Hotel Nia in Menlo Park, Calif., is officially open. The hotel joins Autograph Collection Hotels’ portfolio of more than 135 independent hotels.
The 11-story building was designed by the Cunningham Group. Hotel Nia captures a modernist style accented by organic and natural materials, all custom-designed furniture and artwork. With 250 guestrooms and nine suites, including the Nia Suite, the hotel has an ambiance featuring a courtyard with outdoor gardens, an outdoor pool scene, a fitness center with floor-to-ceiling windows and numerous indoor or outdoor nooks and spaces, all wired—and wireless—for business.
“Hotel Nia offers what Silicon Valley is missing right now—a hotel with all of the conveniences required by local professionals, combined with elegant, intuitive design elements that appeal to business and leisure travelers visiting the area,” Simone Harms, GM of the hotel, said in a statement. “From our expansive lobby and lounge area, to our Mediterranean restaurant with a California influence, our property offers guests space to shine, room to think, and environments that promote the freedom to relax.”
Driven by the forward-thinking approach of the Silicon Valley, the hotel is outfitted with 12,000 square feet of meeting space, much of it with an indoor-outdoor flow. With more than 12 meeting and event venues—including a ballroom, terrace, courtyard, executive boardroom and more—each space is purpose-built to provide guests with hospitality calibrated to innovation in business. Unique features include second-floor meeting rooms with a view and terrace, floor-to-ceiling sliding glass doors that open to the hotel’s interior courtyard and artfully designed light fixtures, wallcoverings and furniture.
Additional notable design details for Hotel Nia include the grand staircase, a suspended tree light in the elevator lobby, several full-size horizontal blue doors as a signature hanging element over the restaurant and individual room number posts in the corridor that interact with a ‘do not disturb’ system. Virtually every element, including the interior design, furniture, lighting and related products, is an original work by Colum McCartan of McCartan.
The hotel’s restaurant, Porta Blu, will open in April 2018. The restaurants includes patio seating on the its courtyard, and is helmed by a fourth-generation chef from France, executive chef Eric Cousin, in collaboration with chef de cuisine Michael Riddell, and inspired by the recipes of renowned Chef Joyce Goldstein. Porta Blu will be open for breakfast, lunch, dinner and weekend brunch. The menus are paired with hand-crafted cocktails and a beer and wine program with selections both from California and the wine producing countries of the Mediterranean.
Select menu items and the full bar are available across the property, including the outdoor bar area and the indoor cabanas and lounge. Guests can also enjoy small bites and Verve coffee at “Café Exclusively by Verve,” the café and lounge adjacent to Porta Blu in the lobby of the property.
“We carefully designed our selection of hand-crafted, seasonal cocktails, craft beers, and wines to be in consonance with our Mediterranean-focused menu,” food & beverage director Roque Medina said in a statement. “Our wine program offers over 100 labels of regional and globally sourced wines with selections we know the local community will love.”
Located between San Jose and San Francisco International Airports and bordered by the San Francisco Bay, the property was developed by Ensemble Real Estate Investments and AECOM Capital, and is operated by Sage Hospitality.