Pharrell Williams announced a new lifestyle and design-forward project with Miami-based hospitality and nightlife entrepreneur David Grutman.
The new resort is a part of Atlantis Paradise Island and the world-renowned Bahamas destination known for its soft pink sand and sea attractions.
Slated to open in 2024, the resort will have barely 400 rooms and suites, multiple restaurants and bars, along with recording studios.
Per CNN, Williams said in a joint exclusive interview with Grutman that the concept of “tropical modernism” is being reworked for this new space, pointing to a more contemporary feel. “Often, when tropical aesthetics are talked about, it comes back a second time,” Williams said. “It like, ‘Man, let’s have that time.’ We are going here for the future.”
Nightlife entrepreneurs David Grutman and Williams have unveiled plans for a new design-forward resort.
With a design team led by Sean Sullivan, a partner at David Rockwell’s The Rockwell Group, nowhere else promises a lush and fluid visual line — from the cascading pools that draw the eye to the ocean and dash throughout the property.
“When you pull up, you’ll reach through a densely landscaped garden, and that garden continues under continues under and through the building,” on a statement released by Sullivan.
Elsewhere a flamingo would be anchored by the pink-trimmed building, hitherto known as the beach. It was the first hotel built on Atlantis Paradise Island and was designed by the late Maurice Lapidus. Lapidus was a popular mid-century figure and leader of the “Miami-Modern” style.
As it so happens, he designed the Fountainbleau Hotel in Miami Beach, home of the Grutman-owned nightclub LIV.
The beach sits on a quiet corner of Atlantis Paradise Island and is being remodeled from head to toe.
Williams and Grutman launched The Goodtime Hotel in Miami in April 2021.
“What we’ve done as an approach is to do away with a lot of architecture,” Sullivan explained in a statement. “We’re opening up the structure to the landscape and the sea. Warm-weather resorts often have substantial natural elements, but they’re usually very controlled. We’re excited to see nature pervade the space.”
Sullivan also said that the team is thinking of art and sculpture, not as something decorative, but as entities that could possibly be built into the architecture of the space.
The two are also partners in the Miami-based restaurant’s Swan and The Goodtime Hotel, which opened in 2021.
The Bahamas project is Williams and Grutman’s largest and most complex venture to date, and it makes the first time the Atlantis Megaresort. The pair will retain 100% ownership of Elsewhere’s intellectual property and have been given carte blanche on how to execute it.
