I had the privilege a few weeks back to interview Philip “Flip” Maritz, a true icon in the hotel real estate business for nearly 30 years. We spent some two hours on the phone talking about anything and everything hotels, with COVID acting as a backdrop.
A longer story will appear in the November/December print issue of HOTELS and it will likely appear even sooner here on hotelsmag.com. But before the interview, I sent him a working list of questions, which he briefly answered in advance of our detailed conversation. Some of his quotes were so thoughtful I want to share them with you now.
If you don’t know Maritz, he is the co-founder of Maritz, Wolff & Co., working alongside long-time partner Lew Wolff. Flip has co-sponsored multiple investment funds (total assets of US$7 billion at Broadreach Capital Partners and Maritz, Wolff & Co.), chaired or co-chaired several owned hotel management companies (Rosewood, Fairmont and Dolce Hotels and Resorts) and developed or redeveloped numerous great hotel and resort properties – among them The Carlyle in New York City, the Fairmont San Francisco, Little Dix Bay Hotel in the Caribbean, the Santa Barbara Biltmore, the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, multiple Four Seasons hotels and so many more legendary properties.
He just opened his first from-scratch hotel, The Ameswell in California’s Silicon Valley, which is a 255-room design and tech-oriented property that will offer the first cool stay option in Mountain View. With interiors by San Francisco’s BAMO, multiple food and beverage venues, tech-forward amenities, and a world-class art collection, the independent property was conceptualized to provide a centralized communal hub for both travelers and locals.
His CV runs quite deep, but for now let’s get to his insightful commentary, edited here:
HOTELS: How has COVID changed you as a developer and owner?
Flip Maritz: Broadly, it has added another macro-risk… More directly, it just reinforces importance of the basics: hygiene, health, the need to stay connected to community and awareness that different groups can view the same problems very differently.
H: Surprises both good and bad as you persevered to open The Ameswell?
FM: I was pleasantly surprised that many elements we were focused on pre-COVID resonated even better after: filtered air, distinct air in guest rooms, filtered water, design that allows work-from-room.
H: How and where are you finding new happiness, meaning in work today?
FM: For me the greatest pleasure in the hotel business has always been building and motivating teams across the spectrum of business functions to work collaboratively to solve problems.
H: What are you working on right now with Lew Wolff?
FM: He is a partner in our recent purchase of the Sundance Mountain Resort from Robert Redford. Lew knew Bob from his days running real estate for 20th Century Fox…
I want to help turn the Sundance Mountain Resort in Utah into a deeply meaningful resort brand that lives the values that Robert Redford and his family created there: conservation, sustainability and a commitment to individual creativity through the arts (film, music, theater, crafts) and the natural environment that makes people better versions of themselves. Now that would be a meaningful new resort brand, huh?
H: You put a lot of emphasis on art in your hotels. Why so?
FM: I am an ‘art guy,’ having grown up with it, majoring in Art History in college, collecting, serving on boards of museums – so I am deeply biased. To me a world without art just leaves us all at a lower level on Maslow’s hierarchy – it is humanity’s highest expression of creativity. But hotels have sadly mostly been left with what I call catalog art… We use art to function as the opposite – mind stimulating and, hopefully, inspiring, and bringing people together.
H: How are your previous experiences serving you right now?
FM: I guess accumulated patience is about the best I can refer to. Good things take a long time and life throws a lot of curveballs. So, it is about patience and acceptance of bigger forces at play, combined with a tenacity to never stop moving.
H: What are your biggest learns from COVID that have been actionable?
FM: Stay informed, stay flexible, think about guests as non-monolithic.
H: What innovations need to take place for the industry can come back stronger than ever?
FM: Cost of sale/distribution needs to come down. There are too many middlemen. Labor needs to be reimagined, not just more efficient/productive, but better work in better conditions, and tech needs to play a much bigger behind-the-scenes role.
H: What industry trends do you like, don’t like?
FM: While I am a big fan of revenue management it lately seems to have crossed a line into how badly can we gouge the customer in a high demand situation. I think that is long-term dumb. One of the silver linings of this crisis is bringing people together with a shared sense of community – the lodging business has been pretty good on that.
H: What and who is inspiring you at the moment?
FM: Restaurateur Danny Meyer (a friend and high school classmate) is brave and original. (Note: The New York City restaurateur was likely the first to mandate vaccinations for his guests.)
H: Will business revert back to “normal” or has COVID changed it forever?
FM: Zoom and its peers and future iterations has forever and finally changed the way people meet… But I believe in the absolute necessity of face-to-face interaction so Zoom will take about 20% share of the traveling meetings business, give or take. That is a big change and will take the lodging business years to adjust to.
H: What is the biggest opportunity as a developer, owner right now?
FM: To creatively and somewhat accurately anticipate the post-COVID future where travel intersects with health, politics, technology, a changed labor environment and a hunger for interesting experiences. Same old, same old is a loser.
H: What is your message to the hotel world, your contemporaries?
FM: I am no preacher, but I would ask that as we all strive to do well for ourselves and our constituents (families, friends, partners, lenders, colleagues) we also apply increased consciousness to how our actions affect the broader community and world… We are all in this together.
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Micarl Hill
September 7, 2021 at 9:48 pmGreat interview with one of the smartest and kindest people I have met during my hospitality journey of 40+ years. Flip is humble, articulate and has amazing instincts.