Pitched squarely at San Francisco's technology corridor, where SoMa's Victorian commercial streetscape gives way to the glass towers of the startup economy, Hotel Zetta opened in 2013 inside a handsomely proportioned early twentieth-century building whose arched ground-floor facade — white-painted pilasters framing tall glazed arches, a rhythm both formal and welcoming — gives little away about what interior designer Dawna Cahill of Pedersen Associates has assembled within. The brief was essentially to build a hotel for people who find hotel lobbies tedious, and the response was to make the ground floor feel closer to a creative studio than a reception hall. The lobby, called the Playroom, mixes a pool table, a wall-mounted bullseye game constructed from bottle caps, and a bar whose back panel is stacked floor-to-ceiling with wine bottles — an installation that functions simultaneously as sculpture and stock. Whitewashed shiplap paneling anchors the bar wall alongside a gallery of black-and-white music photography, while a sculptural metal chandelier hovers above the white Corian counter. Guest rooms carry a more restrained palette — dark-stained oak floors, leather-upholstered headboards backed by illuminated walnut panels that give rooms their warmest feature, kilim-style rugs grounding the otherwise cool grey interiors, and wire-frame task chairs nods to midcentury office culture. The 116-room property manages the trick of feeling both deliberately playful and genuinely composed.

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