MEETING…YABU PUSHELBERG


E FIRST DITION


Words: Catherine Martin Photography: Courtesy of The Waikiki Edition


Sleeper learns of the decade-long courtship


between Yabu Pushelberg and Ian Schrager that has given birth to the first of Marriott International’s new Edition hotels.


Pushelberg is providing an insight into working alongside one of the industry’s most influential names: “He’s a challenge to work with,” come the first tentative words of what turns out to be a glowing report filled with respect and admiration for the man in question. “What’s interesting about Ian is that he’s always embodied the zeitgeist of where things are going. He’s very intuitive.” The co-founder of Toronto-based interior design firm Yabu Pushelberg is of course talking about Ian Schrager, with whom he has created The Waikiki Edition, the first hotel of a new boutique lifestyle brand for Marriott International.


I Announced in 2007 from the rooftop of


New York’s Gramercy Park Hotel (for which Schrager has recently sold his interests), Bill Marriott, Chairman and CEO of Marriott


044 JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2011 WWW.SLEEPERMAGAZINE.COM


t’s mid-September at Miami Beach Convention Center where the annual hospitality design event HD Boutique is well under way. On stage, keynote speaker Glenn


International, and Ian Schrager, creator of the original boutique hotel, unveiled plans to create Edition. Said to combine the “personal, intimate, individualised and unique lodging experience” that Schrager is known for, with the “global reach, operational expertise and scale” of Marriott, the partnership marks the next chapter in the lifestyle hotel story. Back in Miami, Sleeper met with Yabu Pushelberg earlier that day to unearth the true extent of the relationship between themselves and the design guru. Waiting in the lobby of W South Beach (another of the firm’s conquests having recently completed the guestrooms and residences), Glenn Pushelberg arrives with a female colleague, not the other half of the design duo I was expecting. “George is travelling,” he informs me, referring to his co-founder George Yabu with whom he set up the firm thirty years ago. No doubt engaged in putting the finishing touches to The Waikiki Edition, due to open in Hawaii in four weeks time.


The pair met at design school in Toronto


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