When the restaurant group CH Projects took on the daunting challenge of restoring San Diego’s neglected Lafayette Hotel, the budget was set at $12 million. Within a year it had soared to $26 million, and by the time the North Park landmark reopens this week following a 10-month closure, the price tag will have grown still more — to $31 million.
It’s not hard to see why.
Walk past the Lafayette Hotel & Club’s imposing white columns and brick facade, and it’ll be quickly apparent to anyone who had visited previously that there isn’t a square inch of the storied property once frequented by Hollywood’s elite that hasn’t been touched. From the massive skylight that replaced a former fabric awning in the lobby bar; to the ceiling mural painted by an artist flown in from Brazil; to the custom-made Portuguese wall tile — with the signature Lafayette hotel sign embedded in the hand-painted design — that looks as if it had been hanging in a Lisbon square for decades.
In a nod to actor Johnny Weissmuller who played Tarzan and also designed the pool at the Lafayette, velvet-textured fabrics with repeating leopard and zebra patterns adorn sofas, armchairs and silk-fringed barstools. A classic train car diner, with polished stainless siding and rotating cake displays, transports one to the 1940s. And the restored altar from a decommissioned church in Mexico forms the backdrop for a dark and brooding bar inside a new Mexican restaurant.
More than a restoration, the ambitious hotel project encomes eight new dining and drinking venues, five of which will debut for the reopening.
A hospitality powerhouse, CH is known for its large portfolio of popular restaurants — among them, Born & Raised and Ironside — and distinctive bars — the speakeasy Raised by Wolves and False Idol. But the Lafayette, which it purchased two years ago for $25.8 million, is the San Diego company’s first hotel project.
“This has broken us, and it’s kind of tested the limits of all of our competencies, realizing that our process did not scale in the way that we thought it would,” said CH co-founder Arsalun Tafazoli, known for his perfectionism and almost obsessive attention to detail. “I hope that the work will speak for itself on some level, but it’s been very rough on every sort of metric that you can consider, from our innate skill set to financially and physically.
Easily the company’s largest project yet, the makeover of the 139-room Lafayette is being financed not through investors but with a “massive bank loan,” Tafazoli said.
The budget is likely to rise still more as CH completes by the end of the year three more venues — a continental fine-dining restaurant, a nightclub featuring live music, and a Turkish-inspired spa.
The breadth and diversity of the renovation — multiple projects within a single property — goes well beyond previous projects tackled by the Brooklyn-based Post Company, which oversaw the Lafayette’s redesign.
“It’s clear to us, going through this project with Arsalun, even though these esthetics weren’t what we would have picked, it helped us push our own design boundaries,” said Ruben Caldwell, a partner with Post. “It’s so maximalist. We typically operate with more restraint but getting our design team (to) be super exuberant was really exciting. It gave us license to experiment widely and wildly.
“By far, it’s the most complex series of projects embedded within a single project that we’ve done. The complexity is pretty astonishing. And there’s nobody like Arsalun.”
Originally called Imig Manor Hotel when it opened in 1946, the Colonial-style property was purchased in 1955 by hotelier Conrad Hilton, who changed the hotel’s name to the Lafayette. Updates, though, were not regularly done, which contributed to the property’s uneven financial performance.
The last major upgrade of the more than two-acre property was about a decade ago when then-owner Jay Wentz reinvested $6 million in the property, which included renovated guest rooms, re-roofing and an upgrade of the pool.
“Knowing that this was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime project, we could not have put more into this,” Tafazoli said. “When I look back later 20 years from now, I don’t want to see any corners cut, I want to know that we did the best we could. This place has been around for close to 80 years and it hasn’t been given the love that it deserves. And I just thought we should do this right, and invest what it needs and hopefully, if it’s done well enough, it will resonate for a long period of time.”
Its location — on El Cajon Boulevard — is not a go-to tourist destination. Far from it. While the Lafayette is a piece of history, at one time attracting the likes of Bob Hope and Lana Turner more than a generation ago, the key to the present-day success of the Lafayette will be San Diego County residents, Tafazoli said. Whether they’re coming for a staycation or patronizing the eateries and cocktail bars, it will be the locals that CH Projects needs to please.
“The Lafayette was built in 1946 as sort of a best destination entertainment hub of sorts for locals, so we are counting in a really big way on our community at large,” Tafazoli said. “Obviously, long term, part of the allure will be for people who visit San Diego who want something that feels a little bit more real and authentic.”
The lobby as a city square
Upon entering the hotel lobby, there is something of an old European feel, with the Tiffany-style lamps, rich velvet banquettes, Murano glass chandeliers and ornate lamposts. A cafe turns out espressos, cappuccinos and coffee-infused cocktails, and there’s even what might for a Parisian storefront, its rich wood millwork polished to a highly lacquered finish.
“When this hotel was built in 1946, it was designed to be a city within a city and that sort of guided our process,” Tafazoli said as he led a tour of the property several days before its opening. “So we really wanted this to be a city square like you would in any main street, where you have very different perspectives.”
While everything is new, from the furnishings to the checkered marble flooring, there is a deliberate effort to give it the patina of age, from the Portuguese tile to the cast iron lamposts.
“I was influenced by so many different European neighborhoods where I’d just go hang out. There’s a timeless there, so we spent a lot of time aging everything, so if you came here, I’d hope you would feel like this place was built over a 100-year period.”
He points to jade marble flooring in the hotel entry that transitions into a custom wood parquet pattern deeper into the lobby. Above, bordering the skylight is a colorful mural created by an artist that CH flew in from Brazil. It took him two months to complete.
In addition to the cafe, the lobby is home to a large circular bar and a lively restaurant called Beginner’s Diner, which is serving an amalgam of classic diner specialties like thick shakes, patty melts and meat loaf, as well as Jewish deli specialties such as matzoh ball soup and latkes.
Music can be heard via high-end specialty speakers, and turntables have been built into marble counters for playing albums.
Bowling, pop-a-shot basketball and cocktails
The game room within a cocktail bar, known as Gutter, was inspired in part by Henry Frick’s personal bowling alley at the base of the Frick Museum in New York. Tafazoli also drew inspiration from the “robber barons of the gilded age who would build these ornate game rooms.”
Besides bowling, patrons will be able to play foosball, shuffleboard, pool and even an old-fashioned arcade basketball game.
One of the design details that Tafazoli said “gave us the most brain damage” was the room’s ceiling, a decorative geometric pattern fashioned from a custom plaster composite. He said it was not unlike working with giant puzzle pieces as workers tried to perfectly align individual light bulbs and sprinklers to fit within the pattern.
“We probably had a hundred hours of meetings just to deal with that,” he said.
A church-like restaurant
Oaxacan-style cuisine distinguishes this higher-end dining room known as Quixote, but it’s the decor that will initially wow diners. CH literally took apart a more than century-old church in Mexico and reconstructed it as a restaurant and bar. The stained glass is all original, and a New York sculptor created three major pieces — the devil, the Virgin Mary and Michael.
Jose Cepeda, a native of Mexico who grew up in a small town outside of Oaxaca, is the restaurant’s executive chef. Before developing Quixote’s menu, he made a trip to Oaxaca to reacquaint himself with typical dishes but he says he also draws inspiration from his grandmother, who had a restaurant in the area for 30 years.
“This will be elevated cuisine that is supposed to reflect the spirit of Oaxaca,” said Zepeda, who spent seven years cooking in Los Angeles restaurants. “I was always around good food and good ingredients.”
His grandmother’s pipian mole, made from pepitas and sesame seeds, will form the basis for one of four kinds of moles the restaurant will be serving, he said. Other dishes on the menu include crab corn doughnuts, Oaxacan fondue flavored with truffle and crispy lamb belly. The bar’s cocktail menu is Mezcal-focused.
A bar cart with your guestroom
The Lafayette will open with 100 of its 139 guestrooms fully completed, outfitted with custom comforters bearing the Lafayette name, canopy beds, personalized stationery and a bar cart the envy of any mixologist. They’re a mix of standard guestrooms, suites, and townhouses. Room rates start at $299 a night.
Some of the rooms surround the upgraded pool area, which has been designed with scalloped umbrellas, striped chaise lounges and rattan clamshell chairs around the pool’s perimeter. The pool bar will feature aperitivos, spritzes and snacks.
The wallpaper is custom, like everything else, and incorporates the design images of the Lafayette.
As for banning TVs in the rooms, Tafazoli said he lost that battle. In deference to his preference that there be no televisions, they’re hidden behind a curtain.
“I’ve always had this romanticized vision of a hotel, and I’m a Luddite in my own way, so I really wanted the rooms to have a really nice writing desk,” Tafazoli said. “The Chateau Marmont (in West Hollywood) has custom stationery when you check in and it encouraged me to write more, so we are creating custom stationery for each person who checks in and hopefully it encourages them to just sit down and not text or type an email but just write a letter.”
The final phase of the Lafayette’s rebirth, due to come online in the final quarter of this year, will include the upscale dining room, Le Horse, expected to have some tableside preparations like sliced prime rib. Also still to come are Lulu’s Jungle Room and The Mississippi Room, which are meant to invoke a “golden era” jazz and night club, which will be housed in the hotel’s former event space. The bar will be designed with mixed patterns of leopards, forest canopies, feathers, and fronds.
A chef’s table showcasing chefs from around the world is also planned.
Finally, Ch is still at work on a spa concept that is supposed to reflect a confluence of Russian, Roman and Turkish baths.
