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MEETING…MICHAEL BEDNER


M


ichael Bedner is running late. His flight from Los Angeles is delayed and he has to be on stage in


less than an hour to address an audience of designers at HD Expo in Las Vegas. The life- and-times-of-Michael-Bedner-style interview I have planned may well be cut short, meaning no time for digression from the topic in question. But those who have had the pleasure of meeting Michael, will know this isn’t his style... Arriving with his son Misha, Director of Marketing & Business Development at HBA, Michael apologises for his creased attire explaining that he has come straight from the airport. It isn’t long before word of his arrival spreads and familiar faces come to greet the designer, offering words of support following his “bout with cancer”.


The illness forced Bedner to take an extended break from work, recuperating at home in Malibu. But now he’s back, with a


spring in his step, and intent on picking up where he left off. “I’m terrific,” he rejoices as we settle in the less than glamorous surroundings of a side room in the Sands Expo and Convention Center. After 14 months of chemotherapy, the designer is on the mend and although the cancer has taken some toll on his physical appearance – Michael now carries a more slender frame – it hasn’t affected his zest for life. In fact, Bedner’s passion for designing hotels means I only get to ask a few of my carefully-planned questions before becoming mesmerised by the animated stories of his first encounter with Howard Hirsch and the early days of HBA.


Established in 1964, HBA / Hirsch Bedner


Associates is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading hotel design practices, its founder credited as a pioneer of the profession. “It was Mr Hirsch who started the company, and really started the hospitality business,” explains Bedner, referring to his


026 SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2011 WWW.SLEEPERMAGAZINE.COM


partner and best friend, the late Howard Hirsch. “Prior to our entering the market, there were a lot of companies that would sell furniture and throw in the design for free. And so Howard started writing the real first specification and doing documented drawings,” he continues. The firm’s first hotel project was Beverly Rodeo Hotel on Rodeo Drive, still there but in a different incarnation. So how did Bedner come to design


hotels? “Poverty,” he exclaims, launching into the storytelling mode I imagine his young grandsons, who crop up regularly in conversation, are accustomed to. “While I was working for John Lautner, a noted architect and protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright, Mr Hirsch called me up and said, ‘I know you’re working for Mr Lautner but I’m willing to give you fifty cents more an hour’ – Lemor knows this story – ” he interrupts himself and nods to the firm’s Director of Public Relations, Lemor Moses, who looks to have heard this story a hundred times over. “At


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