Creating Welcoming Experiences - Gray Davis - Episode # 096

Today’s guest is a 2022 Inductee into Interior Design Hall Of Fame,and he approaches design with 5 key elements; sustainability, technology, the client, timelessness and innovation. He pushes beyond the familiar to create buildings and interiors that are distinctive, imaginative and site specific. Please welcome to the show, Gray Davis! Gray is the Co-Owner & Co-Founder of Meyer Davis, Designer. Gray joins the host Dan Ryan to share his inspirations from the hospitality world and how he journeyed his way through this beautiful industry.

Takeaways: 

• Hospitality is all about the experiences for the guest. It allows the owner or operator of the hotel to be a storyteller and provide the guest with a unique experience that they won’t be able to receive elsewhere.
• When you are designing a hotel, you want to make sure that it is a welcoming environment to the guest, and the best way to do this is by being a good listener. Think about the goals the brand or the client wants to achieve and use it as a guide. 
• Typically, design firms are focused on one area but you can learn from every project you work on. This prevents people from being pigeonholed and allows a designer to see all the perspectives on different projects. 
• If Gray could go back and see his younger self, the biggest piece of advice he would offer is to follow your passion. Through all the struggles that he faced, he wouldn’t change anything for the outcome he got.
• At the end of the day, the design for a hotel should be something that puts a smile on someone’s face  or shines a light on something that they never knew or thought before. 
• A great idea can come from anywhere and anyone on the team. It doesn’t matter what role they play, whoever has the best idea is the one that you should run with.

Quote of the Show:

3:24 “There's nothing more rewarding than completing a project, a hotel or resort, somewhere and then seeing how people experience it and react to it.”

Links:

• Website: https://www.meyerdavis.com/
• Hoist fixtures: https://rbw.com/collections/hoist

Shout Outs:

1:21 Will Meyer

1:26 Cindy Allen

1:27 Interior Design Magazine

7:41 Dream Hotel in Nashville

9:34 W Hotels

10:25 Marriott

15:18 Randy Gerber 

15:20 Cindy Crawford

21:11 Rich, Brilliant and Willing

28:53 Stacy Shoemaker

28:59 Nick Jones

29:01 SoHo House

33:56 David Brawley

34:40 John Saladino

35:03 Four Seasons

35:43 Guacame Siegel

35:50 Aero

35:50 Bill Sofield

35:51 Thomas O’Brien

36:34 Raul’s in SoHo

41:53 Red Sea Development Company

Ways to Tune In: 

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0A2XOJvb6mGqEPYJ5bilPX
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-hospitality-podcast/id1573596386
• Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGVmaW5pbmdob3NwaXRhbGl0eS5saXZlL2ZlZWQueG1s
• Amazon Music: ​​https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/8c904932-90fa-41c3-813e-1cb8f3c42419
• YouTube : https://youtu.be/0XKTOcJCBfc