The Long-Awaited Hotel Saint Augustine Opens in Houston’s Montrose Neighborhood, Delivering a Dose of Artistic Glamour

No one has shaped Houston’s culture quite like legendary art collectors and philanthropists John and Dominique de Menil. These tastemakers and human activists helped transform a burgeoning port city into the cultural nexus it is today. Now, a new hotel from Austin’s hospitality group Bunkhouse Hotels draws from the same legacy of unexpected pairings and cutting-edge culture the de Menil family generously bequeathed to Houston.

Although not directly affiliated with The Menil Collection, Hotel Saint Augustine can’t help but be influenced by both its collection and the heterogenous neighborhood that surrounds it. Located at 4110 Loretto (blocks from the Rothko Chapel and adjacent to the Menil Drawing Institute), the 71-room hotel reflects the de Menils’ embrace of modernism and surrealism with a design that’s both dreamy and logical.

A visit to the de Menils’ modernist Philip Johnson-designed home in River Oaks was the jumping-off point for the tenor of the Hotel Saint Augustine, which opened on Sunday. Just as the house’s flat roof and unadorned brick façade contrast with its richly furnished interior by couturier Charles James (a stylistic juxtaposition if there ever was one), the sumptuous color and frisky details within were an instant inspiration for Saint Augustine, according to Tenaya Hills, Bunkhouse Hotels’ senior vice president of design and development

“The de Menils were a fascinating couple,” Hills says. “I can’t overstate how important they were to the cultural landscape, bringing artists from all over the world and curating this beautiful collection of minds and talents.

“When you tour their home, it’s so beautiful and a statement of the push and pull of interiors and architecture. We were inspired by elements of the house, and it will be very obvious where we drew inspiration from.”

But first, Bunkhouse leaned on the expertise of Austin and San Antonio-based firm Lake|Flato to create the structures that would blend seamlessly into the understated architecture of the Montrose neighborhood.

“In the design of Hotel Saint Augustine, we were inspired by both the adjacent Menil Collection — and the surrounding neighborhood — as well as aspects of John and Dominique de Menil’s home in Houston,” says Chris Krajcer, partner at Lake|Flato.

The Hotel Saint Augustine Design

The firm devised five two-story buildings with facades of gray Norman brick and ash-wood siding, drawing “on the quiet gray palette of The Menil Collection and the low-rise residential scale of Montrose,” Krajcer notes. Nestled among mature heritage oaks and connected by accessible open-air bridges and walkways, the structures encourage guests to explore the landscape of oaks and collection of plants cultivated from The John Fairey Garden, and designed by landscape firm Ten Eyck.

The beautiful views this setting provides helped inform the interiors designed by the award-winning Post Company in collaboration with Bunkhouse. Based in New York and Wyoming, the firm has built a stellar reputation in the hospitality, retail, and residential sectors with projects including the Lafayette Hotel in San Diego and the Mollie in Aspen. Post Company’s out-of-the-box thinking assured that the spaces of Saint Augustine would complement and enhance the Houston hotel’s minimal structure.

“It was intentful for us to think in terms of what one could see from the outside looking in,” says Jou-Yie Chou, a Bunkhouse partner who has family ties to Houston. “The Menil gave us a lot of early fodder to think about — what the collection and museum has done to define that neighborhood.”

“We sit down with a client and, over a couple of months, really try and nail down conceptually what a project can be and have that as our North Star. The Bunkhouse team are highly capable designers, but they gave us our freedom with this idea of pulling from the unique qualities and personalities that are the de Menil family and their home in Houston. We went into the project with the idea that there would be this super-rigid architecture, and that we’d have comparatively a little bit more fun and a lot more freedom with interiors.

“The Menil is one of the most preeminent collectors of surrealist art, so we thought, ‘How do we augment reality?’ Hotels, for us, can be this place of escapism, so there can be a bit of theater within them. Guests are here only for a night or two, so you can make moves that might be surprising or jarring or a little disorienting that may not work for a full-time residence.”

This theatrical approach is evident from the moment one strolls past the courtyard into the cozy lobby at Hotel Saint Augustine. Designed by Post Company and Bunkhouse to mimic a curator’s artful home, the layered design is anchored by a red lacquered lightbox displaying signature Bunkhouse-curated goods, a surrealist shopping moment for arriving guests. Delivering what Chou calls an “immediate tension” from the subtle exterior, the lobby gives a textural hint of what lies ahead.

Transitioning from the burled walnut and Calacatta Viola marble check-in desk to the paneled Augustine Lounge and Listening Room, the space was designed with separate nooks for intimate conversation. A glass atrium area leads to a sexy lobby bar and lounge with deep-blue walls and Fireclay onyx tile floors. Antique mirrored panels “play with time,” Chou says, and reflect the lush landscape of the grounds.

Furnished with playful seating sourced from Round Top and custom Post Company brass ceiling fixtures, the Hotel Saint Augustine lobby has a collected feel that makes the most of a blend of periods and eras. The room is intentionally divided with theatrical floor-to-ceiling white linen drapery to impart a dreamlike feeling.

“With these large floor-to-ceiling curtains, you’re passing through all these portals as you go from room to room,” Chou says. “There’s a lot of movement to break up the rigidity of the modern design.”

Inside The Rooms

Yet the stunning lobby and lounge are merely an amuse-bouche to the bedrooms themselves. To create diversity in the guest experience, the monochromatic spaces were painted in three palettes (Benjamin Moore Yellow Squash, Polar Sky, and Mosaic Tile) that inspire different moods. Centered around the grand scale of a Post Company-designed sculptural light, the rooms’ proportions are disrupted by amoebic wall mirrors. Cabinets swing open to reveal a hint of Yves Klein blue or lemon yellow (a colorful reference to the de Menils’ own drinks cabinet).