Celebrating 100 Episodes

Stacy Shoemaker Rauen: So here with me is our executive editor, Alissa Ponchione, and our de-facto producer. So hi, Alissa.

Alissa Ponchione: Hi. Happy to be here. I gave myself the title of producer.

SSR: You are the producer, you are. You wear many hats, but you definitely are also a producer.

AP: I’m happy to be here to reminisce. I can’t believe it’s been four years. Do you remember when we decided to start this podcast?

SSR: I do. It was at a CityScene roundtable in New York. Oh, was it before that though? And then we announced it there.

AP: We were at your house for a holiday party and you said, after a few glasses of rosé, ‘Why don’t we just start a podcast?’

SSR: Oh my gosh, yes.

AP: And we’re like, ‘Okay, let’s do it.’

SSR: And then we announced it at the CityScene round table and actually got our first sponsor there. Yes. Oh my gosh. Wow. This is how we come up with the best ideas.

AP: Exactly. So our first episode was with Raul Leal. He was the former president of Virgin Hotels at the time, and now he’s the CEO of SH Hotels and Resorts. Do you remember why we chose Raul was our first guest?

SSR: To be honest, he’s a really good friend. And I thought he would be a good guinea pig. He was someone who wouldn’t be mad if we messed up the first episode. But in all seriousness, he also has such a fascinating career/journey, and his outlook on design is so interesting. His dad migrated from Cuba to Miami, and he was a restaurant manager at a local hotel where Raul eventually worked when he was a teenager. And now he’s been in the hospitality business ever since and has learned the ropes along the way, moving from low man on the totem pole to top tier. So he credits a lot of his hospitality education to a general manager at the Sheraton Royal Bisque named Mary Ellen St. John. So, here’s his story on her.

Episode 1: Raul Leal, formerly CEO of Virgin Hotels and currently CEO of SH Hotels & Resorts

SSR: How did you learn about Design, Raul?

Raul Leal: Interesting story. So I was the assistant general manager of a hotel, and this is like 1989, a resort hotel, and we had taken it over for carnival hotels and casinos, and the general manager interesting enough was a lady, which back then was not common to have a lady general manager. And I was kind of a young kid, operations guy, whatever else. And we had a massive renovation in this 45 acre resort. In her past, her name was Mary Ellen St. John, in her past, she had been a classically trained interior designer. And she took me by the hand and she said a couple of things. She said, “I’m going to need you to work closely with me on this. The hotel’s only half open anyway, so focus on this and I’ll help you understand a lot about design,” which at the time I really didn’t care about. But then we went through a painstaking process for about 30 months of redesigning this old 1910 hotel or whatever it was. And I remember sitting there with her and her saying, “This is why we should use this fabric versus this fabric.” So it was an incredible education that I didn’t realize I was getting. And I owe it to her till this day that I learned so much from her on it. And later in my life I’ve used it quite a bit because now I’m so attuned to those details that I’m able to really participate and provide relevant commentary on the design side when I see things aren’t exactly the feel they should have or the lighting’s not right or whatever, it’s all going to work together. So that’s my story. So I felt like I went to design school for two and a half years with this lady. At the time I didn’t appreciate it, but now I do.

AP: So one of our most downloaded episodes, and we’ve replayed it a few times because people just love hearing his story, is Brad Wilson, who’s the president of the Ace Hotel Group and also a good friend of the brand.

SSR: I love Brad. He’s so thoughtful about everything he says. For what the title of the podcast is—What I’ve Learned—there is so much that Brad has to offer. Every time I’ve interviewed him, I’ve walked away with a new takeaway and this episode was no different.

AP: He also mentioned something that I know sticks with both of us that his biggest design pet peeve is saying the term pop of color, which I know I use all the time.

SSR: Absolutely. And now, every time I see it written in the pages of the magazine, I have to edit it out. But what I find most inspiring about Brad’s hospitality journey is how he took Alex Calderwood’s vision for Ace and carried on that legacy after Alex passed away. It’s more than a job for Brad—it’s a passion project for him to continue what his friend started.

Episode 7: Brad Wilson, Ace Hotel Group

SSR: We’ve talked about it a little bit that it’s called the Ace Effect or called the Schrager Effect. It’s when somebody does something so well that everyone then now wants to replicate it, which I guess, what do they say, flattery is the best compliment. But I mean, I think what the Ace in New York did, and correct me if I’m wrong, but they made people think differently about what a lobby could be or what a hotel could be within a community.

Brad Wilson: Oh, I totally agree. As I said, I always have been seeking for this ability to make a travel experience less lonely. And I mean, that was at core of Alex’s vision. His first hotel, the Ace in Seattle, he built a hotel for his friends. So he never thought of the traveler as being separate from the family. For him, he was building hotels for friends, people that he related to who would relate to him. He used to say, “If you do what you love, the rest is going to follow.” And in real true sense, I think that works because people can feel that. And Ace New York, you could feel that kind of positive energy, the kind of draw of the space. And certainly everybody was always focused on the lobby and that kind of feel that you could just hang out in that lobby. But that really was core to I think Alex’s vision was just the idea of being able to be laid back and hang out in the lobby the same way you would hang out in your living room at home with friends. And so all of that I think became a movement in an industry, but was really actually based on just really an understanding of how people live.

SSR: Very true. And unfortunately, Alex has passed away a couple years ago, but how do you and your team continue to, as you expand, as you grow as a company, how do you continue to create this, what I think Ace does really well is that authentic place, space that you’re talking about? How do you continue to make sure that happens in Chicago, in LA, in New Orleans, in wherever you go next?

BW: It’s interesting, when Alex passed, one of the first phone calls that I got was Ian Schrager called me actually to say one, he was friends with Alex as well, and he was obviously sad, but he also said to me, he said, “If I can give you one piece of advice, is whatever you do always evolve and always be changing.” And he said, “One, because that’s what Alex stood for. But two, I know when I left Morgan’s, a lot of people at Morgan’s kept trying to do what Ian did,” and Ian says to me, “But that’s not what I do today. So what you have to understand is you can’t keep doing what Alex did. You have to believe in what Alex meant and was going for and evolve toward that.” And I think we’ve used that very hard to try and keep Ace moving forward, whereas a lot of brands can be ego brands, right? It’s very easy to be Ian Schrager hotels, and then without that, it gets very difficult. We had a huge advantage in that Alex was never that ego creative in that sense. Alex was a person who brought people together to create collaborative environments to leverage ideas. So in many ways, Alex taught us from the beginning a method and a style that supported evolution and wasn’t really dependent on him. That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t be a million times better if he was still around, but the process that Alex had always focused on was work with great people who love what they do, understand that you can always find somebody who knows something better than you do, and you can have that person leverage that. And so the concept of partnering and the concept of evolving in each hotel and project being a unique opportunity for us to find something new and find something fresh is really important to us at a core. So we remain Atelier Ace, which is really our kind of think tank collaborative, creative group. We’re always rethinking what we do, rethinking what the industry does, and we’re always trying to evolve and change and keep up with it. So I’ll say each of our projects, I think in turn, hopefully still feel fresh. They don’t feel like we’re redoing what we did. You said it’s very flattering when somebody copies you. And it certainly is very flattering. And I mean, I’m always honored when people talk about the Ace Effect, as you say, particularly when Four Seasons says they want their lobbies to be like Ace. I’m like, woo-hoo. But I will also say that we want to learn from what we did as well. But I don’t think we ever will want to do what we did. So tomorrow we do something different every time.

AP: Also, early on, we were really lucky to have Venus Williams come on the podcast. This was very exciting because she came into our office and everyone was starstruck.

SSR: I didn’t even think about it, telling people that Venus Williams was coming because she has been a supporter of us. Obviously she is a major tennis star, but she’s also proven herself off the court as a designer, both for interiors and clothes.

AP: I was really impressed by her work ethic, of course, but also her humility.

SSR: And her dad always wanted her to have something to fall back on other than tennis, because he knew tennis would only last so long. And so because of that and everything he instilled in her, she takes her works very, very seriously. And she actually does everything she does just to make her parents proud.

Episode 8: Venus Williams, V Starr

SSR: So you’re a world class tennis player, and that’s hard enough to begin with, what made you want to start your own design firm and be so successful at it as you have been?

Venus Williams: Yeah, definitely. I thought I had to impress my parents. And it wasn’t until maybe this year that I realized, oh, they were probably already impressed because I have avoided any major pitfalls, but also they probably are proud of the tennis. They haven’t actually said quite so, but I think that they are. I never thought about it, but I always thought, okay, I have to get an education to make them proud and I have to do something outside of the court, so they’ll really think a lot of me. So it was my parents who pushed me.

SSR: Awesome. And what did you want to create when you were starting the firm? Did you have any big lofty goals or what did you want to do to set yourself apart from what else is out there?

VW: I wanted to do great design, but also I wanted to win. I love winning. I’m addicted to winning in whichever thing I try. And sometimes you lose too, but as long as you learn and don’t make the same mistakes twice. And I think a part of it is, I love the business development side too, is just talking to people, getting to know clients. As much as I love the design too, those are both wins.

AP: Do you remember episode 36 with David Rockwell?

SSR: I do.

AP: This was our last in-person recording before. And we went to his office in New York. It was such a strange time. No one knew what was going to happen. We were joking about how we were going to have to clean off the mics afterwards, which now I would just do anyway.

SSR: Yes, exactly.

AP: I’d like rub everyone down in Purell.

SSR: And I’ve had a chance to talk with David so many times, and I’ve learned something new each time with him. He has such a curious mind. I love hearing how he thinks. I’ve told this story before, but I remember going to Tao Downtown after it opened, and David was there just watching how people moved in that space because they designed it. It stuck with me that he is much more than a designer. He’s a people watcher, a director, a choreographer, all the above.

AP: Theater is a huge influence on his life. He’s won a lot of Tony Awards for his set designs.

SSR: And it’s so interesting to hear him talk about the dialogue between theater and hospitality. They’re more alike than you think.

Episode 36: David Rockwell, Rockwell Group

SSR: Let’s go back to the whole idea of the intersection of theater and hospitality. How do you use all the work that you’ve done on Broadway, everything you’ve learned growing up as a kid, and how do you infuse that in hospitality? How do you let them speak to each other? What’s the process like there?

David Rockwell: Well, I think the biggest difference between theater and hospitality is the toolkits are very different. So in theater, you’re dealing with movement and choreography. You know for a fact. It’s not built to stand the test of time, and you’re in real time collaborating with a lot of other people, choreographers, lighting designers in restaurants, really from the beginning, from sushi’s then on. I believed in crafting a backstory or narrative that helped make every decision not arbitrary. So, the original Nobu grew out of us extracting in conversations with Nobu and with Drew and with a De Niro, a point of view about how Nobu wanted his Japanese food to be perceived. And the ‘aha moment,’ much like in a play or in a musical, you don’t want the set doing the same thing the actors are doing. There’s an interesting saying, don’t put a hat and a hat. So if a scene is funny, you don’t necessarily want the backdrop to be funny. The environment is really the changeable space. So with Nobu, when we found the way in that he was from the countryside, he wasn’t from the city, and his influences were both South American, both taste and visual influences from Peru, marrying that with the mastery of sushi became a way to create, I think the first three-star restaurant experience that didn’t have a tablecloth. So it was a new way to deal with luxury. And that’s been a big influence on our firm, is thinking about the changing expectations that people help about luxury. The other overlaps are front doors to restaurants, to me, are the proscenium curtains of restaurants. They’re how you’re introduced to those rules. And no one is comfortable walking in to a restaurant for 250 people if you’re the first 10 people. So we just did Oceans on Park Avenue, 19th Street, and the choreography of the entrance into that entry barrel vault is as choreographed as a Broadway show so that the first 10 people don’t enter on access to the big space. And so there are those kinds of overlaps too.

AP: So we’re going to have to do a pandemic interlude here because it was a strange time. So when the pandemic hit, we had to pivot our setup. At the time we were doing all our interviews in person, lugging our equipment all over New York and various cities. But we had to rethink that a little bit.

SSR: What we all thought would be a two-week break, and then we’d be back to normal. But obviously that wasn’t the case. So we got on Zoom, Amazon’ed a microphone to my house and started recording asking people across the globe how they’re experiencing and surviving this global crisis. Despite the uncertainty, there was a sense of community. It kept us connected and opened up so many more opportunities for interviews since we didn’t have to be in person, something that we probably should have thought of before then. But hey, you learned something new, especially during COVID.

AP: No, we wanted to travel on the subway with five mics and a Zoom recorder.

SSR: Because that made a lot of sense. By the time May hit, I think we all realized we were in this for the long haul. Sixth Sense’s CEO, Neil Jacobs was also on lockdown in Singapore when we chatted with him in June of 2020. And you could sense how big the challenges were for hoteliers. And he shared a lot.

Episode 42: Neil Jacobs, Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas

SSR: Thanks for calling in from Singapore. How are you and your team trying to deal with this new reality amid COVID-19?

Neil Jacobs: The teams, well, it’s been a challenge. We closed, I think close to 16 hotels over a three and a half week period in 15 different countries. So dealing with all the stakeholders and all the challenges, be it with owners and the bankers and lenders, and obviously all our employees isn’t simple. And each country has its own labor laws and its own peculiarities. So for our team, our corporate team, the majority of whom are in Bangkok, it’s been a really, really intense time for sure in the last few weeks. Hotel guys don’t sit around generally talk about love, right? So it’s the kind of thing that we actually take quite seriously because it doesn’t have to mean romantic love. And it really ties into our mission, our stated mission that has been for years as company, which is all about reconnection, reconnection with yourself, others world around you. And it’s a word that in the past three or four months, people are using a lot. But that has also has always been part of our DNA. We don’t actually always talk about hotels when we talk about what the brand stands for. So that connectivity piece from a granular level, loved ones, friends, family, but also taking it across a wider spectrum, which then brings the concept of love into what we mean by connection and how we treat people, how we behave, and what kind of drives people to get up in the morning and go about their lives. So we think there are concepts there that we can bring into our wellness thinking, if you like, and wellness modalities that really will take things beyond some of the cool stuff we’ve already been doing, but that will take us one step further into some really cool unusual offerings. So long answer to a short question, I’m sorry, but that’s the kind of stuff we’re focusing on right now.

SSR: So continuing on this COVID trend, in September of 2020, we also talked to chef Daniel Boulud. He was dealing with a fledgling restaurant industry, and that worry about the future was palpable in our conversation. 

Episode 49: Chef Daniel Boulud

SSR: How are you surviving this new crazy reality that we’re all dealing with?

Daniel Boulud: Well, that’s been a long journey of worry, of course. It has been a long journey of trying to find a balance between life and work, and certainly trying to dream of better days, but we have to be very patient and we have to be very cautious. And the biggest worry of all is, of course, the business, but what is the business? Most important thing is the staff. And I think that was certainly something that would consume us a lot at the beginning by trying to find solutions to support our teams, and so we created a foundation. We reopened some kitchens. And today, about three months after, we have been doing meals in New York, producing meals for different charities, but mostly City Meal on Wheels. Also, we did a lot of meals for World Central Kitchen for many weeks when they were taking care of the nurses and the first responder here in New York during the high of COVID.

And then after we opened the kitchen uptown at Daniel, and we also provided meals for the hospital on the upper side of New York. From there, we started to take action on trying to bring a little bit of business or do something. And we started DBK. Daniel Boulud Kitchen was about providing curbside pickup, delivery, and grab and go. Not grab and go, but curbside pickup and delivery with a menu, which was certainly more casual than Restaurant Daniel, but at least a combination of our bistro menus and our more fine menu, and it has been good. Since then, we opened a terrace at Daniel, and then we have opened Bar Boulud, and we have opened Épicerie.

But I’ve never worked so hard. I never worked so hard. I get up in the morning and the first worry we have is to start communicating to many of our staff, suppliers, and customers. And we try to find solutions one-by-one. And, of course, there have been lot of coalitions of restaurateur and chef. And so, like many people, I have spent my last five months on Zoom all day long. And that’s not a good thing. There’s nothing better than being at work, being with the team, working with the team, and feeling that sense of power together, which I think is very difficult to sense with Zoom.

SSR: Well, I’m glad that you are staying afloat and pivoting.

DB: We love what we do. Yeah. We love to think about food. One thing we are not going to lose in this is our talent, our passion, our commitment, our dedication to hospitality and to cooking and to teaching and mentoring. And I think we just need to put it all back together.

AP: It’s interesting to listen to those pandemic episodes now. You could tell people were broken and just trying to figure out how to survive. We all were, but everyone was so committed to their staff and the industry they love. It just reinforced a lot of the things we already knew.

SSR: It was pretty inspiring actually, to do those interviews during that time because like I said earlier, it brought together this sense of community and perseverance that this industry, hospitality has really shown throughout the last couple years.

AP: I hate to use a COVID buzzword, but should we pivot?

SSR: Yes. We should pivot now that we’re entering a post-pandemic world and getting back together. So let’s pivot for sure.

AP: I’m pivoting to one of our favorite interviews and our listeners too. This has been our most downloaded since it aired in June 2021. It’s with Paula Scher, she’s a partner at multidisciplinary design firm, Pentagram. And she was on our list for a long time.

SSR: Yeah, she was. We talked to a lot of industry people, newcomers, veterans. But some of our most dynamic conversations are with those who are adjacent to or a little outside hospitality. I find Paula’s story to be incredibly inspiring. She’s an artist and graphic designer who was a children’s book author, designed album covers for John Prine. And she was the first female partner at Pentagram. She truly has defied expectations.

Episode 67: Paula Scher, Pentagram

SSR: What was it about Pentagram that you liked that made you want to go work for them or with them?

Paula Scher: Well, I liked that the designers there seemed to earn a living while I was actually having a distinct difficulty at it. No, I really have to tell you about that year and a half on my own. It was debilitating. When I started the business, I was in my early the 30s. When Terry and I were working at Time, I was about, I don’t know, 31. And by the time we started Koppel & Scher, which was the name of the business, I think I was 33 or 34, I don’t really remember quite the age range. And I was still getting youth oriented work. And the problem was that as the decade wore on in the ’80s, I started competing with people younger and younger than me who were entering the field. And I found that particularly after Terry left, and I was a woman alone in business, that I was getting the same work I had already gotten. And the kind of work I was getting was not going up higher in fees. It was more or less the same. And I had the distinct feeling that if I didn’t make a definite change, it would go down. So when the offer came to join this group of men, and they were a big group of men, I thought I’d make more money. Also, their work was good. It was very high level. Pentagram had an amazing international reputation. And Michael Beirut, who was already a friend of mine, was asked to join at the same time. He joined six months earlier than me, because I had to close down my business. But that also made it easier, knowing I was going to have a friend walking in the door.

SSR: And as you mentioned, you were the only partner that was a woman. How did that influence you as a leader? And did you face a lot of challenges in that role?

PS: Yep. You have to realize that the partnership in the New York office wasn’t so terrible. It was five guys. The London guys were 15. Wow. So, I mean guess there were 10. There were 15 men all together when I went to my first partner’s dinner. So I remember going, the first partners meeting I went to was in Rome and we were staying at the Roman Academy, American Academy in Rome. And I remember we all went out to dinner and there were 15 men and me, and they sort of had a big table that was sort of in a circle. And I had my little seat. And one of either the hostess or somebody who was guiding us to the seat, said to Alan Fletcher and two other men who she was talking to, she said, “Why is there only one woman here?” And Alan Fletcher said, “Oh, she was the only one who was talented enough to join our group.” And she looked at me very snidely and said, “Oh, you must be very, very talented.” And I remember just feeling like, oh God, it’s bad anyway I look at it, this thing is completely wrong.

AP: You’ve been in this industry for a while, too long. Is there a guest you’ve talked to who made you rethink design or the industry in general?

SSR: Yes. The person that comes to mind is Kia Weatherspoon. She’s a force for good in this industry, and we can all learn from her about building design equity.

AP: Do you remember how she first came on your radar?

SSR: She emailed me back in 2014, introducing her firm to us. She wanted to be invited to NextGen, one of our amazing conferences for the next generation of leaders. And then full circle moment this year, she was one of our Wave of the Future honorees who we honored at NextGen. And when we talked to her this year, she revealed that there were two times in her life when she realized that design wasn’t equitable and it motivated her to pursue interior design, to change that conversation.

Episode 90: Kia Weatherspoon, Determined by Design

SSR: But so what then drew you to go to school for design?

KW: We have a little bit of time, maybe brief. So I will say this, it wasn’t even necessarily how I grew up as a child, but I think there were two big moments of my life where I realized space matters. I think the first one happened when my brother was incarcerated. My brother was incarcerated when I was in high school, and he would end up being incarcerated for 15 years. And it would start my family on this journey of going in and out of prison facilities. And what I do remember vividly is the first prison I ever walked into. And that immediate reaction was, I don’t want to be here. No one should be here. Sands all the things of why the people were there. It was just a visceral feeling like, this isn’t the way people should traverse through spaces. And year over year, I would think about it from the perspective of other people, me as a sibling, a parent, a grandparent, a child, the guards, and then finally the men. And I just felt like it was something about the space, and I would just sit with that. I would sit with it. So that was moment one. Then I went to college to study dance, and I didn’t get financial aid. And I said, “I’m going to join the military.” So I joined the military, I joined the United States Air Force in 2001, and I got to my first duty station in July. And then September 11th happened. And I was on my first of four deployments to the Middle East. And it was at Al Udeid Airbase in Doha, Qatar. And it was at the height of the war. So it was a bear base, and it was in Tent City. And I was in this tent with about 14 other women, and I needed some privacy and I didn’t have it. So I took some sheets, I hung it from the top of the tent, and I made three sheet walls around my cot. And that was the first space I ever created. And I balled like a baby for 15 minutes. And it was something about how that space, it healed me, it brought me comfort, it brought me solace. And I would do that on three more deployments. And when I got in the military, I was like, “I want to do this thing where I create spaces for people.” And that’s how I got onto interior design.

SSR: That’s amazing.

KW: It is the most roundabout way.

SSR: But a very profound way.

KW: Yeah. I mean, in looking back now, and I think about the body of work that I’ve done, it’s all about making sure everyone has access to elevated spaces, but it’s also kind of like, man, why didn’t I take notice to my environment as a kid? Why didn’t the low up income community that I grew up in, why wasn’t an elevated space that would create this visceral reaction to me? I came to design from a place of trauma, right. So I don’t know. But that’s how I got here. That’s how I got to interior design.

AP: This also reminds me of a conversation we had with Damon Lawrence from Homage Hospitality way back in episode 20. He shined a light on a lot of the industry shortcomings too.

SSR: He’s trying to change the industry, creating a new brand for the underrepresented black traveler.

Episode 20: Damon Lawrence, Homage Hospitality

SSR: So can you talk a little bit Damon about what was Homage? What did you want to do? What was the initial beginnings of it and ideas?

Damon Lawrence: I sat on my computer just doing as much research. I would do it at the front desk a lot of times on those slow nights and tried to find out if there was someone else that looked like me in the space that was branding and creating boutique properties. And I couldn’t find it. And every time I would Google, I was always taken to these stories of people from the ’50s and even earlier than that, that created these hotels that only black people could go into. And that was the closest thing that I could find as inspiration. And so I was like, man, there has to be a way for me to pay homage to that. And that’s where the name came from.

SSR: And those hotels weren’t anything glamorous.

DL: No. I mean, you think about the Green Book, if you think about that and think about those spaces, and some of them were glamorous for us that were jazz greats that would do things in the speakeasies, in the basements, and from all across the country, DC, Harlem, Harlem Renaissance era. So they had great names culturally within the black community, but didn’t reverberate outside of that.

SSR: We’ve also been lucky enough to talk to some of the most revered chefs and restaurateurs in the industry. Daniel Boulud, Andrew Carmellini, Marcus Samuelson, Kevin Bain, and one of my favorite interviews Will Guidara, formerly of 11 Madison Park and Nomad.

AP: That’s right. He invited us to his beautiful home in Chelsea, and he was so candid and so forthcoming. It was a wonderful experience.

SSR: He was. And that table that we sat at was just beautiful. Taking what he learned from working for Danny Meyer, he really redefined what fine dining hospitality means today.

Episode 15: Restaurateur Will Guidara

SSR: For those that haven’t dined at 11 Madison Park, can you talk a little bit about how you kind of changed it and what you guys did differently or how you approached service?

Will Guidara: Yeah. I mean, the thing that I tell the team all the time is we need to take what we do seriously, but we shouldn’t take ourselves that seriously. I remember one of the first things, and there were people that were working out of the Madison Park who had been hired prior to me in advance, the transition, who had much more fine dining experience than me. They were appalled because I went over to a table and I put my hands on the table and leaned in to talk to the guest, which is a no-no in old school fine dining service, you never touched the table. That’s not your property. It’s the guest property. And one of them in as respectful a way as he could to his boss said to me, “What are you doing?” And I said, “I don’t care if that’s a rule. My role is to try to establish some level of genuine connection with the people I’m serving. And by breaking that barrier, it puts me more on their level and gives us the opportunity to see one another and connect with one another.” And that kind of thing just kept on going. We have a team of dream weavers, which the name came because one of my favorite songs in high school was Dream Weaver by Gary Wright. If you haven’t heard, it’s on Spotify. Go check it out as soon as you finish listening to this podcast. And they are people that are there to help us create improvised moments for the people that we’re serving. An example is, and it started on a very, very simple level, I’ve told this story plenty of times, but the first one was that we were serving a group of people and they had been to all sorts of restaurants in New York and they were on their way to the airport after their lunch at 11 Madison. And I overheard them saying something to the effect of, we’ve been to Momofuku and we’ve been to Daniel, and Per Se, the only thing we missed was a hotdog from the street. So we went out and we bought a hotdog and we cut it up and we placed it perfectly on the plate with a canal of mustard and whatever. And we served it to him as a mid-course. And the look of surprise, the look of hilarity, they started laughing, they felt seen. And we gave them something, not because we were desperate to serve a hotdog, but because that’s what we knew they wanted to receive. And that feeling of looking at their facial expressions when that happened, it became an addiction.

AP: After 100 episodes, more than a hundred guests, is there someone on your bucket list that we haven’t talked to yet?

SSR: The hospitality industry is a close-knit family, and there are a couple names that consistently pop up during our interviews. One is Barry Sternlicht. I would love to pick his brain.

AP: I honestly would love to do a montage of everyone who has ever mentioned him. He’s touched everyone’s career and lives.

SSR: Yes, for sure. Off the top of my head, Barry’s been integral to the careers of Brad Wilson, Andrew Zobler, Aaron Richter, Kane Sarhan, Amar Lalvani, and Kemper Hyers to name just a few. In fact, Kemper of Auberge Resorts really gets into the heart of what makes Barry a genius in his podcast.

Episode 38: Kemper Hyers, Auberge Resorts Collection

SSR: And then you said your life changed when Barry called you. So how did he call you? How did he find you? Tell us that story. And we’re talking about Barry Stern, for those that don’t know.

Kemper Hyers: Yeah, I suppose there are other Barrys in the world, but he’s my Barry. I don’t know. I was at my desk in the Clara story at the Star Lehigh Building, which is a beautiful space. And the phone rang and it was Barry and he said, “I’ve heard about you.” Well, I’ll tell you, if I could back up by saying that one of Barry’s biggest rules was he never hired anyone from the hospitality business, especially in design. One of his kind of mantras was, the way you’re going to reinvent hospitality is to bring people in from other disciplines that are going to look at it in a new way. And I’m still that way because of him. It’s one of the things he’s taught me. And to this day, I hire that way, I hire designers that way. I build teams that way. The more I can get outside influence, the better. I’ll tell you why Barry called me. He called me because he had this belief that the way to evolve and sort of excite the hotel business is to never hire anyone from the hotel business. Anyway, so totally hooked from the minute I got there. And of course, working for Barry at Starwood in those days was all about reinventing the industry. That’s what he wanted to do. And so Barry, I can tell you his compass point, I mean, everybody talks about Barry as being sort of spreadsheets and bedsheets, that he’s got this right left brain that’s amazing. But his biggest compass point when it comes to hotels is design. And so if you work in design for Barry, you’re in a very revered position for him. And truthfully, it’s how he sees hotel. You talk about brand with him, and within two minutes he’s migrated from what the concept is of the brand to how it’s going to look and how it’s going to feel and how it’s going to taste. And it’s very design-centric. When he looks at people, it’s what are they going to wear? Tell me about what that’s going to be. The visual is incredibly important to him. And it’s his kind of center point for how he thinks about any individual brand. It’s why all his brands look so different. And I don’t know how many people know this, but Barry went to art school as a part of his education and is a painter. He thought he was going to be a painter. And then his parents were like, oh, no, you don’t. You’re going to go back and you’re going to learn business. So he went to Brown and became who he is. But there’s an artist in him always. And it’s a visual artist. And he’s an avid reader. He’s an amazing … he writes beautifully and all of that. But really the visual arts are kind of who he is.

AP: People talk about Barry as much as they talk about Ian Schrager as an influence. We could do a montage of that.

SSR: We probably should. Yeah.

AP: Well, we were lucky enough to actually have him do a talk with us.

SSR: Yes, he did. He’s become a good friend of ours, especially after he was our guest editor in 2018, which was such a trip to be able to produce an entire issue, working closely with him and getting to pick his brain and who should be in that issue.

AP: His connections are incredible.

SSR: As soon as we sent an email saying, Ian Schrager would like you to be part of our issue, we get a response back immediately.

AP: I wish we could do that for every issue.

SSR: And it was amazing too, I remember it was right before July 4th, and I emailed him and I said, “Please, please, please, one last time I’m going to ask you to be our guest editor.” And he just replied back, “Yes.” And I squealed. And no one was in the office because it was right before July 4th and everyone was on vacation or leaving for vacation as I probably should have been. So, but anyway, I’m just so glad that he did that with us. It was such a memorable experience for me. And as a follow up, he’d joined me in conversation at one of our events, Elevate in 2019, which we recorded. There were many pieces of wisdom, but how important the details are has stayed with me since that conversation.

Episode 29: Ian Schrager, ISC

Ian Schrager: We were the first ones that went to the Labo, the first one. This is before they were bought by I think Saint Lauren. And I think the rule is you assault as many senses as you can, touch, feel, taste, all of them. And having a distinctive scent in the air I think is important. I think the first one, I’m not sure where we did it first, but it’s just an important … it’s just part of the whole package. I think it’s a very kind of important. And now the Labo has become a huge success. They’re very expensive now. So we do our own stuff now. But I think it’s very important. Anything that can touch a person emotionally, anything that they will take note of, it’s important to have that because you never know which detail is going to be the detail that pushes it over the top. So therefore, all the details are important.

AP: So the title of the podcast we decided on was, What I’ve Learned. You’ve done 100 episodes, we’ve been doing this for four years. Do you have a favorite lesson learned that sticks out to you from all of our guests?

SSR: It’s tough. There are a couple that resonate with me. To start, one is what Bill Walshe of Viceroy Hotels offered. His commitment to always being and doing the best, especially for his team, is like no one’s I’ve ever heard.

Episode 91: Bill Walshe, Viceroy Hotel Group

SSR: We always end the podcast with the title of the podcast. So what has been your greatest lesson or lessons learned along the way?

Bill Walshe: Consistent individuality. Not only from a design point of view, not only from an operations point of view, but in a human to human point of view. Let’s consistently commit to express our individuality, to do so honestly and with authenticity. And if we all together make that commitment, there isn’t a circumstance that will ever beat us.

SSR: And then we also had the chance to talk to the legendary, Anouska Hempel. She’s impressive in her own right and is an inspiration for many. But I loved how succinct and simple her take was on that question.

Episode 70: Anouska Hempel

SSR: So we always end this pod on the name of the podcast. So what has been your greatest lesson learned?

Anouska Hempel: My greatest lesson learned is I’ve still got so many lessons to learn.

SSR: And then of course, Larry Traxler of Hilton Hotels is one of a kind. Passionate, beyond intelligent and somehow he manages and has details about the thousands of projects he and his team are working on. He has such a deep respect and appreciation for design, hospitality, and the people he works with.

Episode 61: Larry Traxler, Hilton

SSR: And we always end the pod with the title of the podcast. So what has been your greatest lesson or lessons learned?

Larry Traxler: Yeah. I would say my greatest, and you’ve heard this come out in a few different stories along this journey, I would say it’s better to be lucky than good. I would say that whichever of those categories that you happen to land in, you have to show up fully committed, ready to put in the hours, work hard, be kind, be passionate about everything that you do. And if you invest everything that you have, opportunities actually land in your lap. I think that I’m a huge believer in that. I don’t think that I had any idea that my journey was going to take me from Chicago to Singapore, to New York to LA to all the places in between. But I threw everything that I had into every step along the way. And there’s no other choice, you can’t fail. So just keep focused on the positive, keep moving ahead. And there’s always going to be adversity. Never let challenges stop you from what you want to do. Keep your eye on the future.

SSR: And to end on a note that’s sort of full circle and epitomizes why I love this industry is when Amar Lalvani spoke about how it’s the people that make the business. 

Episode 97: Amar Lalvani, Standard International

SSR: And then we always end the podcast with the title of the podcast. So what has been your greatest lesson or lessons learned along the way?

Amar Lalvani: It’s probably said over and over and over again, but it is this business and every business, but this business in particular is 1000% about the people. And if you can get the best team, you get the best product.

AP: I think that’s one of my favorite parts these past four years. After every conversation you’ve had, the one constant is how important the people are, whether it’s employees or guests or anyone the hotel touches.

SSR: For sure. And now as we’re coming out of COVID, excited to see what the future holds. This industry is resilient. We’ve been through a lot and I think have come out stronger on the other end. And there’s so many more conversations have and lessons to learn.

AP: Do you think we have 100 more episodes left in us?

SSR: Absolutely.

AP: Barry, call us.

SSR: Barry, can you hear me? Yeah. My cell is … I’m just kidding.