The folks at Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo like designing fantasy, high-end resorts and far-out getaways.
“Our goal is to design the first space hotel and the first undersea hotel,” says Brian Husting, an architect with the firm.
WAT & G; already has conceptual designs of a space getaway and undersea resort. Not to be outdone, the firm’s London office is designing an airship resort,a blimp-like hotel in the sky. The reason for working on such lofty conceptual designs is to motivate designers to think out of the box,and to be ready when the time comes, Husting said.
In the meantime, WAT & G; climbs out on the creative limb with its three- four- and five-star terra firma resorts, having designed such fantasy getaways such as the Hotel Bora Bora in French Polynesia, Tanjong Jara Beach Hotel in Malaysia, the Atlantis Paradise Island Resort & Casino in the Bahamas and Paradise of the Lost City in South Africa.
WAT & G; also has a fair number of creations right here in Orange County, namely the Four Seasons Hotel in Newport Beach, the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel in Dana Point and the proposed Newport Dunes Resort in Newport Beach.
While the firm is known the world over for its escapist designs, a little-known fact about WAT & G; is that its North American headquarters,and its largest office,is here in Newport Beach. The office originally opened in the early ’80s with a handful of architects to serve one project and has since grown to 100 employees and $15 million in billings.
Firm-wide, WAT & G; had $25 million in billings last year. WAT & G; has offices in London, Singapore and its international headquarters in Honolulu.
And it’s on a roll.
Expansion Plans
The architectural firm, currently working on 100-plus projects, recently added an interior-design department, upped its timeshare business and increased its out-of-state and foreign business, especially in the Middle East. It’s in the process of hiring five more architects and expects to add a total of nine by the end of the summer.
Locally, it ranked No. 2 behind McLarand, Vasquez & Partners on the most recent Business Journal list.
WAT & G; is ranked No. 1 in international billings,62% of its active projects are outside the U.S., according to Engineering News Record, an industry magazine. And U.S. World Architecture magazine ranks WAT & G; as the largest hospitality and leisure architectural firm in the world.
George “Pete” Wimberly founded the firm in 1945 with his first resort project: a conversion of the Royal Hawaiian in Waikiki, which had been used by the military during WWII. Gradually, the firm earned a solid reputation in the hospitality and leisure niche.
Here is a look at what a few WAT & G; architects have to say about some of the behind-the-scenes action:
n Carol Craddock, project leader for the Newport Dunes Resort in Newport Beach, on problem solving.
Being an architect isn’t all about creating a concept and design, it’s also about management and resolving issues at the planning level. That’s where the project leader steps in.
The Newport Dunes design concept was generated in 1997 and since then the project has been confronted with concerns from environmental groups as well as Back Bay area residents. Homeowners have been very vocal about noise levels, Craddock said. They were worried that the timeshare verandas were too big and they would therefore be used as party balconies. After Craddock met with the residents, an architectural compromise was proposed. WAT & G; reduced the number of timeshares from 100 to 75, redesigned the units, deleted the units directly across from the residents’ homes and re-angled the balconies so the noise wouldn’t bounce off the water, she said. The tradeoff was height and mass, which the hotel illustrated for the public with balloon markers. The latest redesign proposal is on the table.
n Don Fairweather, president of North American WAT & G;, on international business, opening the Newport Beach office and the Venetian.
Fairweather, 71, has done quite a bit of on-the-job traveling in the past few years, including more than 20 trips to India, so it would be fine with him if the firm did more work in Orange County.
“It’s nice to do work here,” he said. “Then I don’t have to get on and airplane and fly to Bombay or something.”
But for now, he’s overseeing eight projects altogether, including Fairmont Hotel projects in Bermuda and Mexico, which have him soaring.
Getting a building off the drawing board is a lot easier in foreign countries because the environmental codes aren’t as strict as they are in the U.S., he said. “In India, they just go ahead and build them.”
Locally, Orange County environmental codes are more stringent than many other counties, he said.
Fairweather oversaw the firm’s largest project to date, the 3,000-room Venetian casino resort in Las Vegas. The fees charged for its services were quite a few million, he said. But the Venetian got every dime’s worth, Fairweather said, because WAT & G; devoted nearly every architect to the project and put in a lot of hours.
“That’s not a complaint,” he said. “I’d like to have more of those projects.”
Fairweather, a long-time WAT & G; architect, opened the Newport Beach office in 1981. The firm needed a West Coast office but he didn’t want to be in Los Angeles. “For a bunch of guys coming over from Hawaii, it was a lot easier (moving to OC) than moving to Los Angeles.”
n Brian Husting, senior associate architect, on culture and must-see attractions.
Husting describes WAT & G;’s two-story offices overlooking the Back Bay as very casual.
“It’s very laid back,” Husting said.
That goes for the egos, too. “There are a lot of designers here but not a lot of ego.” That’s because the projects are assigned to teams. “Everything is geared toward the team.” The architects have “team lunches” when projects go well and designers stay on a project from start to finish.
Aside from working on orbiting space resorts, Husting has done a considerable amount of work in Las Vegas. WAT & G; designed The Palace Tower at Caesars Palace. Caesars’ management said: “What can you come up with?” and WAT & G; became an idea-generating machine. Husting enjoyed that project because it was a “blank sheet.” But Caesars didn’t use all of WAT & G;’s ideas, like the “Jacuzzi of the Gods,” where the mythical figures would argue in Latin while the guests listened in.
Vegas is all about creating the next “must-see,” Husting said. And speed. “They’re building and you’re still dreaming.”
n Howard Wolff, senior vice president of marketing, on the bottom line.
Of course architectural design is related to the bottom line, Wolff said. If people like the design, they are willing to pay higher rates and they want to come back. Also, a resort or hotel can be laid out for efficiency,so it takes less time to clean for instance,thereby cutting labor costs.
“As Pete Wimberly (founder) used to say: ‘The value of good design can be rung up on a cash register,’ ” Wolff said. n
