21C Museum Hotel

Bonnie: Brrrring.

I overheard a voice leaving a message, asking “Is there anything I can do to help you during your stay…”

For a moment I was puzzled, but I needed to wonder no further as the caller continued…
“I’m the concierge at 21C…”

Nice touch to call ahead, I thought. 21C was the hotel I would be staying at in Louisville, Kentucky for an upcoming Culinary Trust board meeting.

I had read accolades about the new boutique museum hotel, and was already a bit biased as I knew the owners—Laura Lee Brown and her husband Steve Wilson—from partying during Derby and other Louisville festivities.

I knew them to be patrons of the arts, having seen their personal collection of works from emerging artists to Picasso adorning every wall, nook and cranny throughout their home. From what I had read, 21C would be similar (although sans the Picasso as all the art in the hotel and the accompanying 9,000 square foot contemporary art museum is from living artists).

I would soon see.

After being cooped up indoors at our board meeting, a group of us looked forward to getting some fresh air by walking to the hotel, carting our luggage through the streets of Louisville

As we turned onto Main Street, Janet Cabot noticed some red objects on the roof of the building ahead.

“That must be it,” she said. “Aren’t those red things penguins?”

It was. And they were. A number of large red plastic penguins adorned the hotel’s outer ledges.

Once we walked into the hotel lobby, conversation ceased. Visual stimulation took over. Projected onto a white rug in front of the reception desk was the image of a couple in bed, sleeping restfully; conjoined bicycles—having the same rear wheel with the front wheels heading in opposite directions— were both hanging on the wall and depicted in a painting; and, of course, penguins…large plastic red penguins.

I heard someone joke that the four-foot penguins—found scattered throughout the hallways and rooms—moved around the hotel at night, so I made a mental note of where they were positioned as I headed toward my room.

I stopped short in front of the elevator as I spotted my image on the wall with letters careening around me. I’d move and my image and the letters would move too. (Text Rain by Camille Utterbach and Romy Achituv—also in the photo if you scroll down) The video installation transfixed me until the elevator arrived. I expected to see more…

I wasn’t disappointed.

Not only did the elevator itself have a light installation in its ceiling, but everywhere I looked was art. Some risqué, some wacky, all interesting.

I learned the truth about the moving penguins when I returned to my room after dinner at Brown-Forman’s Woodford Reserve Distillery to find one lying comfortably in my bed.

What a fun touch, I thought, as I picked up the phone to call Janet. There was no penguin in her bed. I tried Karin Endy; no penguin in hers either. I guess I just lucked out.

As I walked into the board meeting in the morning, a large red penguin stood in one of the chairs. “That’s your seat,” jested Blake Swihart, who had been privy to the penguin-in-my-bed plan. He snapped the photo below of me and my penguin, so I could share its size.

(I would later learn The Red Penguin sculptures exhibited throughout 21C were commissioned for a public art project at the 2005 Venice Biennale.The artist is Omar Ronda.

My only complaint about 21C was not having the opportunity to dine at Proof on Main— run by Drew Nieporant’s Myriad Restaurant Group of Nobu, Montrachet and Tribeca Grill fame—or spend more time enjoying all the exhibits.

A trip back is a must.

Bryan: The innovation of boutique hotels always amazes me; and the originality and avant-garde nature of 21C seems to be in a class all its own. Add to this a Drew Nieporant restaurant and you have an experience fit for an emperor (penguin that is).

Eric: I am currently finishing an education at a hotel school located in The Hague, Netherlands. I haven’t visited and hadn’t even heard about 21C until my mother mentioned it in one of our discussions, but from what she has written about the boutique hotel, and from what I’ve studied about the industry, I can guess that 21C is an experience. Boutique hotels have been popping up for the past two decades, parallel to the consumer demand for an “experience”. The Experience Economy, coined by Pine & Gilmore, led to most hotels changing to adapt their product (and service) to that of the customers’ demand. 21C seems to be a trailblazer for the new age of hotels, where technology, art, and personal expression all combine to entice the senses (eloquently put by my mother). If you’re ever in Louisville, you now have a nice address to look up…..especially if there is a restaurant on the premises run by the preeminent Myriad Restaurant Group…

Photographer Kenneth Hayden (Louisville, KY) took all the photos (other than the penguin in my bed, and me with the giant penguin.)