In Music City, Fairlane Hotel focuses on the audio experience

NASHVILLE, TN—Despite being a “throwback hotel,” the Fairlane Hotel here is making use of several pieces of user-friendly complex technology that are adding to the experience.

The hotel, which opened in March 2018, is located in what was a 14-story bank building built in the 1970s. “It is beautiful in its midcentury nature,” said Ben Webster, general manager of the property, which is managed by Charlestowne Hotels. “Our owners have owned it since 2011. They bought it when it was an abandoned building, and it had this fantastic location right in downtown Nashville, which is a booming hotel city right now.”

Webster said that, unlike others in hotels in the area, the owners decided not to play up the “Nashville” angle, but instead focus on the building’s history in its design and feel. “They had this vision of making it feel like a building that you would have walked into in the 1970s,” he said.

Given this, technology was not at the core of the design of the property. “We are not that high tech of a building,” he said. “I don’t do mobile check-ins and that type of thing. That is not who we are. That would be very off-brand for us.”

Any technology that was considered for the hotel had to be easy to use and had to add to the experience of the guests—without being intrusive. “We have been to a lot of hotels where it is just so tech-heavy,” said Webster. “I just want it to be comfortable.”

No place is that combination of state-of-the-art tech and simplicity more evident than the hotel’s penthouse suites, which can be used for guest stays, as well as an event space with top-notch audio for live performances. “We are very fortunate to have about 4,000 sq. ft. total (2,000 interior and 2,000 exterior),” he said. “The penthouse can be divided multiple ways. I can sell it as individual penthouses, Penthouse East and Penthouse West. I can set it up that one penthouse is a guestroom and the other is a hospitality suite.”

Despite the fact that the hotel focuses on its history for its design and feel, Nashville is still known as Music City, so live music was just a natural fit for the operation—and if the penthouse was going to have that live music, it needed high-quality audio that was easy to set up, but it also needed a system that a guest could use when the penthouse wasn’t being used as an event space.

For that, the hotel turned to electronics integration firm AVLX, which did all of the digital installation in the property. “The biggest thing they wanted to have was a complex system that was easy to operate without technically minded staff,” said Chris Torri, managing partner, AVLX. “They wanted to be able rent the penthouses out as a penthouse of course…and to do events as well, so having a system that was two part was key in having a commercial and residential system blended together. The typical penthouse consumer doesn’t want to have commercial audio and commercial-style control.”

To do that, AVLX used a two-part system from Elan. “There is a distributed audio system on the penthouse floor that connects both penthouses and both terraces to the single system,” said Torri. “We can plug a band in and have a sound system adequate to do that type of performance. We use some JBL in-ceiling speakers that have an 8-in. driver and a compression horn driver, all concentric. That is in the ceiling throughout the space. That type of system doesn’t necessarily work for your general consumer. The [regular suite guest] doesn’t have access to that system, even though it is installed there. But we don’t route the TV sound, all of those things, to those devices. They can’t turn on the 5,000 watts of audio and get it cranking, and then be annoying to their neighbor.”

Those guests have access to an easy-to-use remote that controls the lights, shades and the TV. “I needed flexibility in that space, but I also needed it to be comfortable so that guests staying in West have the ability to listen to music in the suite if they want,” said Webster. “Our penthouse rates range from $3,000 to $10,000 an evening for the floor, so how do we control that without being too in your face with big digital pads all over the place? That was the challenge thrown to Chris Torri. He recommended that solution, and it worked very well. It offered the mixed-use functionality that we need in that penthouse.”

The remote is easy to use, according to Torri. “It is only the tactile buttons,” he said. “There are no pages to go through. It is just all on the surface, with the six physical buttons. It is not the blend between physical buttons and touchscreen; we wanted to keep it as simple as possible. When hotel engineering comes upstairs, they have the ability to control all of the zones and all of the sources.”

Webster said the hotel offered the technology solutions for the suite guests because of the convenience factor. “A lot of our guests have those features in their homes,” he said. “A lot of our guests who are able to afford that level of penthouse, they have that. We want to give that sense of home—through our service, the way you walk in the building and just feel comfortable, but also make it more intuitive so it is how you function at your house. Everybody is so tech-heavy on their phones. You can control your refrigerator from your phone. We are not going to get that crazy, but we want to provide a level that guests are familiar with without being complicated.”

The system also allows for a quick transition from a guestroom to an event space. “The turnover for the room from guest checkout at noon and a special event at 4 p.m., is now completely possible,” said Torri. “For management of the hotel, you can turn that room over day to day. You don’t have a setup. All of that is built into that one easy-to-interface system. The engineer goes up there, and instead of only seeing the TV zone and the media zones, now you see Penthouse East, Penthouse West, East Terrace, West Terrace, and you just choose the audio source you want.”

For the event side of the space, the hotel has seen a lot of success. “We hosted a private party on the 4th of July during the fireworks,” Webster said. “We stripped all of the bedding furniture out, and it just becomes a 1970s crash-pad space. We had a DJ plugged into the sound system. We have also partnered with Live on the Green, which is a big music thing down here where they will do one-off music events with us plugged into our whole big-house sound system.”

In addition to the suites, AVLX designed and installed the low-voltage and wireless infrastructure for the entire hotel. An additional Elan system manages eight zones of audio throughout the property, giving managers control of the music playing in the main lobby, valet stand, gym, coffee shop, restaurant, deli, elevator lobbies and two boardrooms.

Ellington’s, the hotel’s fourth-floor restaurant, also has the easy audio set up for live musicians. “We wanted to get music in there, but we also do have live musicians come in,” said Webster. “We have jazz performers who come in. We need them to be able to plug in, play through all of these different systems. We also have the private dining room, which we have to separate off. For a small restaurant, it is also a very complicated system. We needed to make it a simple user interface. We need a bartender to be able to walk over and control it if they need to, or for your host to be able to go over and change it.”

Webster is happy with the system and its ease of use. “All of it is controlled very simply by this cool little touchpad at the front desk where we can run the whole hotel, essentially,” he said. “If a guest calls down from the penthouse and is confused or has issues, we can take it over right at the front desk of the hotel. It is very simple for us to be able to monitor.”

For Torri, making sure that the proper audio elements are there in the space is essential to an all-around great experience. “When you are in a space, all of the senses have to be fulfilled,” he said. “It can’t just be visually appealing, but have terrible audio or terrible acoustics, period. You are not going to want to be in a space that is audibly uncomfortable.”

Audio and visual elements work together, he said. “We also don’t want to go into a restaurant that sounds amazing, but no three lights are the same color temperature and they are too bright,” he added. “The lighting also has to be right; we’ve matched our color temperatures, we’ve matched our intensities. It has to be visually impactful, and audio is absolutely a sense that has to be fulfilled.” HB