Back in Topeka: To The Moon!

By Harlan Butler, Former Innisfree President

Back in Topeka, we had a General Manager at one of our hotels, years ago – and she was a lady.

(We were told later that she had perhaps a bit of a cocaine habit, but we didn’t know that at the time.)

She wasn’t performing – and things were missing from the hotel in the lobby.

What she was doing was selling the artwork off the walls to friends and customers, and she was keeping the money. There was no reason to do this … it wasn’t like we were remodeling.

Well, anyway, she was fired, and I was sent in as GM of the hotel. We had the hottest bar in town. There wasn’t anyone anywhere better. We had people come and dance and have the best time.

So one night, I’m in bed at home, and I get a call that the former manager is on the dance floor mooning the crowd.

She mooned everybody in our entire bar. There were 200 or 300 people in there!!!

Of course I had to go tell her she could never come on the property again.

The takeaway?

Today, we’re more diligent in our hiring processes. Because when an employee shows his you-know-what, it’s a shiny moonlit reflection of your company.

– As told to Ashley Kahn Salley
Lead Storyteller, Innisfree Hotels

###

ABOUT ‘BACK IN TOPEKA’
In order to have a great future, we must celebrate and learn from our incredible past. The Innisfree Hotels story began in Topeka, Kansas. So when the folks who were around back then start a story with ‘Back in Topeka,’ we know it’s time to listen. These are tales of the challenges, of the laughter and tears that come with building a company like ours. That’s the sentiment behind this blog series, a chronicle of days gone by at Innisfree Hotels – and a map to get us where we’re going.

Back in Topeka: Find a Way to Say ‘Yes’

A Story by Mike Nixon, President (About Harlan Butler, Former President)

An alternate title to this story could be: “Harlan Regrets Not Renting a Room to Elvis.”

Yes, it’s true.

While he was a General Manager, former Innisfree President Harlan Butler got a phone call that Elvis was coming to town – and he wanted a room with a separate sleeping and living area.

Well, the hotel Harlan was managing did not have suites, nor did it have adjoining rooms. So he dismissed the call, saying: “Sorry, we can’t help you.”

If he had just given it a little bit of thought, he could have easily put a doorway in between two hotel rooms, then placed living room furniture on one side and bedroom furniture on the other side.

From that day on, he would have been able to say his hotel had housed Elvis Presley. (Kind of a big deal.)

Thinking about the ways we can help our guests rather than dismissing their requests can have far-reaching benefits … even if they’re not Elvis.

Some of this comes down to the language we use.

We have learned in the last five years that when loyalty customers ask for upgrades (particularly those who have never stayed in our hotel before), we can offer things that don’t cost the company a thing … like telling them we’ve assigned them to a room on the 7th Floor instead of the 1st.

All it takes is a turn of a phrase, and sincerity. If it’s not said with sincerity, it won’t have as profound of an impact.

BOTTOM LINE: Don’t be quick to say ‘no,’ even if you’re busy, or even if you think the request is silly. Always try to find a way to say ‘yes.’

(We all know Harlan wishes he had.)

– As told to Ashley Kahn Salley
Lead Storyteller, Innisfree Hotels

ABOUT ‘BACK IN TOPEKA’
In order to have a great future, we must celebrate and learn from our incredible past. The Innisfree Hotels story began in Topeka, Kansas. So when the folks who were around back then start a story with ‘Back in Topeka,’ we know it’s time to listen. These are tales of the challenges, of the laughter and tears that come with building a company like ours. That’s the sentiment behind this blog series, a chronicle of days gone by at Innisfree Hotels – and a map to get us where we’re going.

Back in Topeka: “My Favorite Shirt”

With Harlan Butler, Former Innisfree President

I used to travel all the time … going from hotel to hotel to hotel. 

I had a favorite sport shirt, and I took it with me to one of the hotels. The next day it disappeared. 

I said: “I know I had this shirt with me, I’m sure of it.”

But it wasn’t there.

So I thought: “Maybe I’m mistaken.”

And I went home.

I talked to the housekeeper before I left. No one had seen it. I looked around at home, but it wasn’t there.

I went back to the same hotel six weeks later, and it was payday. I was helping the staff pass out paychecks and saying ‘hello’ to the employees. It was a good way for me to see everybody.

As they came in to get their paychecks, they would have to sign for them. A housekeeper came in, and she had a guy with her, and she was signing for her paycheck. He was her boyfriend. I looked up, and he was wearing my shirt!

That shirt was unique, and I knew it. It had lapel buttons and flaps and all that.

I was flabbergasted … I couldn’t think fast enough what to do. So I didn’t do anything. 

I gave her her paycheck, went to the head housekeeper and told her what had happened. 

The next afternoon when the lady came to work, she brought my shirt back. 

She had stolen my shirt and given it to her boyfriend!

The moral: We all have choices in life. When you work for Innisfree Hotels, we trust you will make the right one. 

(No matter how cool the shirt is.)

– As told to Ashley Kahn Salley
Lead Storyteller, Innisfree Hotels

###

ABOUT ‘BACK IN TOPEKA’
In order to have a great future, we must celebrate and learn from our incredible past. The Innisfree Hotels story began in Topeka, Kansas. So when the folks who were around back then start a story with ‘Back in Topeka,’ we know it’s time to listen. These are tales of the challenges, of the laughter and tears that come with building a company like ours. That’s the sentiment behind this blog series, a chronicle of days gone by at Innisfree Hotels – and a map to get us where we’re going.

Back in Topeka: Selling Tomatoes

By Harlan Butler, Innisfree Hotels Past President

Back in Topeka, in the late 1980s, the only place that was using modern hotel revenue management techniques in the United States was a place called Family Inns of America.

Before founding Innisfree Hotels in 1984, Julian MacQueen had been Vice President of that company, and there he had learned to increase rates by demand.

He taught that to me, and I brought it back to Topeka. There was a NASCAR racetrack opening that September, and our hotel was the closest hotel to the track.

So I raised rates.

As the NASCAR opening got closer and closer, I got rates higher and higher and higher.

By the opening, I had the highest rates in the whole company … and the highest in Topeka. I continued through the four-day weekend of the race.

On Monday, I was called by the Convention and Business Bureau to come to their meeting downtown at the Chamber of Commerce, where they proceeded to tell me they understood I had been gouging people for rates over the weekend, and that was bad … and what did I have to say for myself?!

(This was a huge conference table with 12 people sitting around it.)

I calmly told them:

“Ladies and gentlemen – if you go to Wisconsin in the summertime, you can buy tomatoes for 19 cents a pound. If you go back in the winter to the very same place you are going to pay two dollars and 99 cents a pound.”

“All I’m doing” I said, “is selling tomatoes.”

And guess what? They understood.

It was a revelation to them, and they didn’t ever give me any more trouble.

In the hotel business, when the weather is right or a show is in town, the rates go up.

We’re selling tomatoes just like you, folks.

– As told to Ashley Kahn Salley
Lead Storyteller, Innisfree Hotels

###

ABOUT ‘BACK IN TOPEKA’
In order to have a great future, we must celebrate and learn from our incredible past. The Innisfree Hotels story began in Topeka, Kansas. So when the folks who were around back then start a story with ‘Back in Topeka,’ we know it’s time to listen. These are tales of the challenges, of the laughter and tears that come with building a company like ours. That’s the sentiment behind this blog series, a chronicle of days gone by at Innisfree Hotels – and a map to get us where we’re going.

Back in Topeka: High Stakes Steaks

At Innisfree Hotels, we’ve learned there are sometimes high stakes when eating steaks.

The following stories are true, and they happened ‘Back in Topeka’.

These particular tales have been long passed down by Harlan Butler, former president of Innisfree Hotels, who is very funny … a distinguished storyteller.

“Steak in the Hat”

There was a chef who was a wonderful cook, always came to work on time and always stayed late. He was good at what he did.

The chef was leaving the hotel one afternoon, and the General Manager called him back.

We should note it was summertime.

So the GM called the chef into the parking lot and said he needed to talk to him about something – food costs, labor costs, upcoming banquets.

He was standing there in the hot sun wearing his big white chef’s hat, which chefs usually take off before they leave. The manager began to notice the chef was sweating profusely. The longer he stood there, the more he would sweat.

Suddenly, the sweat turned red.

It became evident the chef had something under his hat.

He was smuggling steaks out of the hotel.

Needless to say, that chef doesn’t work for us anymore.

“Midnight Steak Snack”

At one of our earliest hotels in Mobile, Alabama, the night auditor had an interesting habit.

He would leave the Front Desk to go turn on the grill in the kitchen.

Then he’d come back, take a few calls. Do his thing.

He’d go back to the kitchen, put a steak on the grill.

Come back to the desk.

Go back to flip the steak.

Come back, and so on …

The graveyard shift is 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. One night, this went on over the course of an hour.

Apparently at some point, the night auditor had cut up the steak and was taking a couple of bites each time he visited the kitchen, when he choked and fell out on the restaurant floor … and died.

They put this together based on the evidence when they found him the next morning.

The moral of the story is, when eating a steak that doesn’t belong to you, consider the stakes.

– As told to Ashley Kahn Salley
Lead Storyteller, Innisfree Hotels

###

ABOUT ‘BACK IN TOPEKA’
In order to have a great future, we must celebrate and learn from our incredible past. The Innisfree Hotels story began in Topeka, Kansas. So when the folks who were around back then start a story with ‘Back in Topeka,’ we know it’s time to listen. These are tales of the challenges, of the laughter and tears that come with building a company like ours. That’s the sentiment behind this blog series, a chronicle of days gone by at Innisfree Hotels – and a map to get us where we’re going.

Back in Topeka: The Rent Every Room Story

The Rent Every Room Story, Innisfree Hotels

Here at Innisfree Hotels, it’s really a big deal to rent 100 percent of your rooms.

Most brands consider occupancy full at 95 percent. But the way we see it, there’s very little effort involved in renting one more room.

Back in 2002, we had a Best Western in Perdido Key with a lobby and two blocks of guest rooms, 50 rooms each.

One had a roof that leaked badly – right over the top of Room 225.

The cost to fix it was $50,000. The hotel room in question only made $12,000 a year.

Simple economics were not in favor of the roof repair.

Still, it rained inside the room every time it rained outside the room.

I wanted to hit 100 percent occupancy, so I cut a piece of painter’s plastic to lay over the top of the television and credenza when it rained.

And you know what? That room sold every single night for two years.

There was a group of locals who knew they could have the room for cheap. If it started raining, all they had to do was cover the TV and credenza. I essentially made a poncho for the furniture, and it worked.

From the day I made that decision until 2004, Room 225 was rented every night. For $25.

At Innisfree, full is full.

We always have the theory that every room is worth something.

One problem we encounter is when desk clerks or GMs say they don’t want to rent it.

But it’s not up to us to determine whether room is rentable. It’s up to the guest.

Most of the time, you’ll find you can get rooms rented.

Even if it’s raining inside.

Bottom line: Rent every room. I challenge people to give me a reason they can’t.

The only acceptable excuse? The guest doesn’t want it.

(Or we’ve run out of painter’s plastic.)

– By Jason Nicholson
Vice President, Innisfree Hotels

###

ABOUT ‘BACK IN TOPEKA’
In order to have a great future, we must celebrate and learn from our incredible past. The Innisfree Hotels story began in Topeka, Kansas. So when the folks who were around back then start a story with ‘Back in Topeka,’ we know it’s time to listen. These are tales of the challenges, of the laughter and tears that come with building a company like ours. That’s the sentiment behind this blog series, a chronicle of days gone by at Innisfree Hotels – and a map to get us where we’re going.

Back in Topeka: The Family Inns Story

The Family Inns Story, Innisfree Hotels

The entrepreneurial road is always filled with great stories. This is one of them.

The tale of the Family Inns begins with a young guy trying to figure out how to become independent and do something beyond collecting a paycheck.

This is Julian MacQueen, going on 30 years old.

In his own words:

At 27, I was working as a sales manager at the 400-room Hyatt Regency in Knoxville, Tennessee, with 30,000 square feet of meeting space – a premier hotel in the Southeast. I was there three years when I got the blessing of ‘Mother Hyatt,’ meaning they were ready to put me in a Director of Sales position anywhere in the country.

I’ve kind of ‘made it’ … I’m Hyatt material.

At the same time, I had started a hot air balloon company called Aerose. I got a commercial license, and my brother was the Chief Aeronaut. You see, the hot air balloon attracts all kinds of people. And so we meet this guy called Ricardo Lopez.

He’s impeccably dressed all the time, has this amazing Nikon camera equipment and a beautiful wife. She has a good last name in the Knoxville community. You know she’s someone. He tells me he is an international photographer with a Learjet, a house in Anchorage and one in Buenos Aires – and he travels all over the world producing the photography for annual reports for major international corporations.

I’m completely captivated by him, because during college I was the photographer for the Public Relations Department at the University of South Alabama. I loved the dark room. I processed all my own images. And this guy has a business where I can be a photographer. I can have my art and my business, and he asks if I’d like to come to work for him.

What do I do? I resign at the Hyatt. I tell them this is an opportunity I can’t pass up. They say, “Go for it, you can always come back.”

Ricardo Lopez would take phone calls from Nicaragua. I would only hear his side of the conversation: “Send them in. Make the strike. Extract these guys.” He was deeply involved in some kind of military exercise and had a leadership role.

(For some reason, his Learjet was always somewhere else.)  

So, I’m ready to work, eager for our first assignment. He says it’s not that time of year. But in the meantime, he says, I’ve got this side business called FCTS – Federal Communication Training School.

He had set one up in Texas and he wanted to set one up in Knoxville. It was simple – a series of weekly tests that allowed you to train for the civil service exam and apply for work in any department of government. The job entailed taking this course door-to-door in poor neighborhoods. He had a set speech.

Do you want to advance your life? I have an opportunity for you.

So I went from being an international photographer to being a door-to-door salesman of this completely illegitimate thing. You can go to any library and get the same study guide.

Next, he needs me to say I was somewhere at a certain time to the FBI.

He tells me I need an alias. How about Kalabash? It was a tiny shrimp sold by Fisherman’s Wharf, a restaurant chain by Shoney’s.

So I go to the FBI and I testify that I was with him at a certain place at a certain time. And he listens to my story. And it’s all for a good cause because I’m going to be an international photographer, and you have to make these small sacrifices to get where you want to go.

He had totally fabricated this image of himself. (In truth, I found out much later, he was wanted for running guns.) Several important people in Knoxville came together against him.

We go down to Fort Lauderdale to race hot air balloons to Bimini. He’s parading around. He is fascinating. He’s a magnet. People start gravitating toward him. We’re invited to this private resort on Cat Island and flown in a private airplane – little known fact, this is where Sidney Poitier is from, it turns out. We’re staying with the guy who owns half the island, where his family used to grow sugar cane before the Civil War in the States.

Things are starting to happen around me. People are doing drugs. There’s lots of partying, wild and crazy stuff. I’m not participating … I am just trying to figure it all out.

Now we’re at the Castaway Bar in Bimini. Hemingway’s place.

I’m sitting out on the dock when I realize I’m an idiot.

I’m a complete fool, and I’ve got to go home and tell Kim, “This is all over, I’m so sorry.”

I remember getting on a boat. I have no money. I make it to Knoxville. I hitchhike home. Kim embraces me with her usual grace.

After being married for a year, we lost our house and my job, and I started looking for other opportunities while Kim waited tables and taught at the Montessori School.

I’m looking for somewhere else to land. I’ve still got my hot air balloon business (another story for another time) to bridge the gap until I find a real job.

I meet Mike Strickland, a kitchen equipment salesman who has been making a $100,000 a year for several years. In the 1970s, and to a 30-year-old, that sounds like a lot of money.

It turns out he has a relationship with Ken Seton, the owner of Family Inns of America. They have 22 hotels.

He’s worked a deal with Seton to sell Family Inns franchises. He has no hotel experience, but I do. So we partner up to develop hotels and sell franchises. I don’t know how to own real estate. I don’t know how to put deals together. But he does.

We buy our first building. 4,000 square feet. Two stories. Owner financing. I bring in the tenants. Our offices are on the top floor, and the bottom is rented. I own a fourth of a building and the tenant is paying the mortage with his lease payment. What a concept!

So we start our business, Strickland Development. We tie up a piece of land at the airport. We find a lender, but we don’t have the equity. Mike asks me if I know anyone with money.

At the time, there was a huge flux of Iranians coming in, escaping persecution. Baha’i Iranians, political fugitives from the Ayatollah regime. A gentleman who owned Pepsi-Cola for the entire country was looking for a place to put his money. I had the reputation for being an honest businessman in the Baha’i community.

Hotels are good investments. So we meet, and he ends up giving us $250,000 as a deposit toward a future investment of a couple million.

We’ve made our first hotel deal. We’re building a hotel, and I own part of it!

The problem is my partner doesn’t come to work until noon. When he does come to work, he goes to lunch, then he drinks, and then he’s worthless, and then I don’t see him. Nothing is getting done except what I do. I’m doing 100 percent of the work, and he’s guiding me along, but he’s not doing a damn thing.

His best drinking buddy is Ken Seton.

So we go down to Mobile, and I get a location next to the Holiday Inn that I know is doing really well, because I was the night auditor there right after I graduated from USA. I reach out and contact the landowners and they are willing to do a long-term 30-year lease, 100 percent financed. I just need a financial statement to back the deal.

Meanwhile, we take my Iranian friend’s money, stick it in an escrow account, and start working through the development process.

I check the account one day and money has been taken out.

Mike goes on an around-the-world trip with Ken Seton, and now I’m just figuring it out on my own. Ken is his best friend. Mike steals from the escrow account, and I’m responsible.

I ask Mike, “What the hell?” ……… He’s taken the money out to buy cocaine.

I go to Ken and say something terrible has happened.

He says: “You make a very clean break from Michael Strickland, negotiate whatever it is you have to. Make a clean break, and I’ll make up the difference. Then I’ll give you a job. And you can be the Executive Vice President of Family Inns. I have 17 hotels. I want you to fill up all my hotels for the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville.”

I tell him: “I don’t want a job. I want to own a hotel.”

He says he will teach me, but I have to fill his 17 hotels first.

I get Mike out and settle up my affairs. I have the development rights to Mobile.

Kim and I move to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and live in a horrible place, a cinder block efficiency. Ken is giving me housing. Kim is making her clothes out of the curtains. We pawn the silver wedding gifts people had given us to buy Christmas presents for the family.

We’re building the Family Inns of Mobile. It’s 100 percent financed by the guy who owns the entire Intersection at I-65 and Airport Boulevard, Mr. Delaney, who is notorious for being cheap and for being a hardcore businessman.

I remember him telling me, “Julian, I like you a lot. I’m going to teach you some lessons. They’re going to be hard lessons.”

He always came with his two sons. We called them the Trinity. His chief accountant had a calculator you punched in and pulled the handle to register the numbers on the tape. She told him there were these electric adding machines that would make her job go much faster. He said, “Honey, if you want to buy that machine and work faster, you go right ahead.” She had to buy it herself on her dime.

So, I’m putting this whole 84-room development together. It’s my first one.

I’ve got butcher paper going around the walls of my office to show a timeline for everything needed in the hotel and when it needed to be ordered and when it was going to arrive. It was about 10 feet long. I put my first Gantt Chart together on butcher paper. Day by day, all the way around so it all lined up. All by hand.

I found a development template somewhere. It outlined every ashtray, every bed sheet.

At the end, I would have a hotel.

We’re in this farmhouse in Pigeon Forge, and there are pigs running around under the floor boards and I’m making phone calls and the pigs would get in a fight and make a bunch of noise.

Still, I put all the numbers down. I gave Mr. Delaney the number.

The number was $1,817,316.00.

He said, “That number is not going to change. I want you to tell me when you’re going to be open.”

Then, he told me when my rent started.

I thought it would be fine because the contractor told me the work would be done. I never knew about the concept of a change order. It never occurred to me the contractor wouldn’t finish.

And Delaney’s watching me set myself up. He lets me do it. Never offered any advice.

I give him the number, and I’m driving home to Tennessee. I have so much anxiety.

I get about an hour out of Mobile and I realize I didn’t carry a one. But it was in the sixth column! I missed it by $100,000.  I immediate find a pay phone and call Delaney.

He says, “I don’t understand what you’re saying. Didn’t you tell me that was going to be the number?”

Now I have to find a hundred thousand dollars.

The finish date of June 1 is closing in and the lease begins on the land and hotel. I’m in Alabama. Kim’s pregnant in Tennessee. Our daughter, Skye, is born May 26. She’s done it all by herself.

Skye is born. I go home for 48 hours. (I remember going to sleep after her birth and waking up 24 hours later. The nurses at the hospital thought Kim was abandoned.) Kim’s parents fill in. I go back to Mobile.

I’ve got to open the hotel, or I am done. All of this would have been for nothing.

I didn’t have my C.O. – Certificate of Occupancy. Who knew there were things like rain days?

I was so naïve. I didn’t know anything.

It’s June 12, and I finally get a C.O. for the bottom floor on the North side.

I go down and flip the sign on after I get the hot water and air conditioners to work. I’m at the front desk. People start walking in because it is the week of the Junior Miss Pageant and downtown hotels are full, pushing folks out to our part of Mobile.

I didn’t have any money to pay desk clerks, so I work the front desk by myself.

The pitch was basically this:

“The beds are in, and we have hot water and AC. If you want a room, here’s your broom and your sheets.”

I fill up the hotel, and our guests do all the clean-up.

I make some money so I could pay my housekeepers, and I rent every room.

We make our first payroll.

We make enough money that I do not have to go to Ken Seton to tell him I can’t pay my half of the rent. This is June 1981, and I’m 30 years old.

I own 49 percent of a hotel!

Later, 1984, I bought Ken out. I kept the hotel for 30 years. It was as old as Skye.

The Family Inns was my first hotel that led to the founding of Innisfree Hotels.

I guess the moral of the story is:

You don’t know what you don’t know … but if you don’t open yourself up to the possibilities, you may not have the opportunity to succeed.

– As told to Ashley Kahn Salley
Lead Storyteller, Innisfree Hotels

###

ABOUT ‘BACK IN TOPEKA’
In order to have a great future, we must celebrate and learn from our incredible past. The Innisfree Hotels story began in Topeka, Kansas. So when the folks who were around back then start a story with ‘Back in Topeka,’ we know it’s time to listen. These are tales of the challenges, of the laughter and tears that come with building a company like ours. That’s the sentiment behind this blog series, a chronicle of days gone by at Innisfree Hotels – and a map to get us where we’re going.

Back in Topeka: Surf & Sand Cottages

By Mike Nixon (with commentary by Jason Nicholson)

In this chapter of Innisfree history, we add pest control to our lengthy resume.

Long before we were president and vice president of this company, you could find Jason and I dressed in yellow rubber gloves, masks and goggles, wielding barbecue tongs in the middle of the night – so guests couldn’t see us in this comical and frenzied state.

These were the rat raids.

In the 1950s, the Surf & Sand Cottages were an iconic piece of Pensacola Beach, the first rental units available to the public. There were 54 cinderblock cottages, each with one to three bedrooms. They were very cool in the 1950s. By the 1990s, however, they were in a state of varied disrepair. When Julian bought them, I personally thought he was crazy. They were still popular as monthly rentals for locals, but they were worn out, and some needed to be torn down.

But Julian had a vision.

Someday, he wanted to build a hotel on the south side of the road where the Surf & Sand Cottages stood. So we took them over, and I was in charge of fixing them up for as little money as possible, then renting them out for as much money as possible – until Innisfree was ready to build the Hilton.

When the cottages were razed, the rats moved next door to the old Beachside Resort & Conference Center, where the Holiday Inn Resort stands today.

By the time Jason visited the hotel to check in with me, then his Regional Director, our new ‘residents’ had become a problem. So we set upon evicting them, wielding our tongs and a healthy dose of humor.

Speaking from more experience than we’d like to admit, here is our list of how to properly handle rodent infestations:

  • Always bait for rodents BEFORE you tear down a building. (That way, they won’t move in next door.)
  • Stock up on yellow dishwashing gloves, masks, goggles and BBQ tongs – the standard uniform for pest removal.
  • Not air fresheners nor fresh flowers can cover the stench of long-deceased rodents. They simply make the place smell like dead rodents and fresh flowers.

So when you book your room at the beautiful Hilton or Holiday Inn Resort on Pensacola Beach, just remember … it took a lot of hard work (and air fresheners) to get where we are today.

###

ABOUT ‘BACK IN TOPEKA’
In order to have a great future, we must celebrate and learn from our incredible past. The Innisfree Hotels story began in Topeka, Kansas. So when the folks who were around back then start a story with ‘Back in Topeka,’ we know it’s time to listen. These are tales of the challenges, of the laughter and tears that come with building a company like ours. That’s the sentiment behind this blog series, a chronicle of days gone by at Innisfree Hotels – and a map to get us where we’re going.

‘The Redmont Story’

By Julian MacQueen, Founder and CEO, Innisfree Hotels

In 1992, I bought a hotel I knew I shouldn’t have. In fact, I tried really hard not to buy it. This is that story.

In the early 1990s, basketball stars Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Ralph Sampson purchased and gutted the Redmont hotel, the oldest hotel in Alabama. They received grant money and spent around $20 million to restore it to all its original glory. (It took them six months to go bankrupt.)

So now it was a beautiful, 14-story Downtown Birmingham classic 1930s vintage hotel – marble lobby, grand two-story entrance, columns, big chandelier … the works. All this, just one block from the financial center of Alabama.

I am from Birmingham. I have a strong connection to the place. I also happen to love old hotels and the idea of owning one. But at the time, we were still building Innisfree from a really small company.

I knew there were a lot of emotional hooks, and so did the broker:

“Birmingham is being revitalized,” he said. “You can be part of it.”

“I’d love to come back and be part of this,” I said. “But I’m not in a position to do that.”

Innisfree had only five hotels at the time. We couldn’t take the risk. So I gave him terms I figured would run him off.

I said:

  1. I’ll pay $1 million for it.
  2. I want it 100 percent financed.
  3. I want the City to kick in.
  4. I want non-recourse.
  5. I want a 15-year tax abatement.

And he came back with every single term negotiated.

I walked in to close at a huge long table, the entire surface covered with closing documents. I remember walking into the room, signing all the documents … and walking out completely depressed.

I knew it was a mistake.

It was also during a time we were looking deeply into opening a hotel in a town called Meaux, right outside of Paris, where Euro Disney was built. (That’s another story for another time.)

Back to Birmingham.

The Redmont looked like a scene from the Twilight Zone. As if they put the hotel on ice. It had been closed for three years, yet there was still a cigarette in an ashtray. The kitchen had the highest level of equipment. All the beds were made. It was ready to open the next day.

We closed, I brought in two partners, and we opened the hotel.

We created this very cool bistro called Julian’s, that had the best hamburger in the world – the first sidewalk restaurant in Birmingham. It was also home to the first rooftop jazz venue, which we called ‘Rooftop at the Redmont’. We opened with Leon Redbone, an iconic blues guy. We had a piano that played itself. The place had a very cool vibe, I was super proud of it.

Redbone sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me. My mom was there. I told her I bought the Redmont, and she started crying. “But you were doing so well … ”

You see, Birmingham had gone down so far. It was the only place in America where McDonalds closed down on the weekends. That’s how empty the downtown was. And we had bought a hotel smack dab in the middle of it.

Several months in, the first day we made money was a football weekend. The Assistant General Manager was counting it. A bellman took the deposit envelope, slid the deposit into a newspaper and threw the newspaper away. He took the garbage out, and he stole it.

Operation New Birmingham was leading the revitalization of downtown.  So we were part of the revitalization, but it wasn’t there yet. The first year, we lost $3,500 a day. The next year, $1,700 a day. The next, we only lost $875. We kept improving by 50 percent.

Five years in, I’m eating at Julian’s bistro, having the best hamburger on the planet.

Trying to make light of it, I said to Harlan Butler: “At least we have a great burger.”

He said: “Just remember, that burger cost you $35,000 this month.”

End of story – we sold the hotel after seven years for three-and-a-half times what we bought it for, and we still lost money.

The moral? Check your emotions at the door. Never fall in love with real estate. That’s the big neon sign. My first instinct was right.

###

ABOUT ‘BACK IN TOPEKA’
In order to have a great future, we must celebrate and learn from our incredible past. The Innisfree Hotels story began in Topeka, Kansas. So when the folks who were around back then start a story with ‘Back in Topeka,’ we know it’s time to listen. These are tales of the challenges, of the laughter and tears that come with building a company like ours. That’s the sentiment behind this blog series, a chronicle of days gone by at Innisfree Hotels – and a map to get us where we’re going.

An Inspection Story

By Harlan Butler, Past President, Innisfree Hotels

Back in Topeka, before Innisfree was established, we had a hotel near Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana. Running that hotel was one of the finest General Managers we could ever have hired. He was young and energetic and made all his percentages – cut costs, understood his margins, was excellent in every way … presented himself perfectly, nice suit, he did it all.

But when it came to franchise inspections, even though this was a beautiful hotel in great condition, he always made bad scores. I would go and look around and think, “This is a winning hotel, why is this happening?”

At that time, the inspectors used to just walk in without notice, and the next morning was your inspection. I vowed the next time I was going to be there. Sure enough the inspector came and I was called. I drove from wherever I was, waaaay into the night to get there.

I arrived before the inspection, and I accompanied the General Manager.

The inspector would go around the room and see things and mark them down.

He’d say:

“This tile was cracked, you need to fix this.”

And our fine GM would say:

“If you think that’s bad, let me show you THIS!” (And he’d lead him to something entirely worse.)

Then he would lose two points instead of one. He just couldn’t understand what he was doing. Somehow, he thought by showing the inspector something worse, it would overshadow the minor flaw.

From then on, we could never let him go on inspections.

We simply had to look at all his positive attributes, and this was one thing he just couldn’t learn.

MORAL OF THE STORY? Focus on the good.

###

ABOUT ‘BACK IN TOPEKA’
In order to have a great future, we must celebrate and learn from our incredible past. The Innisfree Hotels story began in Topeka, Kansas. So when the folks who were around back then start a story with ‘Back in Topeka,’ we know it’s time to listen. These are tales of the challenges, of the laughter and tears that come with building a company like ours. That’s the sentiment behind this blog series, a chronicle of days gone by at Innisfree Hotels – and a map to get us where we’re going.