As managing director of Brookfield’s real estate group, Shai Zelering oversees the company’s comprehensive hospitality portfolio, which includes the upcoming overhaul of the iconic golf retreat PGA National Resort & Spa in West Palm Beach, Florida, and the recently opened bleisure hotel Yours Truly DC in the nation’s capital. A Cornell University graduate with an MBA from Northwestern University, Zelering cut his teeth in all things hotels while at LXR Luxury Resorts and Hotels, then Blackstone’s hotel operating platform, and at Thayer Lodging (which was then acquired by and eventually absorbed by Brookfield). Though the COVID-19 pandemic has offered its challenges, Zelering says it has also allowed them to start multiple renovations. “We’re going to step on the gas and be ready for recovery—that’s the plan for 2021,” he says. Here, he details his love for design, working with V Starr, and the effects of the pandemic.
On the importance of design
When you get into a space that is well designed, it automatically uplifts you and puts you in a great headspace. If I walk into a space that was thoughtfully designed—unpretentious but ambitious—it really changes the vibe and the whole energy around the people in the room. And you can see it. You can see hotels or venues that are designed for the masses versus those that are designed for serenity and with true hospitality in mind.
A rendering of the PGA National Resort & Spa’s lobby, a collaboration with Simeone Deary Design Group
On buying the PGA National Resort & Spa
The PGA is the most amazing athletic retreat. We’re renovating all five golf courses—some of them more expansively than others—and the tennis courts. We’re going to be adding an activity pool with a lazy river. We’re completely changing the restaurant scene to focus on a well-balanced diet. We’re taking a hotel that has been a stagnant resort for a long time and we’re polishing it. The reason we chose the PGA is that it has so many opportunities for families and individuals to benefit from a fantastic vacation, one that you come back from feeling much better [than when you left].
On working with V Starr on the PGA spa
When we bought the PGA in West Palm Beach, we were looking for local designers because what’s important is that people get an experience that is different than what they would get at home. If somebody is coming from Georgia, the Northeast, Canada, wherever it is, they want to know that they are in a different place. They are looking for an escape. Secondly, we were looking for somebody who personally and professionally can really relate to the need for wellness, and there’s nobody better at that than V Starr. There are some fantastic designers out there, but when you go and partner with an athlete who pushes their body to the max, they know exactly what the design should be like from a more layered perspective. It’s not only paint and furniture, it’s the mobility, serenity, and functionality; it’s what makes sense for the body. Having that perspective was important specifically at PGA where people come for long days on the golf course or an intense tennis practice. This is the complete opposite of a beach retreat. It is an action-packed vacation where you need to take care of your body.
The bar at the South American-inspired Mercy Me in the Yours Truly DC hotel, also the handiwork of Simeone Deary
On post-pandemic hospitality
We’re an industry that likes to throw parties. We design hotels that are used to celebrate, to hold conventions, or events. And all of a sudden it stopped. Mentally, it’s difficult to keep people’s heads in the game. I know as an industry we’ll get through it and we will recover, and we’ll benefit from the pent-up demand. We will all go through a phase that we need some healing. People are not made to be distant and away from their families, away from gatherings. After that, I think we will have an entrenched appreciation for social interactions—for having dinner at a restaurant, getting together with friends, going on vacations with the family. This has been a humbling experience in terms of not taking anything for granted.
Photos by Nathan Kirkman and courtesy of Brookfield
This article originally appeared in HD’s November 2020 issue.
