Hotel Monaco Grows Up

The Hotel Monaco didn’t need a renovation, Kelly Elggren says. Despite that, two years ago in the midst of a recession, the hotel started a full-building renovation.

“We wanted a more grown-up feel,” says Elggren, director of sales and marketing at Hotel Monaco, at Wednesday’s grand reveal of the redo.  She says the design wasn’t tired, but when describing the hotel they were using words like hip and trendy when they wanted to feel like the hotel was grown up.

“I feel like if we’re going to go out and tell people we’re the best, we need to be the best,” Elggren says, explaining the renovation.

She says the hotel spent $5 million during the last two years replacing everything in the rooms, lobby and meeting spaces, as well as giving Bambara a facelift.

General Manager Marylynn Beck says the rooms were done with out-of-state workers, but the meetings spaces and lobbies employed between 20 and 25 locals.

Hotel Monaco’s parent company Kimpton has a theme for every hotel it owns and Monaco’s is “guilty pleasure,” Elggren says. What she likes about the theme is it can mean something different to everyone and touches on different emotions.

Whatever it means to each person, the total overhaul of the hotel’s interior is all designed to feel sophisticated and luxurious. With touches like ivory faux crocodile leather headboards, richly colored deep blue walls and a goldfish in every room, the hotel is meant to be a guilty pleasure for anyone.

Things like a managers’ social hour in the evening with massage available and the hotel’s “Live Like a Local” program are a part of what Elggren says is “just making sure people are having not just a hotel stay, but an experience.”