Meeting… Tony Chi
As he prepares to unveil another landmark renovation for Rosewood, interior designer Tony Chi discusses family, building trust and planning his succession with Sleeper’s Editor-at-Large Guy Dittrich.
Effervescent and engaging, Tony Chi has an enviable energy that spans years and time zones. More than three decades in the business and his enthusiasm remains contagious, entertaining audiences at design shows around the world with his charm and charisma.
Recently however, he was confined to his apartment in Taipei, where his planned stay of a few days turned into months as the global pandemic took hold. Speaking from the Taiwanese capital, Chi describes how lucky he was to be able to straddle the world’s time zones: “My coverage of this globalisation is fantastic as I am able to play the full field – offence and defence at the same time.” Dealing with the studio, then the current Asia-based projects followed by calls to artisans and craftspeople in Europe.
Chi is confident, yet doesn’t take himself too seriously. Of his ‘little place’ in Taipei, he explains: “I was born here, so it gave me a bit of a reminiscence, like an old diaper.” All said with a cheeky grin and sparkling eyes.
Established over 30 years ago, the studio now occupies a large, loft-like space in Manhattan’s West Village, elegantly decorated with subtle Asian motifs, mid-20th century furniture and contemporary New York artworks. The firm’s portfolio extends from projects with Four Seasons in the early 1990s, Mandalay Bay and Bellagio in Las Vegas towards the end of that decade, and since then a whole raft of projects spanning the globe – Lebanon, Australia, Switzerland and Germany – for a roster of top brands including Park Hyatt, Mandarin Oriental and The Ritz-Carlton. More recently, he has become a go-to designer for the resurgent Rosewood Hotels & Resorts – following the 2011 acquisition by the then New World Hospitality – and has worked on the group’s properties in London, their flagship in Hong Kong and the soon-to-complete Rosewood Carlyle New York.
Chi explains that he wants guests to “feel confident, comfortable and emotionally engaged” when they visit these spaces, and “to remember something positive about themselves and everything around them – that it was a great experience.”
Indeed the importance placed on experience has seen tonychi studio do remarkably well at AHEAD, the awards that recognise not only design but also guest experience. The Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore was a winner for its Colony restaurant at AHEAD Asia in 2017 and went on to be judged at a global level in 2019, while the Rosewoods in London and Hong Kong have been recognised with multiple shortlistings and wins over the years at AHEAD Europe and Asia – the latter went on to receive the ultimate accolade of Hotel of the Year in 2020.
One of Rosewood’s philosophies is a sense of place, and for Chi this leads to overarching descriptions of hotels in residential terms; he refers to Rosewood London as a “mansion” and Rosewood Hong Kong an “estate on the harbour”. These residential aspects become a tool in Chi’s world, enabling the studio’s designs to cut away, as he puts it, from the generic commerciality of globalisation and allow a personality to shine through.
Chi easily makes the short jump from residential to family, with wife Tammy Chou and daughter Alison both working at the studio. The designer relates at length about the importance of family. Prosaically he talks of the lost meaning of the dining room as family meals have become less common. Of course, he has a solution, which will be seen in a forthcoming project in Hollywood. But Chi also considers family in the wider sense of trust.
Several key clients are discussed in terms of family, including the Chengs at Rosewood and the Kwee family in Singapore, for whom he has recently completed further work on The Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore. He discusses being part of these clients’ families and of the levels of trust he has developed with them. It’s personal; he designed a home for the Chengs over 20 years ago. Trust too in manufacturers and suppliers, many of whom he has collaborated with for long periods to deliver exactly the right product, something that has become increasingly difficult and important of late.
And trust that he can leave his legacy of more than 100 restaurants and 15 hotels in over 35 cities around the world to his daughter and long-term associate William – or Bill – Paley. Interestingly, when asked about the meaning of success, Chi refers not to the numerous accolades he has received nor the sparkling hotels he has brought to life, but rather to the fact that he is able to plan his succession.
“I decided in 2017 that I was going to start working on my retirement. Not retirement,” he corrects himself, “to step back and focus on other parts of the canvas and allow someone else to take the baton, or brush, to the control the canvas.” This succession will be led by his daughter, Alison, in the Managing Director role and Paley as Creative Director.
“Since 2019 and through the pandemic, it has been a life-changing experience to take on a leadership role together with Bill, whom I’ve known for nearly three quarters of my life,” explains Alison, reflecting on their work to redefine the studio’s attitude towards design and living in general. The studio was always an important part of her life and these experiences from a young age fostered a focus on quality hospitality in the completion of her Masters in Finance and Hospitality from NYU.
Chi sees his daughter’s strengths being in her ability to bridge not only the generations but also her traditional Chinese family, American upbringing and experience of European life, having studied in Paris for a few years. In a moment of brutal honesty, Chi recognises that he needed a reboot and was not able to go further, referring to the time he took Alison to a restaurant he had designed and she described as “not fun”. To which Chi chided, “you don’t know what fun is,” before today correcting himself, “I was wrong. And she was spot-on.”
Paley, described by Chi as his most-trusted designer, has seen the development of the studio’s style during their 28 years together. “As a group, our aesthetic preferences became fluid and merged,” he recalls. “I think for any studio to find success there has to be a kind of mind-meld, otherwise it is hard to find a voice.” Whilst Chi pursued a “brown-on-brown, beige-on-brown” aesthetic with minimal “visual noise”, it was the courage of Paley that added the pops of powder blue and bubblegum pink. “We gave each other courage over the years,” Paley continues. “It was challenging and took a lot of discipline. But it could also be very liberating and allowed us to create a design harmony that became increasingly well-received outside the walls of the studio.”
Will the design needle change? “The needle is in constant motion,” says Paley. “Every work we have completed as a studio has moved the needle. But the motion is barely perceptible,” he states of the “unified hand” that progresses and evolves their work. And what should we expect? “I cannot tell you because I don’t know what to expect – this is the joy of design!”
Chi has nurtured the growth of his studio from a one-man firm to a globally renowned design philosophy and way of life. He may be passing on the baton but with daughter Alison and long-term confidant Paley stepping up, tonychi studio will doubtless continue to steer a path that delights both clients and guests in the world of hospitality design that they understand so well and clearly love so much.
