Design Hotels

The Design Hotels portfolio is formed by privately owned and operated hotels that reflect the "vision of independent hoteliers". A strong emphasis is placed on "culturally rooted hospitality experiences" and "leading-edge design and architecture".

Design Hotels was founded in 1993 as a California Corporation, Design Hotels Inc. by J. Peter Schweitzer and Claus Sendlinger. Claus was a part-owner (with Hans Peter Knodler and Oliver Jamitzky) of German full-service travel agency CO-ORDINATES GmbH, based in Augsburg, Germany; the two firms, and several others, consolidated in 1998 under the holding company lebensart.net GmbH, subsequently known as lebensart Global Networks AG in 1999. The holding company went public in Germany on Dec. 10, 1999.

In 2000 lebensart Global Networks AG, with Daniel Adams as the CFO raised sufficient capital to transfer trading from the over-the-counter (OTC) markets to the Börse München.

In 2001 the firm re-branded itself as Design Hotels with 23 initial member hotels. That same year the firm completed the corporate merger of wholly owned subsidiaries ResExpress, Inc., Younger Direct Marketing, Inc., and lebensart technology, Inc. The company began trading under the name lebensart technology Arizona, Inc., with headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona.

In 2004, after several relocations of its headquarters from Arizona, California, to New York City, the firm settled its headquarters in its current location in Berlin, Germany, under the name Design Hotels AG.

In 2011, Starwood Hotels & Resorts acquired 72% ownership of Design Hotels AG. Following the merger of Starwood Hotels & Resorts and Marriott International, Marriott International acquired 100% of Design Hotels GmbH.