108 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM Palo Alto’s Stanford-themed hotel transports guests back to school words by JOHANNA HARLOW photography by GRADUATE HOTELS DAVID MITCHELL PHOTOGRAPHY Graduate Palo Alto isn’t for the modern minimalists. In the lobby of University Avenue’s eclectic new hotel, general manager David Joseph stands before a showstopping gallery-style wall, brimming floor-to-ceiling with paintings, scientific illustrations and pressed plants. “We actually had a woman try to pry the pictures off our walls one time because she wanted crystal chandeliers and one lone art piece on a blank wall,” he recalls with a chuckle. “That’s not us.” Now, if you’re looking for an exuberant space with an explanation behind every design detail—the kind of maximalist design you can really sink your teeth into—you’re in the right place. When Graduate Hotels (a hotel group that themes each of its locations around college nostalgia) opened its Palo Alto site this past January, it aesthetically delivered a love letter to Stanford University. At first glance, you’ll pick up on this motif through the key cards made to look like student IDs of notable alumni as well as the study table with lamps in the lobby, evoking student libraries of the past. You’ll notice it in the hotel stationery, embellished with a bubble test pattern, beside a yellow No. 2 pencil with the hotel’s motto: “We are all students.” But it’s in all the subtle touches too. The in-house design team has meticulously woven historical and cultural allusions to the region and the school throughout the entire fabric of the hotel—right down to the art on its walls, the carpet in its hallways and the menus at its in-house dining options. scholastic chic
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