in West Orange [about a 15-minute drive away]. People like different things when they travel. Ruth Bader Ginsburg just came to Montclair, and she would have stayed here. Stephen Colbert lives in this town. There are a lot of well-known people who live here and visit here. Plus, there are weddings, sweet sixteens, 40th birthday parties. Someone knocked on the door yesterday and she wanted to give a party for her 91-year-old grandmother.
SP: Not only personal events, but also there’s the Montclair Film Festival, and there’s a lot of newer companies moving into Montclair. It’s a center for people who come here from other places for special reasons. And I hope this is one of the special reasons.
AD: When the hotel opens, do you both see yourselves on the property most of the time?
BB: I will be, he won’t. He’ll be on to his next project, but I’m someone who really cares about details. Every single thing. Anyone who walks in the door, I care about what they see and hear and feel . . .
SP [interrupting]: Speaking of details, will you fix the corner of that chair?
BB [leaning over to straighten a slightly off-center cover on the armrest of a chair in our corner]: I follow the young staff when they’re showing people around. I overheard someone asking, “What do I do with my dog?” and the person showing said, “Oh, Bobbi and Steven love dogs.” No, we’re a dog-friendly hotel. There’s all those kinds of things.
SP [gesturing to a different part of the same chair]: And push that cushion in. There you go. [pauses] Are we going to like running a hotel? I have no idea.
AD: Steven, Bobbi said she doesn’t envision you doing any other hotels.
SP: Oh, I know better than to say anything about what we’re doing tomorrow. I have no idea. Anything could happen on any given day, and sometimes it does.
