The hotel was launched in 2010 as an ode to Faye Dunaway, and stepping through its doors is like falling into a scene from “Mad Men.” There is a rooftop with skyline-facing showers. There are smart, masculine furnishings, low lights, rich-toned wood, and free-flowing champagne. The lobby is an angular, secretary-chic library with a bigger-than-life Playboy print splashed above, its perfectly-coifed playmate flashing a mega-watt smile and keeping a watchful eye on the action below.
Perhaps most important, there are all kinds of visitors here: singles, couples, and families; gays and straights. The Brown TLV made history when it opened its doors not only for its intimate, urban design, but also because it was the first unabashedly gay-friendly hotel in Tel Aviv, one which set into a motion a bonafide tidal wave of gay-geared tourism and outreach that has now propelled the city to the top of nearly every gay-travel list in the world.
“We see copycats in so many hotels,” Avigad says. “We see things that were copied across Tel Aviv and we take it as a compliment. It should just drive us to be better and to innovate.”
Inland Tel Aviv is now so packed with urban boutique properties that a visitor can hardly walk a single block without tripping over two or three. There are strong competitors, like the super-luxe Alma Hotel in a restored historic building; the Rothschild, on Tel Aviv’s handsomest boulevard; and the all-suite Diaghilev with its rotating art gallery and roomy balconies.
Brown TLV, however, set the standard for both urban and gay-friendly lodging in Tel Aviv, and it continues to tromp its competitors. The bar here is a destination for locals and tourists alike. The staff gushes over both children and pets, and are quick to accommodate both.
While the Brown TLV welcomes kids with open arms, Avigad says it’s his next project, the Brown Beach House, which will will totally shake up family-friendly lodging in Israel.
If the Brown TLV is an urban Faye Dunaway, the Brown Beach House, which Avigad built from scratch on a once-seedy corner lot just inches from the seafront, is more rat-pack and beach-bunny, imbued with the 1960s sex appeal of bikini-clad Grace Kelly. It’s a sexy kid sister to the grown-up Brown TLV, with an indoor sand pit, million-dollar views, and mega-sized, all-suite rooms that each sleep up to four.
“Everyone who followed us is here inland, so now we’re escaping to somewhere else,” Perry explains. “We always like to have our unique selling point. So now it’s the time for us to go back to the beach and bring the boutique hotel scene with us.”
“All the beds are huge to cuddle up in the morning. The breakfast is in-house and not small. Everything is lighter and wider,” Avigad says. “There are three elevators, not one. We have babysitting, and a parking lot for families who come with cars.”
Families, he believes, shouldn’t have to choose between being comfortable and feeling cool when they travel. Both Brown hotels, he says, are places where and he and Perry would stay with their own daughter. They don’t need to market to families. They just create an atmosphere that works for them.
“It’s a segment we understand very well,” he says. “I think many couples with children want to stay in a cool place and not give up their own preferences in order for their kids to be happy. And we’re trying to create that happiness on both ends.”
