Clockwise from top
left
at the Hotel Zaza, Dallas:
Red Shoes, Crouching Tiger,
Rock Star and Raven
In designing your own
hotel, where would your fancy take you? You might follow
the lead of Charlie Givens, developer of the 150-room Hotel Zaza in
Dallas and the 315-room Zaza coming to Houston in December, who
takes great joy in naming and decorating his suites.
Where Givens really shines is in his
hotels’ Magnificent Seven enclaves. The Houston property’s seven
over-the-top themed suites include Rock Star, a three-bedroom
sanctuary with a private elevator from the restaurant, and Tycoon,
a huge Texas-style layout with a little guest suite called Outlaw.
The Dallas hotel offers the exotic Crouching Tiger, the romantic
Dangerous Beauty and the very red Last Czar.
The Houston hotel will offer more
meeting space than in Dallas (18,000 square feet of space vs.
4,000). In Houston, the Givens touch will be evident in the Phantom
Ballroom, seating 500 for dinner. Its d}cor will be “Phantom of
the Opera meets Cirque du Soleil meets Versace,” he promises.
The boardroom, with a “Wall Streety” look, will be known as the
Negotiator; anther breakout will be called A Room With a View.
Creative juices are sure to flow in the
Kitchen of the Mind, a meeting room with a full kitchen and a
42-foot-long table under a rack filled with pots, tricycles, rubber
chickens and “anything I can find that makes people think,” says
Givens. “My concept is that great inventors often seem to come up
with ideas at the kitchen table.”