We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Paula Oblen. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Paula below.

Paula, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

We’ve all heard that good ideas begin on a cocktail napkin…well, mine certainly did! I have always had a deep passion for how spaces and places make you feel…the immersive, emotional connection we discover when we enter a room or destination can be deeply visceral. Drawn to boutique hotel’s early in my design and home related businesses, I would frequent boutique hotels to explore how the unique design approach seemed to be rooted in experience, which ignited a thirst to also have this feeling at home. With a deep desire to blur the lines between hotel-home, I became infatuated with creating a name that would describe this feeling. In 2008, while celebrating a wedding anniversary in Anguilla, (over a martini at a bar), my husband and I began writing notes on napkins as we gazed around the room. This continued and in late 2009, after hosting a party and playing a final dart game at 1:00 am, (yes, I play darts:-), the word Hotelements was born. Pronounced: Ho-tel-e-ments, this word perfectly described the objects and moments we were drawn to. And in 2010, Hotelements became our trademarked corporation name.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

A midwest native turned California gal, I’m a natural-born creative with an intense passion for curating experiential and immersive destinations. An entrepreneur at heart and armed with more than 20 years of experience starting and owning multiple interior design business ventures, I’m honored to have built an impressive list of clients that includes celebrity artists, musicians and interior designers, as well as private and commercial real estate investors, property management companies and restaurateurs.

Recognizing a convergence of hotel and home well over a decade ago, combined with my deep passion for experiential design, my company, Hotelements was born. While the hospitality industry had been successful in delivering experiences vacationers craved, it did not anticipate preferences would outgrow the standard room-and-mini-bar experience exposed by the vacation rental phenomenon. Hotelements combined the best of both worlds—the intersection of hotel and home. Carving out an entirely new niche I coined “Vacation Interiors,” where I blend signature branding with design to create spaces that evoke emotion, aiming to establish an elevated and differentiated presence in the competitive vacation rental market.

Since then—particularly with the demand for non-traditional short-term vacation stays in desirable locales skyrocketing as millions of professionals embrace their option to work or ‘roam’ from home, I began working with a wide range of clients and investors to break into profitable new territories and market opportunities. I have an innate desire and ability to create and identify the distinct characteristics and emotional touch-points critical to successfully curating branded, memorable and profitable guest experiences.

In late 2021, I teamed with Celebrity Designer and Netflix’s Queer Eye Designer Bobby Berk, where together we reimagined and transformed a 1950’s Spanish-style home (Bobby’s first luxury vacation property) named Casa Tierra—now a world class airbnb destination featured in Modernism Week 2022. Bobby and I are currently partnering on his second Palm Desert investment, a luxury vacation rental destination which will launch in late 2024.

Our signature offering is our “Branded Design’ approach which ensures that a property’s identity and brand is infused into all aspects of a curated and immersive experience, maximizing profit for owners, hosts and investors alike.

As an entrepreneur, the path to success is a marathon not a sprint. And while I feel I am exactly where I want to be at this time and excited about opportunities ahead, I am most proud of my work pre-2020 as Director of Special Spaces, Orange County, a chapter of a national non-profit. It is here that I lead a team of volunteers to transform bedrooms for young children facing cancer and life threatening illnesses. I quickly realized the profound impact design has on our health and happiness. Nothing in my life other than being a Mother to my son, Chase (now 24), can compare to the feeling of watching a child enter their new bedroom when they arrive home from the hospital. It is without a doubt those moments and memories that will forever fill my heart, and I am hopeful to begin volunteering with another non-profit in the near future.

Looking ahead at 2024, I will begin coaching fellow designers interested in adding luxury vacation branded design to their portfolio of services as well as launching mini-courses where I will begin educating others on my signature ‘Branded Destination Design’ approach for the growing luxury vacation rental market. Later this year will add a home decor, lifestyle component to our business through our Shop Hotelements site.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

While this is a personal journey of mine, it is without a doubt the ‘life moment’ that tested my strength and resilience in ways I could have never imagined.

In February, 2011 while in my garage/jumping into my SUV, I quickly found myself trapped at the edge of the garage door as my truck had not engaged in park, but rather somehow shifted to reverse position. In a split second and thinking I was able to jump in to hit the break, I found myself pinned between my garage door and a 6,000 lb vehicle. My son, then 12 years old, was playing in the driveway with friends and with this at the forefront of my mind, I knew I needed to stop the truck before it hit the slope, rolling backwards in the driveway.

What felt like :30 minutes but more like 5-7, I had a full out of body experience as I watched my right arm close and break in the driver door among other injuries while knowing I was also losing my breath. My son, my forever angel, found me and thankfully my husband was home and able to jump in the passenger side to pull forward releasing me. I never lost consciousness and to this day I know that is why I am alive. I fought hard by forcefully pushing myself in the opposing direction to not be crushed and maintaining the mental awareness of staying present. Determined that my life’s adventure was not going to end that day.

With emergency arriving quickly that day, I found myself in the trauma unit at Mission hospital Orange Cty continuing to fight. It was nothing short of a miracle that day and after two years of Physical therapy I was running my first half marathon. I know my outlook on life changed in that second and I am forever grateful for my husband and families support and for my resilience to overcome such a horrific accident. Living life to the fullest was always my mantra—but after this experience I realized how fragile each moment truly is.
My favorite country band Old Dominion says it best in the song: Life is short, make it sweet!❤️

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

I attribute this to my remaining true to my deep passion which has always been the convergence of hotel and home and the notion of how emotional and experiential design go hand in hand. When I trademarked my company in 2010, Airbnb was just beginning, so my ideas and concepts around blurring the lines in this design space was a fairly new concept — and often misunderstood. I was a bit ahead of the curve on my thought process.

Building a reputation, whether personal or professional takes time and perseverance. I wanted to build a brand that would allow me to be an expert in the field I am so deeply passionate about. This only happens over time, with much experience and doing the hard work necessary to fully understand all aspects of the business. From here, comes trust and loyalty and a ton of confidence in the work I create for clients.

The interior design industry has just over the last year began to embrace the short term rental luxury vacation market as it’s own design space. It is not residential and it is not commercial design…it is Vacation Rental Design. I am excited to be included as a regular speaker and educator at many conferences and was just recently asked to be an advisory board member of the Vacation Rental Design Summit…an organization and Summit centered around the short term vacation rental market.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://paulaoblen.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulaoblen/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100081900076968
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulaoblen/

Image Credits
Dane Deaner Austyn Moreno – AIM MEDIA Property Management Company: TRAVLR Vacation Homes