The Houstonian Hotel, Club & Spa

Groups gathered at The Houstonian Hotel, Club & Spa find a wooded retreat in the heart of the city. The hotel spreads over 18 acres opposite Houston’s Memorial Park. Views of Texas glades and gardens appear through floor-to-ceiling windows in the 284 rooms and suites as well as 21 of the 26 meeting rooms. The Conference Center’s grand ballroom, boardroom, and a poolside gazebo highlight 36,000 square feet of space for events.

Combining first-class comfort with casual elegance and attentive, personalized service, the hotel provides an array of activities to satisfy the most discerning traveler. Delegates between meetings have complimentary access to the private Houstonian Club, where they work out with 300 exercise machines, fitness classes, racquet sports, a climbing wall, boxing ring, indoor track, and more. While some explore the property’s nature trails, others shop at the world-famous Galleria nearby or tee off at the company-owned Redstone Golf Club, home of the PGA’s Shell Houston Open.

For those who prefer a more soothing break, the hotel’s spa, Trellis, offers more than a hundred treatments, from massage and facials to hydrotherapy and salon services. For further relaxation, The Houstonian’s premier restaurant, Olivette, combines Mediterranean charm with regional American dishes, while the exclusive Manor House next door serves new American cuisine for lunch and hosts private parties for club members and private groups.

The Houstonian

Start	End	Rooms	Rate
12/15/08	12/19/08	100	$189/$209

Posted Nov 17, 2008 by Elite Concierge
View RSS Feed HOUSTON (October 8, 2008) -- The Houstonian Hotel, Club & Spa has completed a significant renovation to its guest rooms and the corridors on each guest floor. The finished rooms have a warm, residential feel, and offer energy-efficient features and technological advancements that are useful to both business and leisure travelers.

Each room has been appointed with warm-toned fabrics and rich furnishings, lamps and artwork. New carpeting includes a beautifully-sculpted looped-pattern, and new drapery features rich, copper sheers with embroidered over-drapes. The beds have wooden frames with upholstered-patterned head boards, as well as comfy plush throws and custom-made sheets and shams. Some rooms include an oversized sofa with a queen-sized sofa bed, as well as an ottoman to use as a coffee table or for lounging and resting ones feet at the end of the day

A floating oval full-length mirror is included in each room. The painted walls feature a neutral warm color, with the addition of a paneled effect and accents.

In the effort to conserve energy and provide special conveniences, The Houstonian has installed an energy management system for each room to regulate the temperature for when a room is unoccupied, and bring it to the guests temperature preference for when it is. The sensor also enables the hotel to know when a door has been opened or closed to eliminate disturbances from service staff, such as housekeeping or engineering. A Do Not Disturb doorbell unit has been placed in all rooms to increase guest privacy. In addition, each room offers energy-efficient lighting, including three-way, dimmable and standard-compact florescent light bulbs.

All guest rooms include a new 42-inch, LCD high-definition Philips television, and each room contains the LodgeNet Launch Pad, a secure and sturdy multimedia connectivity panel that allows guests to connect to a wide variety of portable devices such as laptop computers, digital audio and video players, portable DVD players and more. Over the desk, two new 360-degree rotating outlets are available for those needing to plug in large adapters and multiple electrical products.

The Houstonian has upgraded its in-room wiring and wireless network to provide more reliable service, with the wired network more flexible for group usage. And, Verizon Wireless has installed a cellular booster system that provides a better signal across the campus for cellular voice and data.

In-room safes now are accessible in drawers, and open at the top, making it easier for guests to store and retrieve their valuables.

The corridors have new carpeting, wall coverings, sconces and artwork.

Renovations to the rooms follow other projects completed at the hotel last year, which included adding new rugs and upholstery to the main lobbys Great Room, and a redo to The Bar, which was changed to have a more relaxing, clubby-type feel. Its changes included new sofas, furniture, rich leather chairs, and a new LCD TV.

In 2005, the facility opened a $3 million aquatic recreation center, including a Resort-style pool with a 32-foot-long water slide, interactive waterfall features, a baby pool, a walk-in entry, a sunning shelf, geysers, and a large deep end to accommodate exercise classes. A new Sports pool includes a 25-yard-by-25-meter competition pool, complete with a deck-level waterline to eliminate waves, removable starting blocks, pace clocks and a digital clock with easy-to-read six-inch letters. Finally, the Garden pool features warmer water, a lap-swim lane and a quiet environment for reading, tanning and relaxing.

Future plans include new carpeting in the Grande Ballroom, new digital directional signage in the lobby, a new laundry facility for hotel and spa laundry needs, additional parking and expansion to The Club, which includes four new indoor and four new outdoor tennis courts and a new padel court.

The materials included in the project were carpeting from Masland and Couristan; upholstery items from Flexsteel, Lancaster Industries and Autrey Manufacturing; lighting from Palecek, Lite Source, Cal Lighting, Troy Lighting and Pacific Coast; fabrics from Swavelle/Mill Creek, Robert Allen, Fabricut, ArcCom, Cortina Leather and Reid Witlin; draperies fabricated by Southwest Dcor, and other furnishings from Aspen Home, Vanguard, Bassett, Rosenbaum Fine Art, 360 Electrical, Cooper Classics and custom case goods from Milieu Designs.

Work was overseen by the architectural design firm Kirksey Posted May 2, 2008 by Elite Concierge
View RSS Feed By MASON LERNER
For the Chronicle

Jim Mills took the tasty route to the top of the Houstonian Hotel, Club and Spa's corporate ladder.

He started as its executive chef in 1995. By 2002, he was the hotel's manager, and three years later, he became its general manager.

Mills talked with Chronicle correspondent Mason Lerner about the changes he has witnessed in the hotel industry over the years, the state of the industry and the challenge of living up to the Houstonian brand.

Q: How common is it for someone to go from the kitchen to the GM position in the hotel industry?

A: It is unusual today, but there was a time, reportedly, in the hotel business where the pathway to the head office led through the kitchen.

My own belief is if you can successfully manage a large commercial kitchen, one that in today's dollars does more than $12 million or $15 million in volume and deals with so many weird deadlines and customer sensibilities, you can probably manage just about anything.

In my case, though, I believe it was the relationships I created here at the Houstonian, the support that I had from the staff and probably the fact that as a chef, I wasn't solely focused on the craft " although I do love the craft.

Many chefs really concentrate on cooking to the exclusion of all else. I really quite enjoy running the business of being a chef for a large commercial kitchen.

Q: How has the industry changed since you got into it?

A: I know that it really becomes a clich these days, but I will tell you that 15 years ago, very few people inside a hotel had computers.

The other thing that has changed, in terms of facilities, is that people expect a higher level of luxury at all levels of our industry than they expected 30 years ago.

I think 30 years ago, if you were at the very top hotels, people had very, very high expectations. But there was a wide range of what you might expect for your lodging dollar.

I think that that range has narrowed significantly over the last 15 years.

Q: Have any of the changes taken you by surprise?

A: Green initiatives, green thought, green design and green technologies, even 10 years ago, weren't something that I would have thought much about.

There just wasn't the awareness. But today there is, and that is driven by need.

That affects a lot of things that we do. It affects the choices that guests make in the marketplace as well as choices that we make in terms of sourcing products or design.

Q: What specific initiatives have you spearheaded to go green?

A: Our program to encourage guests to reuse their guest room linens. This is a fairly common practice today, although we have been pursuing this for more than 10 years.

The second one is to recycle our trash. We have gone the full gamut of that. We separate and recycle a number of items. We work very carefully with our waste vendors to achieve results.

Some things going forward in the very near future for us: We will renovate our guest rooms over the course of this summer. Ten years ago, we probably would have focused most of our efforts on the aesthetics of the room. How does it look, how does it make you feel?

For this project, aesthetics is one of the important features of the room, but the functionality of the room is on equal footing with the aesthetics.

We started with talking about technology and energy management, heightened efficiency lighting and some green initiatives where we don't use anything manufactured with volatile organic compounds.

Q: How do you deal with the challenge of living up to a brand name that has become synonymous with luxury?

A: It's something that you learn to live with. It is a constant and insistent need to move forward and to improve. You have to keep in mind that all of your competitors are doing the same thing.

It's something that our team talks about quite often in formulating both our strategic and our tactical plans in terms of our services and the facility offerings that make up our brand.