the goodtime hotel - Miami Beach, Florida

Miami’s South Beach has never lacked spectacle, but when Ken Fulk set out to create The Goodtime Hotel with Pharrell Williams and hospitality impresario David Grutman, the goal wasn’t simply more glitter. Fulk imagined a sun-faded confection of pastels and nostalgia — part 1920s optimism, part 1950s seaside glamour, with just enough 1980s swagger to keep it cheeky. Behind that vision was an ambitious build: a seven-story, 266-room hotel spanning an entire city block, crowned by Strawberry Moon, a restaurant and pool club meant to become an instant Miami landmark.

What guests see today — scalloped mint canopies, pastel cabanas, and carefree loungers — hides a labor-intensive, two-year process of furniture customization that stretched across continents and through the height of COVID-19. At the heart of it was Designerie, asked to alter one of its most iconic pieces, the Belladonna sofa, long considered untouchable.

When the request landed in late 2019, Sydney Freeman, Designerie’s sales director, hesitated. “The Icons Collection had never been re-engineered like that,” she says. “Belladonna was an heirloom piece — beautiful as is, but not modular. What they wanted would mean rebuilding its DNA.”

Yet the potential was clear. “We had to decide if this was a stretch worth making,” Freeman recalls. “The design was strong, the project was high-profile, and if we could pull it off, it would prove that heritage craft can live in a demanding hospitality environment.” Designerie said yes.

That “yes” triggered a complex choreography of craft and logistics. Because the factory had never created digital shop drawings for custom Icons pieces, early approvals relied on hand-sketched drawings from Denmark, scanned and refined just enough to satisfy the New York design team and Cardy Group, the Canadian procurement firm managing the buy. With COVID restricting travel, everything happened via email, Zoom, and late-night calls across time zones.

The cushions became the next battleground. Fulk envisioned a waterfall-edge back pillow that would drape elegantly over the rattan frame. “We went through five handmade prototypes,” Freeman says. “Each one was physically built, photographed, and shipped for approval. Nothing happened on the computer — it was pure craft in the middle of a global shutdown.”

COVID magnified every complexity: fabric runs had to be redone when the weave direction came back wrong; one-off frames were shipped to the cushion workshop for fit testing; approvals dragged as photos crossed oceans. “It was a lesson in patience and detail,” Freeman says. “You can’t shortcut true custom work. Every decision touches durability, comfort, and the integrity of the design.”

For Freeman, the experience underscored the importance of expectation-setting. “We’ve learned to ask the right questions early — lead time, scope, materials — so everyone knows what’s really possible,” she explains. “When you do that well, even tough projects build trust instead of breaking it.”

The payoff arrived in April 2021, when The Goodtime Hotel opened with a celebrity-studded pool party that doubled as a design reveal. Against a backdrop of mint-striped cabanas and pastel wicker, the newly modular Belladonnas stole the scene — durable enough for heavy hospitality traffic, yet lighthearted enough to embody Fulk’s confectionary Miami fantasy. Photos of Kim Kardashian, Victoria Beckham, and Pharrell himself lounging on the pieces traveled quickly across social media, quietly reinforcing Designerie’s capability to deliver custom at scale.

Beneath the Instagram buzz was something more lasting: a proof point. The project demonstrated that heritage rattan could be adapted for high-performance hospitality environments without losing its craft-driven DNA. It also sharpened Designerie’s own playbook — from how it collaborates across continents to how it trains sales teams to frame custom options responsibly. “The right kind of custom makes us stronger,” Freeman says. “It pushes our engineering, deepens relationships with designers, and proves to the market that great craft can meet real-world demands.”

Managing director Brendan McCarthy views the Goodtime experience as a defining example of Designerie’s approach. “We’re selective about what we take on,” he says. “Custom has to make sense — for the brand, for the market, for the guest. But when a project aligns, we commit fully.”

And for McCarthy, that commitment goes beyond a single installation. “Custom is a leap of faith on both sides,” he says. “Designers trust that we’ll deliver, and we trust that the vision is worth the stretch. When those align, the results can be extraordinary — and The Goodtime Hotel is living proof.”