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Multiple Personalities
Owning one of San Francisco's coolest hotel groups is a full-contact job.
By Libby Ellis

Yvonne Lembi-Detert, a trained interior designer turned hotelier, gives new meaning to the concept of hands-on management. She doesn't pick textiles out of a catalog or bulk order generic prints. She unrolls a bolt of fabric and throws herself on a bed with it to see if it's itchy. She tests the strength of potential building materials by whacking samples with the heel of her shoe.

Design is the core of Lembi-Detert's business. To avoid the monotony she could easily fall into, she doesn't work with designers who have hotel experience, she rarely works with the same designer twice and she's constantly updating her spaces. Three of the five Personality Hotel Group properties are undergoing changes—Hotel Union Square, Hotel Diva and The Metropolis—and good design is just the beginning. She is promoting the hell out of them with packages and promotions reinforcing each individual brand.

It all started about 25 years ago when Lembi-Detert traveled to Europe. Staying in a number of distinctive boutique hotels, she realized that San Francisco was full of impersonal, cookie-cutter options. Her father, a prominent real estate investor, bought their first property, Hotel Union Square, in 1980. He hired his daughter to design and run the space.

As the historian of the hotel group, it just seems right that you can hear the fabled cable car from the Hotel Union Square's 1930s art deco lobby. "People love history and come to San Francisco for that. I wanted to bring history back to the hotel," Lembi-Detert says. She established a vintage feel and then, last March, kicked it up with the creation of the Dashiell Hammett suite. Best known for penning The Maltese Falcon and the Thin Man, Hammett is credited for elevating the literary status of detective fiction. He was a fan of the hotel and booked a corner suite for his bride-to-be, Josephine Dolan, the night before their 1921 wedding. While in the process of conceptualizing the suite, Lembi-Detert got a call from Warner Brothers. The company was working on a documentary about Hammett. She told them about the suite project and committed to finishing it in only a month. She turned to local artist and art teacher Lisa Compagno to do the job.

"Yvonne had first asked me just to create a collage and it turned into me doing an entire room celebrating Hammett's life and work," Compagno says. In addition to time, her biggest challenge was the existing furniture—including a mission-style headboard. "I looked to the fabrics and patterns popular during Hammett's time but I had to work with the furniture in the room. I made the detective agency the focal point, [Hammett worked as a detective prior to becoming a writer] adding the lettering to the window, a replica of his typewriter and a vintage desk." Other touches include the collage, a variety of memorabilia and a Thin Man silhouette.

The suite is now the focal point of the hotel and guests can purchase special packages that include dinner at Joe's Grill where Hammett is rumored to have written part of The Maltese Falcon. The suite sparked a major overhaul of all 131 rooms and bathrooms beginning this fall. With Hotel Union Square up and running, Lembi-Detert purchased her second property, Hotel Diva, in 1985. She hired Olle Lundberg (known for high-profile home and restaurant designs) to create a modern, sexy, elegant space. She recently brought him back in to update the lobby and guestrooms.

"Our original goal," Lundberg says, "was a hip boutique concept and it had just gotten a little tired. It was time to reinvent and make the hotel even sexier by introducing new materials and new elements and asking, 'What does sexy mean?' On the one hand it can be literal sexual illusions, like the headboard [lots of people think it looks like pants being unzipped] or it can be done more subtly with material choices." He used stainless steel to capture the feel of a 1920s ocean liner and evoke an escapist, restful feel. "I think that's one of the goals of a hotel. You want a little bit of a fantasy." The water imagery also helps center guests in the city. "Hopefully guests say, 'Oh yeah, this is San Francisco,'" Lundberg says. Cobalt blue carpet, custom stainless furnishing and accessories and a backlit onyx wall in the lobby all contribute to the cool sensuality of the Diva.

Fully aware that sex sells, Lembi-Detert created the VIP Hook-Up package for "singles or wanna-be singles." Guests receive a room, Axe Body Spray, invitations and VIP access to a hot restaurant and club, condoms and Vox water.

Comfortable with its sensuality, the Diva currently is being outfitted with new artwork, more relaxing meeting rooms and uniquely styled lounges on each floor. Lembi-Detert also has plans for Diva LA, naturally.

True, you may have to endure the more transitional part of the city (translation: about three blocks from a Starbucks instead of 50 feet and more homeless people on the sidewalk) when lodging at Hotel Metropolis, but once you walk into the lobby with its cascading slate wall waterfall and restored Spanish Revivalist ceiling, you'll forget all about the outside world.

An urban oasis celebrating the elements of earth, wind, fire and water, Hotel Metropolis is the zen master of the group. It provides guests with easy access to the Castro. Like the Diva, it is very popular with LGBT travelers. "The gay market is huge for us and we're really pleased," Lembi-Detert says. She recently offered a campy Brokeback Mountain package that included a deluxe room, a six-pack of beer, two Rough Rider condoms, a sheepskin throw, two cowboy hats and a pony stick.

When Lembi-Detert was in the process of conceptualizing the property she took a tough trip to Spain with her daughter. "Creating a kids' suite at the Metropolis was a no-brainer for me because I was a parent experiencing the woes of traveling with a kid… moving the desk chair to the bathroom so she could brush her teeth, her being miserable with nothing to do in the room. Back then nobody had done it and now it's taking off," she says. There also are kids' suites underway at the Diva and at Hotel Union Square.

Lembi-Detert is about to take on a huge project - her first ground-up construction - the 157-room Hotel M31, named for the largest known galaxy in the universe. The newest member of the group will delight tech-heads looking for a truly unique experience. "It's going to be in the Galatia somewhere and very technologically advanced because it's technology—as well as 25-year olds searching for new travel experiences—dictating pop culture. And that's the challenge: meshing cultural influences with the realities of running a hotel. You still have to have a bed in the room that will last three to four years, it has to work functionally but there are so many exciting things you can do," she says.

No matter how technologically advanced she gets or how many hotels she eventually acquires, Lembi-Detert realizes that personality isn't confined to her business name or to the hotel designs. It's also her personality that keeps guests coming back. She's just as hands on with them as she is with her textiles, sending regular newsletters and corresponding with visitors. As she continues looking for ways to infuse creativity into her properties, it's her guests that will remind her why she got into the business in the first place. "Talking to guests... that's my fun work, that's my downtime," Lembi-Detert says.

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