A decade ago, after Loeb Properties bought and renovated Overton Square, brothers Bob and Louis Loeb commissioned and installed colorful and lively public art — murals, sculpture and more — in seemingly every nook and cranny of the entertainment district.
Artist Mary Seay Loeb, Bob’s wife, has now turbocharged the family’s bent for enlivening space with luminous, often whimsical artwork.
But this time the setting is inside The Memphian, the Loebs’ first hotel.
Mary created the ideas for the interior look and feel, dismissed some out-of-town design firms reluctant to work from her vision board, selected the works of 15 Memphis artists, and created some of the art herself.
“It was a real struggle,” she said of gaining acceptance from interior design firms. “Because people don’t believe that by adding that many layers, that many colors, that you get a different energy. And it feels very welcoming and homey.
“It’s eclectic,” she said. “But people are really uncomfortable doing it. I felt like that was what the space needed more than anything because Midtown is so layered and so eclectic. It’s not just Bohemian or off-beat or theater. It’s all of those things. But there’s an elevated nature to it.”
After firing a Dallas firm, the Loebs hired one from Nashville. “We asked ‘Will you listen? Will you follow instructions?’” Bob recalled. “And they did the exact same thing.
“They want to do stuff from the last couple of quarters of the trade journal because they want their stuff to be photographed,” he said.
The 106-room, seven-story boutique hotel opened last week on the Square at 21 S. Cooper.
The building’s stately, vanilla exterior sets up the surprise: An explosion of bright colors, shapes and materials greeting visitors the moment they step into the lobby.
An evening’s stay is more like a night at the museum. Only, the feel of this museum is hardly institutional.
“She is an artist and wants to elevate Midtown with Memphis artists,” Bob said of Mary.
The lobby is a sensory experience of vibrant hues. At every turn is neon or jewel tones or a pastel pallet or animal prints or earth tones or flat finishes or high-gloss finishes.
Mary declined to label the look she created.
“It’s not something that is one thing,” she said. “I think it’s something you just have to experience.”
Guests tread on a lobby floor with sections of zebra-inspired tile.
Above them hangs the feature chandelier, a work from the Netherlands that comprises eight or nine concentric circles of colorful fishing bobbers. It’s one of the hotel’s few pieces not Memphis-made, but the art relates to the river.
The walls behind and flanking the lobby desk display large black-and-white photographs framed in what appears to be clear acrylic with colored edges. The images are spot-colored, and show classic scenes from Overton Square’s first heyday, in the 1970s.
One lobby corner serves as the guests’ business center. Its two leather chairs are substantial, but instead of classic brown the leather is a rich, bright green.
At another corner, these gold-leafed words are framed on the wall behind the grand piano: “All Drama Must Remain on Stage.”
That’s more a reference to the nearby Playhouse on the Square, Hattiloo Theatre, Circuit Playhouse and Ballet Memphis than a warning against any fisticuffs at The Memphian’s Tiger and Peacock.
That’s the hotel’s rooftop bar that opens in June and where drinks and tapas will be served under a hand-painted ceiling.
The Square’s legacy as an entertainment and live-performance district is just one of the hotel’s themes.
The celebration of Memphis-made art is another.
Those psychedelic and zodiac years of the ’70s — a seminal time for the Square — also inspires the interior.
And the globe standing in one lobby corner signals yet another theme: The traveler, or pilgrim.
“You always want to come back to home,” Mary said of travel. “We wanted to embrace travelers and locals alike and have them always feel like they are at home there. If you stay at The Memphian you are a Memphian for life.”
Invoking the “pilgrim” spirit only partly explains the unusual name given the main, ground-floor restaurant, Complicated Pilgrim.
“The ‘complicated’ piece: We really want simplistic food options and recipes and ingredients,” said Bobbie Peppers, the hotel’s director of sales. “And sometimes to be simplistic is complicated.
“Our motto: ‘Eat well, roam free.’”
Outside in the square, art greets you in unexpected places, even in the alleys. The Memphian takes the same approach.
Even in the lobby’s bathrooms, custom-made lighting fixtures and specially designed wallpaper welcome all who enter.
Guests working out in the fitness center will find inspiration on the wall, which displays a giant, 100-word quote. It’s Theodore Roosevelt’s admiring take on those who have the courage to enter the public arena to try to accomplish something.
Should the exercisers step out into the hallway to drink from a water fountain, above it they’ll see three Elvis-inspired lightning bolts.
Original art including custom-made wallpaper covers the walls of the Complicated Pilgrim, too. The restaurant is open for breakfast and dinner, but not for lunch. The Square has many other restaurants, and the idea is to encourage guests to get outside and explore, Peppers said.
Upstairs in the guestroom hallways, the floors transition from the lobby’s zebra tile to carpet inspired by the speckled coat of antelopes. The spots give the hallways a celestial quality, as if the white specks were stars.
The guestrooms have an unusual layout. The doors open to a broad space instead of the typical short hall with the bathroom off to the side.
Just inside the door is the quartz vanity next to shelving with a Lavazza single-serve coffee machine. Opposite is a tiled shower and a private toilet stall.
Eliminating the hallway door creates more space. Between the sink and the beds is a second, sliding door, which provides an extra buffer against any hallway noise.
Just above the coffeemaker are two empty water bottles. Guests can fill them at the end of the hall at the “hydration station.” The water bar offers chilled or room-temperature water, which is free.
Every other floor has a freezer with ice that is already bagged, eliminating the noisy ice machines.
Bob Loeb said he learned that boutique hotels need a story. He conferred with his friend, author and native Memphian Hampton Sides for help in creating one for The Memphian. Sides referred Loeb to Memphis’ Grammy Award-winning writer and filmmaker Robert Gordon.
The Loebs engaged Gordon, who wrote a 10-page story for the hotel. “We wanted to be authentic, real Memphis, real Midtown,” Bob Loeb said.
Gordon suggested calling the hotel The Memphian, in reference to the nearby Memphian movie theater that would later become Circuit Playhouse. “Elvis used to rent the place exclusively and watch shows,” Loeb said.
The hotel’s theme is “building on the history of Overton Square and going forward to today and where we go from here,” Bob Loeb said.
One place The Memphian has gone is to a fast start. All nine of its suites were booked this weekend.
And reserving 30 rooms was The Memphian’s first wedding party, Peppers said.
The basic room is $189.
The Memphian is part of the Marriott Tribute Portfolio network of hotels.