ROOM SERVICE

Inside a sleek new Houston hotel inspired by famed benefactors Dominique and John de Menil.

- Bebe Howorth

The lobby of Hotel Saint Augustine features a pendant light by Ingo Maurer, vintage table lamps in the style of Giacometti, and vintage armchairs upholstered in bouclé and leather. The ceiling is painted in Soot by Benjamin Moore.

In 1987 philanthropists Dominique and John de Menil opened their vast art collection, which includes pieces by René Magritte, Henri Matisse, and Mark Rothko, with a museum designed by Renzo Piano. Now art lovers can explore the Menil campus from a new hotel worthy of its surroundings, truly fertile terrain to inspire a design project. Who wouldn't want to spend the night next door to the Menil Collection, the Cy Twombly Gallery, and the Drawing Institute?

Guestrooms at the hotel, with interiors by Post Company, feature similar technique.

Visitors have their chance with the opening of Hotel Saint Augustine. Located across from the Menil complex, the 71-room hotel consists of five separate buildings that pay homage to the de Menils, whose lifetime of collecting made Houston, once synonymous with oil, into a destination for connoisseurs of painting and sculpture. "Dominique and John were such stewards of culture and art, and so intelligent, so giving," says Tenaya Hills, senior vice president of design and development at Bunkhouse Hotels, which led the new project.