Glass, glass and Stephen Gormley

John LINDGREN

Pattaya’s Glass Meister: Stephen Gormley


In the verdant, semi-residential Soi 16 area of Na Klua, far from the hustle and bustle of South Pattaya, sits a quiet two storey house with tall bamboo fencing and a discreet glass sign, which reads, “Stephen Gormley & Associates.“ This is the workshop and home of a talented and successful glass sculptor whose trademark laminated and often massive, tall glass sculptures are renowned and sought after throughout Asia. My first meeting with Stephen Gormley was in 1997 at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Bangkok. In the old Siam Havana Cigar shop beside the narrow lobby bar, he handed me his embossed business card: Stephen Gormley – Glass Artworks for Architectural & Interior Design, and bought an entire cedar box, 24 sticks of ultra premium fat Cohiba Robustos bundled in a yellow silk ribbon. Ten years later his designer cigar glass ashtrays have become collector’s items with more demand than he can supply. “I wish I had more time to design and produce these types of personal glass works,” says Gormley, who today is an ex-cigar aficionado and enjoys the greens and fairways more than the posh cigar lounges.
Apart from the cigars, I remember the new BMW’s. He once said, “I like the engineering – it’s so precise.” He now commutes between Pattaya and Bangkok in a grey compact soft-top Porsche Boxster. Gormley was born in New York and studied art in California, U.S.A. “As a young man, I always wanted to be a craftsman, to work with my hands.” The materials he favored while he was in school were metal, wood and glass. Glass in all forms became his focus because of its endless potential. “I was so interested in my glass projects that I stopped attending classes at the university,” explains Gormley. From California he went to the mountains of Vermont in 1971. He became a freelance glass designer and made stained glass windows in his studio next to a river, in the middle of the sleepy ski resort town of Londonderry. “In Vermont I lived in a cabin up the mountain with no road access in the winter. I put large glass windows in the cabin facing south, looking down the whole valley and across the private 30 acre lake. Mornings were spectacular and I would finish up my designs after breakfast, stick them in my back pack, put on the cross country skis, and ski down the hill, across the lake and up the hill to the van.” After a pleasant long day at work in town, finishing usually at 2:00 a.m., I would drive to the end of the road and ski back home through the magnificent frozen stillness of the forest, zooming out onto and half way across the lake, if I didn’t wipe out on the downhill. I remember the stars would seem to hang on strings and you could almost touch them. Ah, those days. Romantic Vermont memories. To this day I still get most of my inspiration for design, from nature”
“Ten years in Vermont, and 40 below zero on the cold nights, finally got to me, and I moved to Hawaii. The cold weather was gone forever”, he adds.
Knocking on some doors in Honolulu, I met some busy international designers, and was commissioned to produce some large decorative glass ceilings for the American-Hawaii cruise ship lines, of which their S.S. Constitution was being re-fitted in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. After completing the glass ceiling works in my Hawaiian studio on the Big Island, I traveled to the east and completed two weeks of glass installations in Taiwan.
“It didn’t take that much for the fascination of the East to impress me. After a two week holiday stop in Thailand in 1981, on my way back to New York, I became completely intrigued with Thai culture. My next stop was Singapore, where I found a city booming with hotel development, extremely friendly international interior designers, and no one making glass to fulfill their many concepts. With their urgent need for a glass designer I was persuaded to stay in the region, and found myself back in Thailand two weeks later, setting up my glass workshop.
“Although it was a bit difficult to get to Chonburi in those days, I did not like the City of Angels, so I chose Pattaya. It was more relaxed, clean air by the sea, and closer to nature. This is where I set up my home, and workshop”
Most of his work in the last 25 years has been with the largest and most renown interior designers and architects in Asia.Today, Gormley’s glass installations can be seen in the lobbies, dining rooms and bars of the world’s most luxurious hotels such as the Grand Hyatt’s, Ritz-Carlton’s, Peninsula’s, and Sheraton Grande Hotel’s. From Istanbul to Bangkok, to Beijing, Shanghai, and Tokyo.

Recent installations include the huge 4 glass column sculpture in the main lobby of the 800-room Kunlun Hotel in Beijing. The eight-meter tall sculpture, weighing six metric tons, cost fifteen million TBH. Most recently, Gormley and his team of Thai workers completed an eight-day glass installation in the lobby of the new Le Meridien Hotel in New Delhi. Another important element in Gormley’s life is his family. A busy entrepreneur-cum-designer, he still finds time for his three sons, two of whom attend college in the US. His company is also very much en famille since most of his 15 workers and staff have been with him for more than 15 years. Like an extended family, most of the workers live on the workshop compound. And, after 25 years, he still lives in the same house in Na Klua. But, recently, he bought a 12-rai piece of land on the other side of Pattaya near the hills. Gormley’s current project, Glass Artwork Village, is in the planning stages with a new residence, swimming pool, expanded workshop and housing for his workers. Next time you are in the lobby or dining room or stylish bar of a five-star hotel and you see an impressive turquoise green glass sculpture towering above you, you’ll recognize the special talent of the singular glass designer Stephen Gormley.
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John LINDGREN

Pattaya’s Glass Meister: Stephen Gormley,
In the verdant, semi-residential Soi 16 area of Na Klua, far from the hustle and bustle of South Pattaya, sits a quiet two storey house with tall bamboo fencing and a discreet glass sign, which reads, “Stephen Gormley & Associates.“ This is the workshop and home of a talented and successful glass sculptor whose trademark laminated and often massive, tall glass sculptures are renowned and sought after throughout Asia. My first meeting with Stephen Gormley was in 1997 at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Bangkok. In the old Siam Havana Cigar shop beside the narrow lobby bar, he handed me his embossed business card: Stephen Gormley – Glass Artworks for Architectural & Interior Design, and bought an entire cedar box, 24 sticks of ultra premium fat Cohiba Robustos bundled in a yellow silk ribbon. Ten years later his designer cigar glass ashtrays have become collector’s items with more demand than he can supply. “I wish I had more time to design and produce these types of personal glass works,” says Gormley, who today is an ex-cigar aficionado and enjoys the greens and fairways more than the posh cigar lounges.
Apart from the cigars, I remember the new BMW’s. He once said, “I like the engineering – it’s so precise.” He now commutes between Pattaya and Bangkok in a grey compact soft-top Porsche Boxster. Gormley was born in New York and studied art in California, U.S.A. “As a young man, I always wanted to be a craftsman, to work with my hands.” The materials he favored while he was in school were metal, wood and glass. Glass in all forms became his focus because of its endless potential. “I was so interested in my glass projects that I stopped attending classes at the university,” explains Gormley. From California he went to the mountains of Vermont in 1971. He became a freelance glass designer and made stained glass windows in his studio next to a river, in the middle of the sleepy ski resort town of Londonderry. “In Vermont I lived in a cabin up the mountain with no road access in the winter. I put large glass windows in the cabin facing south, looking down the whole valley and across the private 30 acre lake. Mornings were spectacular and I would finish up my designs after breakfast, stick them in my back pack, put on the cross country skis, and ski down the hill, across the lake and up the hill to the van.” After a pleasant long day at work in town, finishing usually at 2:00 a.m., I would drive to the end of the road and ski back home through the magnificent frozen stillness of the forest, zooming out onto and half way across the lake, if I didn’t wipe out on the downhill. I remember the stars would seem to hang on strings and you could almost touch them. Ah, those days. Romantic Vermont memories. To this day I still get most of my inspiration for design, from nature”
“Ten years in Vermont, and 40 below zero on the cold nights, finally got to me, and I moved to Hawaii. The cold weather was gone forever”, he adds.
Knocking on some doors in Honolulu, I met some busy international designers, and was commissioned to produce some large decorative glass ceilings for the American-Hawaii cruise ship lines, of which their S.S. Constitution was being re-fitted in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. After completing the glass ceiling works in my Hawaiian studio on the Big Island, I traveled to the east and completed two weeks of glass installations in Taiwan.
“It didn’t take that much for the fascination of the East to impress me. After a two week holiday stop in Thailand in 1981, on my way back to New York, I became completely intrigued with Thai culture. My next stop was Singapore, where I found a city booming with hotel development, extremely friendly international interior designers, and no one making glass to fulfill their many concepts. With their urgent need for a glass designer I was persuaded to stay in the region, and found myself back in Thailand two weeks later, setting up my glass workshop.
“Although it was a bit difficult to get to Chonburi in those days, I did not like the City of Angels, so I chose Pattaya. It was more relaxed, clean air by the sea, and closer to nature. This is where I set up my home, and workshop”
Most of his work in the last 25 years has been with the largest and most renown interior designers and architects in Asia.Today, Gormley’s glass installations can be seen in the lobbies, dining rooms and bars of the world’s most luxurious hotels such as the Grand Hyatt’s, Ritz-Carlton’s, Peninsula’s, and Sheraton Grande Hotel’s. From Istanbul to Bangkok, to Beijing, Shanghai, and Tokyo.

Recent installations include the huge 4 glass column sculpture in the main lobby of the 800-room Kunlun Hotel in Beijing. The eight-meter tall sculpture, weighing six metric tons, cost fifteen million TBH. Most recently, Gormley and his team of Thai workers completed an eight-day glass installation in the lobby of the new Le Meridien Hotel in New Delhi. Another important element in Gormley’s life is his family. A busy entrepreneur-cum-designer, he still finds time for his three sons, two of whom attend college in the US. His company is also very much en famille since most of his 15 workers and staff have been with him for more than 15 years. Like an extended family, most of the workers live on the workshop compound. And, after 25 years, he still lives in the same house in Na Klua. But, recently, he bought a 12-rai piece of land on the other side of Pattaya near the hills. Gormley’s current project, Glass Artwork Village, is in the planning stages with a new residence, swimming pool, expanded workshop and housing for his workers. Next time you are in the lobby or dining room or stylish bar of a five-star hotel and you see an impressive turquoise green glass sculpture towering above you, you’ll recognize the special talent of the singular glass designer Stephen Gormley.


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