Brooklyn-based Studio Tack is gaining a reputation for artfully rehabbing old hotels and hospitality spaces. One of the newest additions to its portfolio" The Coachman Hotel in South Lake Tahoe, California.
Studio Tack designed the interiors, landscaping, and branding for the project in partnership with local architect Brian Shinault. The program included, in part, combining two separate motels (the Royal Coachman and the Green Lantern), transforming a residential owner’s unit into the hotel lobby, and turning a sad asphalt parking lot into an outdoor leisure HQ. And though the project admittedly cost several million dollars to complete, the designers still had to do it on a budget.
Their approach was high/low; to use affordable materials like plywood, and take the money they saved and invest it in higher-end lighting, furniture, and art objects throughout the development. Designers Leigh Salem and Ruben Caldwell gave me the details. Photography by Luke Beard and Matthew Bolt, courtesy of the Coachman Hotel.

Above: Each of the 42 guest rooms is lined in plywood paneling painted in Benjamin Moore’s Iron Mountain. The plywood beds were fabricated on-site by the contractor, and the yellow canvas bedcovers are by Utility Canvas. Studio Tack designed the wall lights flanking the beds; ambient light disperses through a perforated metal screen when they’re on.

Above: Near the entryway, a “ski rack” hangs above a utilitarian strip of rub...