About The Artist – David Rockwell – WaterColor Inn & Resort Design
Resort reservations: 866-426-2656 or email: reservations@watercolorresort.com.
When WaterColor®'s planners considered their approach to a gulfside inn that would be integral to the life of the WaterColor community, they were keenly aware of the importance of the inn's coastal setting. They wanted to honor the location while creating an unparalleled vacation experience by combining the luxury of a Southern grand hotel with the casualness of living in an unpretentious beach cottage. A tall order. They turned to The Rockwell Group, whose impressive résumé is a result of innovative responses to design challenges. The Rockwell Group isolates the unique qualities of locations and projects and translates those qualities into a bold design, integrating macro-tasks like space planning with interior design and minute details of craftsmanship. The result is WaterColor Inn, a design that progressively interprets traditional vernacular architecture and furnishings in a contemporary fashion with an emphasis on simple yet sumptuous pleasures.
On the surface, the furnishings appear traditional by virtue of the use of traditional materials, but they have been reshaped into more contemporary forms. Familiar and comfortable design elements have been adapted to function aesthetically and practically. One such innovation was to bring the sensory experience of an outdoor shower cabana right into the hotel rooms. Rockwell accomplished this by designing oversized, glass-topped walk-ins with great views of the out-of-doors. The Rockwell Group's stylistic interpretation of the traditional is also evident in such details as the custom door handles that are metal interpretations of sea-grass reeds, a subtle homage to the location.
David Rockwell, the head of this comprehensive design firm, grew to embrace a profession that allowed him to design spaces where people come alive. A graduate of architecture from Syracuse, he worked on theatre set designs on Broadway and later earned acclaim as a restaurant designer, working on nearly sixty Planet Hollywood's.
Soon after, his reputation soared when he opened The Rockwell Group, which has since been responsible for the innovative W Hotels and Monkey Bar and Nobu restaurants in New York City. Rockwell's architectural and design firm has a client list that includes such notables as Disney, Sony, NBC, Radio City Music Hall, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The New York Times has cited Rockwell, just 45, as the "country's leading choreographer of visual imagery in public spaces."