GETTYS – Building The Godfrey

The Great Collaboration

Opening a hotel doesn’t happen overnight, especially when the building requires extensive construction and design to make it happen. Led by Oxford Hotels and Resorts, our hotel has a collaborative effort of skilled and experienced teams to make the opening of the next Godfrey Hotel a success.

The team includes:

Oxford Capital Group and Oxford Hotels and Resorts, LLC as the lead developer and hotel management.
Finegold Alexander Architects – Their firm specializes in restoration of historical buildings, which is perfect for our building to preserve some of its historical character that dates back to the early 1900s.
Tishman Construction Corp of MA – Headquartered in Boston, this team leads our construction of the two buildings becoming one hotel.
GETTYS – They will lead our interior design and design architecture. The global firm is a powerhouse in interior design with a perfect mixture of style, luxury and comfort for our hotel.
McNamara/Salva, Inc – They are our trusted partners in structural engineering.
Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc. – They are the civil engineers with a specialty in complex projects.

In addition, we are thrilled to collaborate and work with the great city of Boston and the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

A collaborative team to make this project a success.

The Godfrey Hotel Boston – underway. #SiteVisit

We’ll continue to keep you updated on the progress and development of the hotel. More to come in this exciting development of The Godfrey Boston!

Q&A with Gettys Design Director Chris McDonough

Chris McDonough is Design Director at The Gettys Group, leading interior design for the guest rooms at The Godfrey Hotel Chicago. We spoke to him about where he started with the project, and about how he wanted guests to feel when they arrived at the hotel.

The Gettys Group Design Director Chris McDonough created an urban sanctuary when designing guest rooms at The Godfrey Hotel Chicago.

Q: What are some of your favorite features in the guest rooms?

A: From a guest experience and emotional response, my favorite aspect of the guest room is the overall feeling of sophisticated calm that the space provides. The subtle variance in the shower tile finish is a hidden design element that the guest can discover.

Q: Where did you start when designing the rooms? Or, what was the inspiration?

A: The boldness and the strength of the exterior architecture was obviously a design parameter that we had to consider. When considering the guest room design, our goal was to compliment the unique exterior but also provide an urban sanctuary for the guest from the energy of River North.

Q: What do you want guests to feel when they stay at The Godfrey Hotel Chicago?

A: We would like the guest to feel stylish and sophisticated, and that they have found a hidden, unique gem within the crowded Chicago hotel market.

To see more of our guest room photos, take a look at this blog post featuring the newly designed spaces. You can also learn more about guest room features at The Godfrey Hotel Chicago by clicking here.

Thank you Chris for conducting the Q&A.

A Warm Welcome with a Shining Chandelier

As guests enter our hotel, we hope they will feel warm and welcome. So much so, the very word “Godfrey” means peace and welcome. We previously blogged about the importance of the lobby and making a great first impression (cliche and all!). We want our guests to experience a chic and sophisticated lobby and a key feature of that is the chandelier we just installed.

We caught up with Chris McDonough, design director at GETTYS – the firm responsible for our sophisticated and contemporary interior design. Chris said the marble-clad oval shaped lobby provides a welcoming experience for the guest with the large concentric ring pendant serving as a focal point. While visible from the street as well, this fixture reflects the strong geometry of the building and establishes the upscale feel for the property upon arrival.

Below is a first look at our chandelier, along with a flashback to the space pre-installation.

Location for the Godfrey's chandelier — Location for the Godfrey’s chandelier (Aug. 2013)

Guests may feel stressed from the hustle and bustle of travel and upon entering our hotel, we hope they feel the surprise and delight of our beautiful space. After all, we are designing with the guests’ experience in mind.

Gettys Hospitality Design Shares the Blogs We Must Follow

Happy Halloween! We thought we’d share this “treat” with you – a roundup of great blogs. GETTYS, the minds behind our interior design, shared an interesting list of blogs to follow. We agreed with a number of them as great blogs to read and watch, and a few that we certainly will check out.

We appreciated GETTYS thoughts on why they follow blogs as some of the best ones give us:

Great information
Inspiration
New insight
Maybe even just a giggle to lighten your day

And of course, here is a link to GETTYS’ blog along with GETTYS Blogs You Must Follow list.

Gettys News Blog | Gettys Hospitality Design, Procurement & Branding.

Hard Hat Tour

We’re pleased to conduct our first Hard Hat tour yesterday. The tour was led by George Jordan, area general manager, and Adam Schomaker, director of sales and marketing. Our guests included hospitality and design-focused media, Chicago media, along with the astute input from our partners.

Chris McDonough from GETTYS added great insight into the design elements and inspiration. Katie Soven, of Valerio Dewalt Train Associates, shared background on the architecture. Our hotel is owned and developed by Oxford Capital.

The tour included a first-look at our lobby, guest rooms, suites and I|O Urban Roofscape. Matthew McCahill, food and beverage director, provided background on the much-anticipated I|O. It will be the largest indoor/outdoor, all-season rooftop lounge and bar in Chicago. I|O will offer two full-service bars and lounge seating at the roofscape’s two-level fire pit, which will also serve as a beacon to guests above bustling LaSalle Street. It certainly will be a must-see and must-visit in Chicago for travelers and Chicagoans alike.

Most importantly, George Jordan said he hopes the hotel “delights” the guests.