Article 1
By JERRY HIRSCH
As Walt Disney Co. begins construction of its Grand Californian Hotel in Anaheim, artisans throughout California expect the project to pump millions of dollars into the revived Arts and Crafts movement that characterized architecture and design in the Golden State early this century.
Walt Disney is reviewing the portfolios of 300 artisans and craftsman to cull a cadre that can give an authentic feel and look to the 750-room four-star hotel. The hotel is part of the $1.4 billion Disneyland resort expansion and will be the first Disney hotel to open into a theme park; in this case, Disney’s California Adventure theme park. Both are scheduled to open in early 2001.
"A number of different design houses are working on the (hotel) project. Disney is really trying to recreate all of the period and the different architects and artisans," said Su Bacon, a consultant and owner of Historic Lighting, an Arts and Crafts store in Monrovia. "The hotel will be a lovely showcase for the movement." Designers from Walt Disney Imagineering, the company’s creative arm, plan to meet next week with the Arts and Crafts Guild in Northern California.
"They say they really want to work with the artists," said Deby Zito, a San Francisco woodcrafter who previously worked for Disney building a sideboard and shelf for the dining room in the upcoming Robin Williams picture, "Bicentennial Man." "I am looking forward to hearing what they have to say."
All told, hotel industry analysts expect Disney to spend upward of $100 million on the hotel. It’s the first Disney-built hotel on the West Coast. The Grand Californian will overlook Disney’s California Adventure.
"We are looking at building a three-star hotel at Orangewood and Harbor near Disneyland, and we estimated it at $90,000 a room. I can’t imagine that Disney can do what it wants for anything less than $130,000 a room," said Manny Sawhney, a hotel broker at Sperry Van Ness in Irvine. While Disney isn’t talking prices, its development executives did provide a peek into the project in a meeting last week with tourism officials in Anaheim.
"The Arts and Crafts movement is not Aunt Emma’s macrame at the church bazaar," said Frank Zorc, project director of Walt Disney Imagineering. "The style started in the mid-1800s in Europe but reached its exuberance out here in California," Zorc said.
Disney picked the theme for the hotel because it is emblematic of California, which is the theme for the new amusement park under construction next to Disneyland.
The theme will run like a thread throughout the hotel, from its exterior architecture to its room furniture to the table settings in the restaurants.
"We want to let these artisans push their crafts to new levels," Zorc said.
The original Arts and Crafts movement grew out of what Zorc calls a two-front "rebellion" against the prevailing design themes of the late 19th century. In building construction, the movement challenged the hardened edges and stone of classical and neoclassical architecture. Elsewhere it fought a growing sense that the burgeoning machine age diminished craftsmanship.
"A lot of the motifs of nature were brought in as a rebellion to industrialization of building of furniture. Everything was production-oriented. This was to get back to a simpler way of life, hand-craftsmanship and simplicity of lines," said Bacon. For inspiration, Disney looked to famous historical designers and artisans, including William Morris of England, Charles Remie MacIntosh of Scotland and American Frank Lloyd Wright. "This is about the art of the craft," Zorc said. Zorc said the culmination of the movement’s expression can be seen in the homes, bungalows and gardens of early 20th century California. Pasadena’s Gamble House, designed for Procter & Gamble heirs by Charles and Henry Greene in 1908, serves as a prototype. "Our struggle was how to translate that into a 750-room hotel," Zorc said.
For example, the "Live Oak" depicted in the art glass of the East facing front door of Gamble House is filled with what Zorc calls morning colors — yellows, ambers and greens. The "Cimbing Rose" art glass windows of the dining room face West into the sunset. Deep reds and an iridescent purple make up the seven layers of glass in the window. Disney recreates this approach in the giant art glass panels of the Grand Californian’s 75-foot-high, 7,000-square-foot main lobby. Zorc promises that matching details will abound. Huge wooden trusses, inspired by a Julia Morgan-designed performing arts center church in Berkeley will grace the lobby ceiling. Art glass chandeliers will hang below. Underneath, a granite and marble pattern of floor of California Poppies and pomegranates will carry into the design of a custom-made carpet.
A noise-blocking pine-tree garden and artificial brook stand between the hotel and busy West Street.
Disney will construct a trellis-covered stone and brick gatehouse at the front of the property to create a sense of entrance. Vines already are growing across the trellis pieces at a nursery near Pasadena. "The vines will look like they have been there for a long time by the time of opening day," Zorc said.
Mature cedar and redwood trees purchased two years ago will fill one of the hotel’s courtyards to create natural but ready-made shade from the Southern California heat.
The storytelling theme of the main eatery picks up on the machine-age rebellion of the Arts and Crafts movement. "It’s about the idea that at the turn of the century we told stories. We didn’t have television or radio to do it for us,," Zorc said. Seven larger murals, in the style of N.C. Wyeth, illustrator of Robert Louis Stevenson’s "Treasure Island," James Fenimore Cooper’s "The Deerslayer" and other classics, will illustrate stories about the historical development of California.
Still, technology will be an integral part of the hotel. Meeting rooms will be equipped with satellite connections, remote lighting and projection, premier sound systems and ceiling recessed screens.
Article 2
By JERRY HIRSCH
The Walt Disney Co. is moving to skim the cream off the top of the hotel market in Anaheim by building a luxury hotel that will rival other noteworthy Orange County properties including the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel and the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach. Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel, a 750-room property scheduled to open in early 2001, is part of the entertainment company’s $1.4 billion expansion in Anaheim. It will sit at the nexus of Disneyland, the California Adventure theme park now under construction on the former Disneyland parking lot, and Downtown Disney, a planned retail, dining and entertainment complex.
Bill O’Connell, co-owner of the Best Western Stovall Hotels, which operates four hotels in Anaheim, said he has no doubt that Disney will charge the highest rates in the Anaheim market at the Grand Californian. Standard rates for Disney’s Grand Floridian Hotel at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., which targets the same market, start at $299 for the off-season and rise to $420 in the peak season. Rooms at the Disneyland Hotel and the Disneyland Pacific Hotel in Anaheim, by comparison, range from about $175 to $210.
"Disney is building an upscale property because it sees the need for it in Anaheim today," said O’Connell.
Much of the Anaheim market is designed for the budgets of convention-goers or middle-income families, O’Connell said. Virtually all of his 700 rooms go for $75 to $125 a night. "But Disney will have a very unique product. The hotel will be inside the theme park, so they can charge accordingly for their rooms," O’Connell said.
Tour operators believe the market exists for pricey rooms with a Disney label.
International tourists will pay for the "brand name and the amenities that you can only get at a Disney hotel. It gets down to the Mickey soaps and shampoos and the name value," said Vic Curameng of Pacifico Creative Services, a Los Angeles wholesaler to Japanese tour groups. "There is always a market for those high-priced rooms. One of the hot items right now is the Bellagio in Las Vegas, which is high-priced," Curameng said.
Disney will know how to market the hotel effectively, he added. Not everyone believes charging a premium for the Grand Californian is a slam-dunk.
"The lodging market in Anaheim, even with the Disney theme-park expansion and the infrastructure improvements, cannot exact rates in the $300 range," said Manny Sawhney, a hotel broker with Sperry Van Ness in Irvine. "Upwards of $200 would be a premium price. The Marriott, Hyatt and Hilton are all below $150.
"The top is just a very small percentage of the market coming to Anaheim," Sawhney said. "It’s risky to go into the market with that type of game plan."
And others believe it will cannibalize part of the market, especially the tour groups from Asia.
"They will be vying for the same leisure business that we get," said Patrick Hynes, spokesman for the Hilton Anaheim, Orange County’s largest hotel.Japanese tour groups make up the Hilton’s largest piece of the vacation business, using a nightly average of 50 of the hotel’s 1,576 rooms.
