Jeffrey Beers: 2024 Hall of Fame Tribute
Way before “experiential” became a hospitality-design buzzword, Jeffrey Beers was pioneering spaces that embodied the concept. The New York architect, who passed away from cancer earlier this year, masterminded sensorially forward, holistic environments that were stages for interaction, transporting patrons straight to the zeitgeist. Over his four decades as a hospitality leader, Beers left an indelible imprint on commercial design, influencing the look, feel, flow, and vibe of restaurants, entertainment venues, resorts, to luxury residential developments from Greece to Dubai, Mexico and Singapore—a legacy Jeffrey Beers International (JBI) is continuing under a leadership team of loyal colleagues.
Integral to Beers’s success was his intuitive understanding of client and crowd. He had an authentic connection to his audience as a bon vivant, globe-trotter, and born-and-bred New Yorker attuned to the cultural pulse. Growing up, his parents, both entrepreneurs—mom was in the travel biz, dad was in advertising—introduced him to the city’s restaurant scene, and extensive family travel gave him a first- hand feel for hospitality from a young age. Design was also in his DNA: His grandfather was a chief architect of the Wrigley Building in Chicago.
How Jeffrey Beers Expanded His Auspicious Career
Beers began his career auspiciously. At the suggestion of his Rhode Island School of Design mentor, glass artist Dale Chihuly, Beers applied for and won a Fulbright scholarship that took him to Rio de Janeiro, where he worked for Oscar Niemeyer for two years, imbibing the emotional, sculptural nature of Brazilian modernism. Subsequent time at the office of I.M. Pei taught Beers the power of detail, the importance of diplomacy, and the equal weight that should be given to form and feeling. After eight years with Pei, he struck out on his own, making a splash with JBI’s inaugural project, in 1985: Bar Lui, its 180-foot bar—billed the city’s longest—celebrating the space’s long-and-narrow proportions and setting the tone for a portfolio that would make social connection the design focal point.
JBI quickly expanded with high-profile Manhattan venues like China Grill and Fiamma that demonstrated Beers’s keen awareness of atmosphere. His spaces had a theatrical precision that delighted guests while fulfilling the operator’s needs—choreographing movement from bar to table, planning sightlines and light levels, and designing for seamless service. This talent resonated with top culinary talents; over the years, Beers collaborated with celebrity chefs Masaharu Morimoto, Gordon Ramsay, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and especially Daniel Boulud, with whom he created five restaurants across the globe, beginning with DB Brasserie at the Wynn Las Vegas, in 2006.
Exploring A Long-Lasting Legacy
Though Beers was synonymous with NYC nightlife in the early years, he was also one of the first big-name designers to put a more refined stamp on Sin City as it was morphing in the late ’90’s into a haute culinary destination. With venues like Rum Jungle, Tabu Ultra Lounge, and Japonais, he nailed the sybaritic flourishes that such a context required but he also brought nuance and polish to the game.
His emotive approach translated well to hotels, too. Beers’s first major top-to-bottom resort was the Cove at Atlantis on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, in 2007, and he was also given the honor and responsibility of upgrading such storied destinations as Gloria Palace in Rio de Janeiro and The Fontainebleau in Miami Beach. JBI has teamed with top brands including Fairmount, Four Seasons, Hard Rock, and Omni, creating transporting environs rounded in modernism that fused the magic and joie de vivre of the travel experience with more practical needs of guests and operators. In the last decade or so, as residential developers increasingly borrowed from the hotel playbook, Beers’s expertise extended naturally into that genre, evident in his concepts for iconic residential projects like One West End and One Fifty Seven in New York and Alyx at Echelon Seaport and Ritz-Carlton Residences in Boston.
Glass, a medium Beers first explored at RISD with Chihuly, remained a passion throughout his life and a centerpiece of many projects and products. He could often be found experimenting at the crucibles at UrbanGlass in Brooklyn, where he was a devoted board member. Beers loved how the medium’s fluidity and dynamism “contrasted the rigor and discipline of architecture” and marveled at the material’s unique ability “to bring about emotion,” he said at a 2016 lecture at St. Francis College. That viewpoint perhaps summarizes his ethos and design approach, which gave equal credence to control and freedom. He had an exceedingly holistic approach to space that celebrated the multidisciplinary nature of his chosen discipline. “The world of architecture can be so much more than just putting a building together; it can embody so many of the arts.”
Beers’s influence went beyond the built environment. He was a mentor, guide, inspirer, friend, and cheerleader, renowned for giving you his full attention, making you feel you were the only person in the room. He treated everyone the same, from the plumber on the job site to celebrity clients like Jay-Z, for whom he designed the 40/40 Club and Roc Nation headquarters, both in New York. As a leader, he was known for fostering a collaborative, creative spirit within his studio. He often said he looked for “good dance partners” in his team, bringing together people who both shared his enthusiasm and invested their personal passions. Among them are partners Nora Liu-Kanter, Michael Pandolfi, and Tim Rooney, longtime colleagues who now guide the firm alongside COO Julia Choi, CFO Jeffrey Ashey, and the older of his two sons, Justin, a former real-estate exec—a team Beers handpicked when succession planning. Such continuity ensures that Beers’s ethos—creating spaces that connect people and connect with people—remains at the heart of his firm’s award-winning work.
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