Owner: Dominique Romano
Hotel operator: MGallery Hotel Collection
Architectural design: Gidi Bar Orian
Interior design: Adriana Schor
Furnishings: on design
Lightings: Art et Floritude
Photo credits: courtesy of Elkonin MGallery
After careful restoration orchestrated by the architect Gidi Bar Orian and by Adriana Schor, an art director and interior designer based in Paris, the iconic Elkonin reopens in Tel Aviv. The remarkable history of the hotel, the first built in the Israeli city, in 1913, by order of the charismatic Russian couple Malka and Menachem Elkonin, has seduced the French-Israeli entrepreneur Dominique Romano, who wanted to take inspiration from its luminous past to create a refined boutique hotel.
The restoration preserves the architectural motifs of the original structure, typical of the eclectic style in vogue in Tel Aviv at the start of the 20th century, creating an evocative dialogue with the glass tower beside it, a project by Gidi Bar Orian. Multifaceted like an abstract painting, with reflections that shift with changing daylight, the new volume provides access to a rooftop with swimming pool on the 7th floor, set aside for guests of the hotel and spa until a certain hour, after which it is also open to outside visitors.
As on the levels below, the décor is meticulous. Wooden armchairs with backs in woven cord, tables with octagonal tops, bar stools that combine wood and riveted metal, outdoor furnishings with elegant rounded lines, offering a complex, original setting.
The atmosphere is light and luminous, starting from the entrance. With a nod to the spirit of the French Riviera, Adriana Schor has chosen to use rattan for the partitions, as well as the backs of the chairs. The color scheme of white walls interrupted in the upper portion by a band of gray-blue is echoed by the herringbone wood floors, accentuating the graphic effect and enlivening the bright design.
The 42 guestrooms and two suites are divided between the two volumes, juxtaposing materials of different types in a chromatic harmony of vivid hues: beds with padded headboards that often incorporate bedside tables and consoles designed by Adriana Schor, with legs in coated tubing and terrazzo tops that reference the Memphis movement, carpets with geometric motifs in modernist style, large-format prints of landscapes and abstract paintings. Like the bedrooms, the bathrooms with showers remain ‘purist’ in their design. The large gray or celadon green tiles on the walls support many oblong mirrors framed in black metal or brass for a sense of greater visual space.
The corridors and landings leading to the rooms are covered with custom carpeting, whose graphic motif is based on oversized terrazzo fragments in cobalt blue and carmine. The Elkonin is also the location of L’Époque, the first Robuchon restaurant in Israel, with details that echo French style, from the brass decorations to the rattan of the chairs and bistro tables.
