The first-ever NYLO Hotel is opening tomorrow in Plano, Texas and we were able to grab some quality phone time with Patrick O'Neil, Senior VP of Operations for NYLO hotels as well as general manager for the NYLO Plano property.
O'Neil is a former Starwood man, having helped launch the Westin brand in Europe. Indeed, most of the partners of NYLO come from Starwood. But when we brought up the mega-chain's new spin-offs, Aloft and Element, O'Neil hardly flinched. NYLO is a "totally different thing," he said.
Put your NYLO Plano hotel reviews here, we are dying to find out what the NYLO experience is like.
Among HotelChatter's functions is to peer forward into the new, and track the latest news in hospitality.
But do you ever think to yourself, why ARE there hotels? How did hotels come to be, and why are they the way they are? Why are hotels homes-away-from-homes? Why are celebrities attracted to hotels? Why do hotels strive to be so darn glamorous and sexy?
HotelChatter was privileged to conduct a virtual interview with Andrew K. Sandoval-Strausz, author of the recently released and critically acclaimed book Hotel: An American History, which charts the unique rise of the hotel specific to the United States, and how its distinct growth runs parallel to our country's economic development.
Besides making a perfect gift for Hotel Chatter-ees, the book is a fascinating, fantastic romp through the past few centuries, from the rough accommodations at public houses ("George Washington Slept Here!") to the hotel's firm influence on architecture, society, politics, and travel.
Along the way, there are juicy anecdotes involving prostitution, adultery, corruption, segregation, elite society, bankruptcy, bad service, and wild parties - in short, the whole hotel hog.
The new luxury boutique hotel, Cooper Square Hotel, is rapidly rising in NYC's Bowery neighborhood. Its construction has been heavily chronicled here and on NYC blogs from the first design rendering ("full frontal") to the "high tech glass panels" Curbed spotted on the sidewalk last week. And don't forget our view of the construction from our bath at the Bowery Hotel last month.
But it's the drama that's been going on behind the scenes, that is creating the most noise. Last we heard, developer-not-the-actor Gregory Peck had been kicked out of Cooper Square, a hotel concept he developed with his partner and old high school buddy, Matt Moss, nearly three years ago.
Additionally, Cooper Square has faced tremendous opposition from the community who have complained about the design, the hotel's height, the construction and the hectic nightlife scene they fear the hotel will bring once it opens. Did someone say Meatpacking District?
Attempting to control the negative vibes about Cooper Square, Peck reached out to HotelChatter with his side of the story. More importantly, for hotel geeks like us he dished the details of what's inside amenity-wise at Cooper Square when its opens this spring.
Dushan Zaric and Jason Kosmas are the bartenders we'd want to be in another (non-hotel-obsessed) life. Smooth, creative and entertaining behind their West Village bar, Employees Only, they also know how pour us a stiff drink.
And ever since their book came out--You Didn't Hear It From Us: Two Bartenders Serve Women the Truth About Men, Making an Impression, and Getting What You Want--we've wanted to chat 'em up about why we keep missing out on hooking up at the hotel bars we so often frequent. Lo and behold, we were able to spend some quality time with Dushan learning his thoughts on the hotel bar scene today.
HC: So tell us about the book. Where did the idea come from, and why did you write it?
DZ: It came about because of a cocktail book Jay and I were writing that sort of became our bar training manual. Our friend, who is our agent, said we should do it because the manual had a lot of observation about what's really going on at a bar.
We're not emotionally attached to the movie playing out in front of us at the bar. And we said, "Why would we ever help the other team? It's the men--well, the boys--that need the help." And she said, "There's a lot of women that need your help."
Hotelier. The word is so romantic, so eccentric, so...French. However, run-of-the-mill real world hoteliers don't always live up to the etymology. Many hoteliers tend to talk about their rooms as commodities that they hope to sell by the click to you, hotel mavens. Others constantly complain that the online hotel review game has made it extremely difficult to get their hotel message to guests.
Always looking to bring you the most pertinent information on the worldwide hotel scene, we figured when we found hoteliers that were worthy of the French pronunciation of the word, we would let them speak to you directly. Besides, before you dropped a bunch of cash to stay at someone's house, wouldn't you want to get to know the owner a bit? Exactly. We, always oh so full of ourselves, are calling this series Hoteliers That Matter and we are sitting down with these hoteliers and letting them tell you, straight from their mouths to web ears, what you need to know about their hotels.
Nicholas Clayton of Kor Hotels speaks from his heart without practicing whatsoever.
Today we unveil our second installment of our Pitch Your Hotel series with Nicholas Clayton, president of Kor Hotels. Clayton joined the company about eight months ago and since then he has been hard at work at spinning off Kor Hotels' strongest properties, The Viceroy in Santa Monica and Palm Springs and The Tides in South Beach.
We knew that The Tides was expanding down in Mexico but the plans for the Viceroy caught up by surprise. Thus, Clayton gave us an informative presentation on how Kor Hotels will be shaping up in the future. You can hear what he has to say by clicking on the video above.
Our question to you is this, with Kor expanding aggressively to places like New York and San Francisco what would you like to see in their new hotels? Let us know in comments. As for the company-wide wireless internet policy issues that we are all well aware of, well click through to the Q & A to learn more.
Hotelier. The word is so romantic, so eccentric, so...French. However, run-of-the-mill real world hoteliers don't always live up to the etymology. Many hoteliers tend to talk about their rooms as commodities that they hope to sell by the click to you, hotel mavens. Others constantly complain that the online hotel review game has made it extremely difficult to get their hotel message to guests.
Always looking to bring you the most pertinent information on the worldwide hotel scene, we figured when we found hoteliers that were worthy of the French pronunciation of the word, we would let them speak to you directly. Besides, before you dropped a bunch of cash to stay at someone's house, wouldn't you want to get to know the owner a bit? Exactly. We, always oh so full of ourselves, are calling this series Hoteliers That Matter and we are sitting down with these hoteliers and letting them tell you, straight from their mouths to web ears, what you need to know about their hotels.
Quick Clip: Click To Play Watch as Chip Conley, ever the media professional, skillfully ignores his vibrating cellphone to tell us about JDV Hospitality.
To kick off our series, we were fortunate enough to sit down with San Francisco-based Chip Conley of JDV Hospitality. Conley started his hotelier career when he was 26-years-old with the Phoenix Hotel in San Fran's Tenderloin neighborhood. He succeeded into turning this hotel, in an otherwise dingy city neighborhood, into the hotel of choice for rock n' rollers and musical acts playing in the city.
Since then, Conley has spent the past 20 years building up his brand from this one rock n' roll hotel to more than 40 boutique hotels, restaurants and dayspas.
On the horizon for Conley is naturally, the ever-popular hotel and brand expansion. But don't expect JDV to hit the East Coast. For now, Conley is content to keep JDV a California experience.
The full Q&A with JDV Hospitality's Chip Conley after the jump.
It is safe to say that Scott Kerksman is one of the luckiest men in America right now. He's just been appointed (actually voted for out of 7,800 other applicants) the Chief Beer Officer for the Four Points by Sheraton's Starwood Brand. He spent a "whirlwind" week in New York, meeting all the Starwood hotel execs and even ringing in the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Now, he's gearing up to tour all the Four Points hotels and host their Happy Hours along with hitting up Beer Festivals, and touring local beer breweries. "I think I've made a lot of people jealous" with this new job, Kerksman says in the understatement of the year.
Then again, life was not all that bad for Kerksman before the CBO gig.
A native of New Mexico, Kerks got his first exposure to beer brewing when his brother gave him a home brewery kit at the age of 21. (Legal drinking age, of course.) Together with his brother and a friend, the trio started experimenting with different flavors and after a while, Kerkmans felt confident enough to start working as a brewer at a local brewery where he worked himself up to head brewer. This set off a career of traveling all over to brew, including to Alaska where he was one of six brewers behind Alaskan Amber.
For the past few years, however, he has been working in Phoenix, Arizona overseeing the Draft magazine, a publication he co-founded with two friends, and judging beer.
The Full Q & A with Scott Kerkmans after the jump.
Usually we leave the planes, trains and automobiles coverage to our pop-culture and travel-obsessed younger sibling, Jaunted.
However, today we wanted to let you know that Jaunted got an exclusive inside look at the jet fleet of Virgin America in San Francisco, set to launch this summer. For the rest of the week, Jaunted's fearless editor Davie will be chronicling what she learned inside the VA headquarters and dispensing a bit of a survival guide for meeting with a VA exec who she virtually beheaded purely for avatar fun.
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by juliana
