Word: schrager
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...VIPs in attendance were, as usual, wowed by what Schrager, 53, calls "hotel as theater." But these days the Brooklyn-born co-founder of New York's legendary Studio 54 nightclub and the man behind such chic cribs as New York City's Royalton and Los Angeles' Mondrian hotels, is looking for a broader audience--people willing to pay up to be put up in his brand of hotel hipness. Trying to stay ahead of the curve he started, Schrager is adding 10 hostelries to the five he had been running. "It's a very capital-intensive business, which doesn...
...either love them or hate them," says Bill Kimpton of Schrager's work. He's a former investment banker whose $400 million-a-year, 28-property boutique chain is one of a host of competitors, large and small, who are out to spoil Schrager's good time. Kimpton caters to less image-conscious business travelers who still prize a little personality, including free tarot-card readings, back rubs or goldfish. The San Francisco-based dynamo is establishing a growing national presence, converting bank buildings and department stores in places like Denver and Portland into small, Euro-style hotels...
...marketing professor at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. "For all practical purposes, the traditional hotel is obsolete. There's too much wasted space, it doesn't look inviting, and there's an erosion of brand loyalty." Starwood Hotels & Resorts chairman Barry Sternlicht tried in vain to lure Schrager to his camp. The company, which owns the Westin and Sheraton chains, is currently busy rolling out the self-consciously hip W line of hotels in 16 cities, including Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago and Los Angeles. Hyatt is opening more of its smaller, luxury Park Hyatt brand--boutiques for grownups--while Marriott...
...Schrager broke new ground when he decided that a "point of view" is more important than standardization in a hotel. It's been his stock-in-trade since 1984, when he and his late partner Steve Rubell (whose family today runs its own hotels in Miami) opened Morgans in midtown Manhattan. It was both a professional and a personal reclamation project. The two spent slightly more than a year in prison for tax evasion following the collapse of their disco empire; soon after, they ventured into a more respectable branch of the hospitality industry. "People expected...
Like many frugal hotel entrepreneurs today, Schrager's formula is to "reinvent" dilapidated structures instead of building from scratch. He has made an art form of saving money with style--making industrial-quality fixtures look fashionable. He never skimps on attitude, though--ask anyone who has been chided for trying to move the carefully arranged pool chairs at Los Angeles' Mondrian. Schrager stages casting calls and hires aspiring actor-models to play the help; the snooty service can be unimpressive to customers who lack agents...