R. Donahue “Don” Peebles is founder, chairman, and CEO of the Peebles Corporation, the largest African American-owned real estate development company in the U.S. Its portfolio includes hospitality properties such as the Bath Club and Royal Palm South Beach in Miami and Courtyard by Marriott Convention Center in Washington, DC; high-end residential buildings; and mixed-use and commercial real estate. Peebles sat for a wide-ranging interview—from the magic of hotels to personal heroes and his mayoral aspirations—with Alexandra Champalimaud in his New York office in October.
Alexandra Champalimaud: You originally studied to be a doctor.
Don Peebles: I went into pre-med at Rutgers University. I was going to emulate my uncle, a physician. After my first year, I decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I worked with my uncle in his medical office while I was in school, and saw the enormous amount of paperwork and other elements that went along with practicing medicine, and how the insurance companies were beginning to dictate medical and healthcare. So I quit school, went back to Washington, DC, and started my real estate career. That was 1979 and interest rates were 20 percent or so. Jimmy Carter was president, and we were in a recession. We had already had an oil crisis and an oil embargo. The country was at a difficult point. But I was optimistic and became a real estate sales agent.
For my first development deal [for office space in DC], I brought in an investment group of three individuals as partners and they put up the vast majority of the money. And I did the vast majority of the work. I delivered that building [in 1989—I was 29], and I still own it.
AC: What type of development most propels you?
DP: I’ve always tried to do projects that are more transformative. They’re either geared toward igniting economic redevelopment—like our first building—or when I went to South Beach, which was still kind of tired and run down. I got there early and did something very significant. I was always attracted to historic buildings.
The developments we do tend to be unique. I like to incorporate design that is compatible with the environment, and I think that’s probably one of the areas where I’ve grown over the years—to be more against the grain. I tend to be a little more daring in the architecture and on the design as well.
The Courtyard Washington Convention Center, located in a historic
former bank building.
AC: When you pick your designer, your architect—what are you looking for?
DP: I’m really not a master of anything other than making deals. So I try to bring in talented people where there’s compatibility, give them a sense of the vision of where I see our building, and then let the team create. It doesn’t make sense to bring in talented people and then either restrict or direct them.
AC: You inspire them.
DP: Inspire them and give them the freedom and the autonomy to design something that’s unique and special. My view is that talented firms are going to be mindful of the economics if we lay that out to them in the front end. Through trial and error, my management style is to have good people and not micromanage them. I give them the autonomy to execute and to learn and develop better skills.
AC: Who are your heroes? Who inspires you?
DP: My maternal grandfather. He had five daughters. He worked as a hotel doorman for 41 years. My grandmother died when my mother was a teenager so he raised all of his daughters. They all went to college. Three got advanced degrees. And he was a person of great honor, integrity, character. Martin Luther King Jr. is a hero. And Barack Obama. I think historically he will be one of the most transformative presidents of our time.
AC: Do hotels have magic to you? Or is it all about the real estate?
DP: My grandfather worked in the hotel business, and I always liked to travel. A part of that is where I stay. A hotel does a number of things. One, you get to make an impression on a large number of people, and you are providing people with an experience as opposed to just basic real estate like an office building. A hotel is much more personal. The product they’re producing is something different. Also, it’s a great job generator, so it improves and expands our economy. And the idea is that with repetition, I can do it better. I can design different types of hotels. I can build different classes of hotels.
The hospitality industry gives you the opportunity to do something really unique, and I like that part of it. You get to do something that’s different each time. Building an office building is boring. Any way you cut it, it’s boring. Building condos or apartments is boring. Relatively speaking, a hotel’s got some energy to it. It’s fun.
AC: What do you contribute on a social level?
DP: We all have a responsibility to try to do our part to make society a better place. But that’s hard to do. We’re all human beings and we all have egos and we all have our own issues, so we come to our society with different impacts. From my perspective, I’ve chosen to look at providing different types of opportunities. [Last month] the phone rang and it was the GM from my Marriott hotel in Washington, DC. He said, ‘I have somebody who wants to speak to you,’ and it was a young man who’s now the GM of the Surfcomber, a Kimpton hotel in Miami Beach. He was one of our company’s first interns when he was in junior high school in the poorest neighborhood in Washington, DC. My wife and I set up an intern program and took three kids from the worst school in the city and exposed them to something different. He said that experience changed his life.
No one’s going to remember the developer. They’ll remember the architect. The architect is forever. But the developer is a financial person, and they come and go. More important to what we build is how we build. We’re going to make sure that we provide opportunities for women-owned businesses and minority-owned businesses to get a fair opportunity to do some great things. I don’t want my kids to remember me when they’re lowering me into the ground and say, ‘There’s a guy who made all the money.’ I want my son to remember, ‘There’s the guy who coached me in basketball when I was a kid. There was a father who was there for me when I needed him.’ I want those kinds of memories.
AC: Rumor has it that you may be running for mayor.
DP: I’m giving it a lot of thought. I think New York is the greatest city in the world and it’s an environment of such limitless opportunity, but it can be a far greater city and it can be one that’s inspiring and provide greater opportunities. I’m concerned it’s not going in the direction it should be. I’m a big believer that it’s one thing to point out the problems and challenges, but then to point them out and have no solutions, that’s a problem as well.
