Meetings & Conventions: Newsline
HHI: Creating Hotels From
History
The future Renaissance Arts Hotel in New Orleans
Lynn Fournier, vice president of Historic
Hospitality Investments, LLC, a division of Dallas-based
Kimberly-Clark Corp. (maker of Huggies), spoke with M&C about
turning historic buildings into hotels.
M&C: How did HHI come about?
Fournier: We started out renovating properties on
the National Register of Historic Places. We began by building
apartments and switched to hotels three years ago.
M&C: What are you working on right
now?
Fournier: We have one in New Orleans, to open in
August, called the Renaissance Arts Hotel. Artists will display
their work in public areas, and it will have a street-level
restaurant. In Providence, R.I., we’re working on an old Masonic
temple that sat empty for 75 years, to be a 250-room Renaissance
hotel.
M&C: How do you decide which structures to
preserve?
Fournier: The decision is made in agreement with
the National Park Service [which manages the National Register of
Historic Places]. If a space is historically significant, it needs
to be maintained. But if there’s substantial deterioration, it
doesn’t.
M&C: Is it a challenge to add meeting space
to these old buildings?
Fournier: We do it in creative ways. In
Providence, the ballroom will be in the basement of the building
next door, but the guests won’t know that. In Detroit [at the
Book-Cadillac hotel], we’re putting a ballroom on top of the
parking lot next door that will connect to the historic meeting
space. You won’t know the difference between the new and the
old.
• J.V.
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