Raves & Reviews

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Read 2011 Press Release here.

HOTEL BRANDWOOD
by Jean - Bernard

When JDe Brand Hotel Group Founders first hired a design company, the building on North brand Blvd was a dowdy brick structure. JDe Design Group put it on the cultural map with a transformative design that was as comfortable as a home but quietly arresting.

In 2009, that is when JDe Design performed second encore. JDe walked a delicate line between keeping the hotel the same and making it new. JDe worked with his wife, Rita who have entered his practice as Director.

JDe had a strong point of view. He was tired of "too much false luxury & too many flowers". He developed instead a blank envelope to shape an environment that could foreground nuance. He chose a palette of soft sundgray accented with white and gold, and added a few good pieces, while the avant-garde was fixated on the dynamic; he was radical enough to cultivate the static.

"Rita was the right person to bring forward some new ideas while being true to the original" says JDe, "It was a challenge but if you don't change, you no longer live." Only a close student of design can sense how JDe has changed the original hotel.

JDe imported into each room one plain straight backed side chair whose utter lack of pretension sends down the elegance of space, designing a carpet of gray squares with pixilated shading. Brandwood is all about terminal points, the free standing wash basin and the desk with pivoting out at the corners- all the small but significant touches. For the same reasons the hotel was born a classic 80 years ago, it remains a classic today.