Designers and Hoteliers in the NoMad District NYC

Leonardo Annecca – MySuites&Co Founder

A crossing path for Leonardo Annecca and Jacques Garcia at the new Triangle of Boutique Hotels in the Nomad, New York City. There is no doubt that era of boutique hotels started with Jacques Garcia and Philippe Starck in Paris at the end of the 90?s. Jacques Garcia signed the first acclaimed Hôtel Costes in Paris while Philippe Starck was signing the Royalton Hotel in New York that same year.

Back in 2002, at the beginning of his career, Milan-born designer Leonardo Annecca, found himself working for Jacques Garcia, the guru of boutique hotels in Paris. Annecca and Jacques Garcia worked on the design for the Victor Hotel in Miami, the new Wynn Resorts in Las Vegas, and one of the most coveted boutique hotels in Geneva, La Reserve Hotel. A few years earlier Leonardo Annecca was crossing his path with Philippe Starck at the École National Supérieur des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, while he was student and Starck a visiting professor.

Renowned Designer Philippe Starck

Soon, after working for Jacques Garcia, Annecca signed the 747 Lounge Club in Italy in 2003, an icon of cutting edge hospitality design around the world. He then shifted his drawing hands to a new concept of hospitality, HO&HO — a half home, half hotel back in 2004– right before opening his studio in New York.

When the L-A Design Hospitality Group asked Leonardo Annecca to come up with a new cutting edge business model of hospitality at the end of 2009, his new concept, MySuites Boutique Suites, was a piece of cake! Ever since, for the past 2 years, he has been the creative director and designer architect at MySuites and does consulting for other boutique hotels.

Renowned hotelier Jacques Garcia

Leonardo Annecca, a big fan of New York City, the town that adopted him in 2004, decided to give name and identity to the Nomad Neighborhood that first welcomed him back in 2005, as the Nomad Design District with the event the MySuites Studio hosted during this year’s New York Design Week for Interni’s ICFF 2012. The event, The NoMad Design District, included a circuit of design installations, exhibits, special events and collaborations for emerging local designers centered around the new triangle of boutique hotels in the NoMad formed by the Ace Hotel, Jacques Garcia’s Nomad Hotel whose doors opened early spring, and The MySuites Studio.

Wood + Light–a design exhibit–was hosted at the MySuites Studio, featuring some of the most promising upcoming New York designers, including Isaac Krady, Martin Konrad Gloeckle and Li-Rong Liao.

As Leonardo Annecca, noted: “Garcia and I, we are much closer now at 6,000 miles away than back in 2002 when we were sharing the same design studio!” Leonardo Annecca’s design for MySuites has definitely got a New York sensibility, and Jacques Garcia has lost some of his french opulent taste!

*This post originally appeared on the MySuites Blog*