Hotel Grand Stark’s lobby features a verdant front desk.
Portland’s latest hotel mixes old and new for a modernized throwback style that seems as though it was plucked from a Wes Anderson movie. Housed in a historic four-story building in the developing Central Eastside neighborhood, Palisociety’s Hotel Grand Stark brings the structure back to its hospitality roots—it opened as a hotel in 1908 but had been the site of a local furniture manufacturer for the past 80 years.
Portland-based North 45 Projects designed the hotel’s common areas, partnering with local contemporary art gallery Nationale to commission new artworks from celebrated artists like Ka’ila Farrell-Smith, Shiela Laufer and Aruni Dharmakirthi. These sit alongside vintage studio pottery, furniture and wood sculptures for a space that North 45 Projects principal Eric Cheong describes as akin to “visiting an affable Portland friend’s art loft.”
As Palisociety founder Avi Brosh explains, “The overall approach was to create a vibe that is identifiably Northwestern but also unpretentious and quietly luxe at the same time.”
