Interior of a casino hotel lobby built by DreamCatcher.
(photo credit: DreamCatcher Hotels)
The luxurious, overhead Kohler shower spray is the first feature that Greg Hnedak shows a visitor to one of the mock hotel rooms in the Downtown headquarters of his new company, DreamCatcher Hotels.
"One hundred twenty nozzles of water with this overhead rain shower and another on the wall," he said. "People love this feature."
He points out the rimless, glass shower door usually found in five-star hotels.
Hnedak, a well-known Memphis architect who had a large hand in Downtown's transformation into a residential and entertainment center, is changing careers.
Thirty-four years after becoming a founding partner of Hnedak Bobo Group, he has cashed out his shares in the firm on Front Street to become a full-time developer of hotels.
Just like in architecture, he's painstakingly aware that it is the details that matter. During a recent interview in his Downtown office, Hnedak picks up a bottle of the European-made Temple Spa shampoo, touches the granite vanity top, and points out the taller-than-normal toilet seat.
Just outside the bathroom, he motions to the Keurig single-cup coffee brewer and the 42-inch Panasonic TV.
He gestures to the soft LED up-lighting over the bed headboard. "You can shut all the lights off if you're watching the ballgame while your spouse is sleeping and still have the ambience of lighting without having the glare in somebody's eyes," he said.
But Hnedak gushes most of all about the bed, the quality of which ranks second in importance only to room rates as the factors guests consider in choosing where to stay.
"We believe (it's) the finest in the industry," he said of the DreamCatcher Bed, custom-made by Simmons Beautyrest. "By the same company that made the Heavenly Bed for Starwood, that changed the whole industry," Hnedak says.
And he's the same architect who was key in creating for Memphis the Main Street Trolley system, an entire Downtown block known as Peabody Place and the Westin Hotel with its top floor famously scaled to accommodate the tall NBA players who play across the street at FedExForum.
Now Hnedak has a new pursuit. His DreamCatcher Hotels does not build the typical hotel, and not in the typical way.
In the proud Memphis tradition started by Holiday Inn's Kemmons Wilson 60 years ago, Hnedak endeavors to pioneer new ways of doing things in the hospitality world.
The Great Recession was a seminal influence on the company he founded 14 months ago while still a partner with Hnedak Bobo. Until May, DreamCatcher was a division of the architecture firm.
With the new normal of tighter lending, Hnedak drew upon his years of experience to design and build hotels at a three-star cost. Think Hampton Inn.
But whose rooms feel like a four- or five-star space. Think The Peabody.
DreamCatcher distinguishes itself a second way, by delivering a turnkey product for the hotel owner. When the project is done, DreamCatcher has placed inside everything from three months' worth of coffee and shampoos to the Rubbermaid cleaning carts to the Down Lite pillows.
The developer is strategic both in the way it cuts costs and splurges on luxuries.
There's more… carry on treading the rest of "The Hotel Developer That’s Delivering High-End Rooms at Bargain Prices" on SKIFT
