Page 86 - Forbes India (December 2015)

Life recLiner

rooms with viewings:
Laura Lee Brown and Steve
wilson keep a penthouse
above the flagship 21c
Hotel in Louisville that’s
available to guests

The Artful Lodgers gracefully reimagined by New York
architect Deborah Berke, and feature

collection of art as well as temporary
21c Museum Hotels began as a Kentucky power museums filled with a permanent
shows. As with the nude nymphs at
couple’s attempt to save downtown Louisville check-in, the pieces are purposefully
and became a lesson in building mini-masterpieces unconventional and unconventionally
for travellers displayed. Anyone can visit the
galleries (free of charge) at any time,
though guests, naturally, have the
By ABrAm Brown
truest 24/7 access to the exhibitions.
“We were only planning on doing
our naked children are Founded in 2006, 21c Museum the one in Louisville,” Wilson says of
playing behind the front Hotels combine provocative the 91-room flagship, where rooms
desk at the 21c Museum contemporary art (the name refers start at $229 a night. “It wasn’t long
F Hotel in Louisville when I to the 21st century) and luxurious after it opened that we had this
arrive. The fact that they’re statues by lodging in areas of the country that tremendous response, and friends
Jason Myers for forbes make the scene any less disturbing, by art collectors and philanthropists originally pleaded with them not to
and advisors”—a group who had
are typically flown over. As conceived
contemporary artist Judy Fox doesn’t
and that’s exactly the point behind
try this concept at all—“began to say,
Steve Wilson and Laura Lee Brown—
he a former political operative,
‘You really ought to do more of these.
having these shameless sprites at
she a Brown-Forman heiress—the
If you don’t, someone else will.’”
check-in. After all, a night at this
hotel is truly a night at a museum.
86 | FORBES INDIA DECEMBER 11, 2015 hotels are often in historic buildings, A second 21c opened five years