A Mid-Century Bank Becomes Boutique A Beauty in Savannah

OK, confession: I fell in love with Savannah as a teenager on a family trip (cue the Spanish moss and me pretending I lived there). So AAmp Studio’s revival of a 1960s bank into the Municipal Grand Hotel hits me right in the heart. Anne-Marie Armstrong, cofounding principal of the Toronto and Portland, Maine, architecture firm, tells us the project began with the “distinction between the building’s midcentury modernist rigor and Savannah’s lush garden-filled historic district.” Allowing those identities to converge in warm, curved, color-rich ways, the design team created a Municipal Grand that feels like Savannah’s past and present in one gorgeous conversation.

The original bank came with gems waiting to be rediscovered: tiled walls, terrazzo floors, a generous mezzanine. “The building’s most iconic features were either hidden, deteriorated, or missing entirely,” explains Anne-Marie, noting that blue-and-white tiles had been buried under beige wallcoverings and terrazzo was smothered in carpet. With historic preservation limitations set on the building, the challenge became “an exercise in restraint and strategic design”—restoring what remained while layering in new elements that felt warm, inviting, and decidedly un-corporate.

Soft curves became one of AAmp’s secret weapons. “Our ‘softening’ strategy—which included curved walnut millwork and custom tile and carpet patterns—allowed us to introduce comfort and a sense of luxury without mimicking midcentury details or overwhelming them,” says Anne-Marie, who launched AAmp with longtime collaborator, architect Andrew Ashey, in 2014.

And because Savannah is a city best experienced through its porches, parks, and squares, the team infused subtle garden-like cues through pattern, texture, and color—a way of letting the outdoors wink at you indoors.

Community was another guiding force. The hotel’s lobby was designed as an “all-day living room” for locals and travelers alike, with enveloping banquettes, layered lighting, and a reception area tucked discreetly out of view. AAmp also preserved traces of previous eras—the mail chute, vault doors, even the old teller desk reborn as a cocktail perch—grounding the space in memory.

The cocktail culture of Midnight Auteur adds yet another layer to the public space scene. “We hold a deep, and slightly obsessive, reverence for the all-day lobby bar, which is really the foundation of Midnight Auteur,” says Ryan Diggins, CEO of the hospitality brand he cofounded with partners David Kaplan and Alex Day, the three responsible for renowned cocktail bar and brand Death & Co. But AAmp made sure the architecture remained center stage, balancing semicircular walnut bars and atmospheric lighting with original troffer lights and rectilinear bones. The result is immersive but never theme-y.

In the end, Municipal Grand epitomizes Savannah in architectural form: historic, a little glamorous, a little lush, and full of stories—old ones resurfaced, and new ones waiting to unfold.

—Murrye Bernard