#320: The Art of Hospitality: An Interview With Entrepreneur and Hotelier Liz Lambert

At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. So then also the personal question. Now it's seen it. A cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal and the scale. No

This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. And I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement. And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me. On the road. So what is AG1? AG one is a science driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food source nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out. go to drinkage one dot com slash Tim. That's drink ag one. The number one, drink age one.com slash Tim. Last time, drinkAG1.com.

Slash Tim. Check it out. Hello, boys and girls, this is Tim Ferris, and welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is always my job to deconstruct world class performers of various types and across many disciplines. And today we have Liz Lambert on the show. Liz, thanks so much for taking the time. So happy to be here. I'm thrilled. To have you finally.

in front of me and I'm gonna give people a little bit of context. So who is Liz Lambert? Liz Lambert at the Liz Lambert at Instagram and Twitter. First purchased a CD motel on South Congress Avenue twenty three years ago and transformed it into Hotel San Jose, which has become known today as the Quintessential Austin Hotel. The success of Hotel San Jose, which sparked a revitalization in the city's now thriving South Congress district, which we will definitely talk about, led her to launch Bunkhouse Group, a hospitality company founded on the pillars of design, music, and community driven experiences. Since then, she's expanded Bunkhouse's unique hotel portfolio to include El Cosmico. Which has been recommended to me about a thousand times. The community lodging concept in Marfa, also a place worth talking about.

Motorcourt Hotel and Hotel Saint Cecilia. where I was just two nights ago, in fact, a fourteen room secluded estate in Austin, Hotel Havana. Or Havana, depending on where you are. The historic property on San Antonio's River Walk, and most recently is added Bunkhouse's first international hotel, Hotel San Cristobalbaja in Todos Santos, Mexico, and the first non-Texas property, uh domestically the Phoenix Hotel to their hotel portfolio. Lambert and Bunkhouse also operate Joe's Coffee, the popular Austin coffee shop, which I frequent myself. And that currently includes three locations and an East Side event space fair market also located in Austin. They've really gave you a full covering all the bases. Lambert's four thousand hotel. The Magdalena is currently in development and is slated to open on South Congress in uh

twenty twenty. Maybe twenty nineteen, we'll see. Maybe twenty nineteen. Wow. Ahead of schedule. That's unusual. I would imagine. It's a moving target. And there's so many places that we could start with this and we have some mutual friends. uh which which makes me always a bit more comfortable and excited to jump into things. But I thought we would begin.

With The last days of San Jose. Now this is a documentary. And I hold you fully accountable for keeping me up. Way past my bedtime. Awesome, you saw it. I I've watched most of it. I haven't seen all of it, I'll be honest. Uh because I had to go to bed v last night at some point. Not really. Well it's

It's it's a documentary. on Hotel San Jose's origins and I thought I would share a note from my assistant. So my assistant doesn't add notes. much of my prep documentation at all. And this is her note. Quote, I've watched most of the documentary on and off throughout the day. Just listen to her talk to the humanity of people at the San Jose. It tells you everything important you need to know about her.

I wasn't sure quite what that meant. It w it seemed a bit cryptic. And uh I have to say A Very impressed with the doc. B

You must have captured so much footage and uh you did a really nice job Uh Editing for emotional impact. Okay. I didn't edit and I never could have edited that and I never would have been in the doc had it been my uh People

who don't know. And I imagine that's about the dark. And why didn't you release it? I was trying to find it online so I could I could push it out to people. So this is a documentary, and I I'll tell you why I I talked about it why I never did. Um this is a documentary that I did when I first bought the San Jose, which I used to be a lawyer. It was sort of a change of career. Inadvertently.

Um And I bought an Old Motel down on South Congress. I have terrible allergies today, so sorry about that.

Um I bought an old it in the mid nineties, I bought an old motel down in South Congress. I was a lawyer at the time and I'd basically just walked up to the door, knocked on the door, and there was a Taimanese couple there that owned the motel. And at the time there was nothing on South Congress, which is, as you know, a very popular area. Cool area, very hip. But it wasn't a car on the street back then. I mean, honestly. And um They were about to put the motel on the market and I sort of You know,

I I ended up buying the San Jose, not knowing anything about what I was doing for five hundred thousand dollars, my mother co signed a note and suddenly they handed me the keys and I was I on my way. And I knew nothing about running

Now paint paint a picture for people. as to the the clientele and what was this the kind of the state of affairs because people think South Congress now and they're like, Oh cool, I can have fancy Japanese food and I can go have uh go have some Mescal and it was dicey. I mean people didn't go down there at night. There were no businesses on the street. This continental club was there and it'd been there since nineteen fifty seven. And it remained. Um but really there was no place to eat. The first Schlotsky's was actually on South Congress, really tiny place, but there was

Nothing down there. And I I'd move back into the neighborhood and um but I would go to the Continental Club a lot. So sit on a bar still there and I've watched the San Jose across the street, which was an old motor court built in the thirties. Uh Spanish colonial revival style. painted sea foam green at the time. And it looked like it was empty, but it was really because There were people it was full all the time. But it was

Thirty bucks, twenty five to thirty bucks a night. And nobody really had luggage or cars and nobody really came out during the day. So It looked very quiet. But at night it was teeming with life. And it was you know, there was your it was Chunky's and

prostitutes and but a lot of Good people too that were just down on the luck for one reason or another. Couldn't pay a deposit. first and last month's deposit or somehow something in life had happened that dislodged them. But You know, they could get a hotel room for either a couple of nights. Or some people lived there. There were residents that lived there

Permanently, but they just paid by the day or by the week. I have so many questions. I could do an hour just on this doc and it's not obviously because I have anything to gain financially from pushing the dock'cause it's not even available. So I was gonna tell you why it's not available. Yeah. Okay. I shot the doc, which was following w as an undergraduate, I was a creative writing major So just for background for folks, and this is this is my my nonlinear style, I apologize. Uh

Where did you grow up and where did you do your undergrad? Yeah. Um I grew up in West Texas. And I did my undergrad, I started at T C U in Fort Worth. I had a brief stint at Stanford and then I finished at U T. And creative writing. And humanities and creative writing. Yeah. So I had a lot with the concentration of poetry, so I Had a lot of friends who were writers or who Um I wrote a lot at the time, even back then, just whether it was journaling or poetry or whatever it was and

Friends would encourage me to write down when I I stopped my law job at some point when I knew I I I knew I was in over my head or in in a good way over my head at the San Jose, but I needed to do something with the motel. I couldn't continue on at thirty dollars a night with people stealing sheets and bleeding on sheets and burning sheets and you know like you name it. Um but I people kept encouraging me to write down things that happened during the day'cause it y I would tell stories at dinner and I'd go to fr dinner with friends and it would be absolutely absurd. Or crazy. Yeah. So I um

I didn't have time to write it down because I was literally like you know, the the place would the place had been redone In the seventies, I think was the last time. So it had shag carpet still. So you can imagine as you tried to vacuum that shag carpet what it was like. I mean there were definitely people it was definitely a place where you did drugs. It was definitely a place where you had Whatever homeless pet you might have. I mean it was just like the housekeeper that had been at the motel before I bought it, there were uh uh A husband and wife.

the Sioux who were awesome people, but they were the only employees besides Mr. Wu. I swear to God was like two years older than God and b almost blind and he was a housekeeper. So like the state of the rooms when I we got there were just I mean, a thing to behold and uh and I've cleaned rooms for quite a while. So I was so busy that I wasn't writing things down. There was no journaling, there was no that kind of thing. But I did find a camera. It was right when those little pocket cameras came out. There was little Sony PC seven. And um I got one of those.

So I just started. Talking to people, people knew the camera was there. I put it up the front desk had a little glass thing that you slive money through and I just duct taped it to the front for a while. And then when I would go out to knock on doors or kick people out or collect money 'Cause it wasn't like you came and paid on a daily basis. You really I had to chase down money. And so I would just take it with me. When I was done it was I was really lucky at the time that I had a friend who was um at AFI As a in cinematography. What is AF American Film Institute.

Uh her name is Jen Lane and she just now is the producer of the new Queer Eye. That's been really super popular. Yeah. And um she was one of my good friends and then she had a friend named Uta Brezwitz who is of A producer now as well, but a very well known uh cinematographer before she became a producer. She shot The first three three seasons of The Wire and that's why the wire looks like it does. So they were both in film school.

And They came down and I said, You guys come help me shoot because they were both uh directors of photography what were studying. And they were awesome because not only did they shoot some B roll and then when I was ready to shut the motel down they shot the last three weeks. But Uta also encouraged me.

Audio Verite. That's exactly what she told me. I was really worried about a big microphone and stuff, but nobody would have talked to me. Right. You know, like she was like and don't worry about your film style. Just talk to people. And the story is compelling enough. And that was those were words of wisdom and it it it as long as you could hear it. You know, y y it was gonna be

Okay, you didn't need a huge microphone to stick in somebody's face. Just make sure it was audible enough. So you have This You've some incredible footage.

And I mean you really do capture I'm searching for a word besides humanity because it seems too high concept, maybe for for For what I'm trying to convey. But you you captured the The vulnerability And the sincerity of

so many different types of people of all different colors, of all different types, who are completely marginalized, discarded, these sort of invisible people. And uh I Watch this and

I was having just a bitch of a day yesterday. And I was feeling sorry for myself. And I was talking to friends and we were commiserating about various things and I've had a what I would consider in my life a uh a bit of a hailstorm of a week. And then I watched this and I was just like, You asshole. God, you should get down on your knees every day.

And just You to thank God that you have the bed that you have to sleep in, that you have the food that you have to eat. It's it's it was really humbling and You're holding this footage, you have These

stars to be helping you. Why not put it out? I will help you put this thing on. Let's do that. I would love that. It's it's the last three years it's been at the top of my list and I keep having people That say they'll help and then You know everybody's busy and so it becomes I will commit right now publicly that I will help you put it out. So happy about that. If you just want it to be available to people, I just want it to be available. So what happened was

Right when it was done, it it you'll see the The Doc and Close the door when we close the San Jose. The footage uh during the documentary we follow five or six people that are permanent residents at the San Jose. Again

I was just shooting on the fly, kind of keeping a video diary, and so I would turn the camera on myself every once in a while. I never Even when I began editing and realized I couldn't edit it. I had ninety hours of footage. I mean there's so much good stuff in there. But there was no way I was going to be able to tell a story. So another friend of my friend Jen's from AFI

Tina Gazaro's Uh I hired her to edit. But I didn't ha have her edit until about

four or five years into the San Jose being open. And so it was hilarious because she would see people that m might have Yeah. And they would have no idea who she was, but she spent Hours and hours with

And you know, she would be Hey and they'd be like you know way too much about she did an amazing job and she in the movie. It was also about my story. And about me living there as part of a community and the struggle I was having. Everybody had a struggle, different struggles, but you know, one of the remarkable things

is that um they're all behind me. The folks that live there generally. Like lily pad hops. that I want to know more about.

You went to three places for undergrad, focusing on creative writing. With an emphasis on poetry. Mm-hmm. Why did you go to three places and how on earth do you go from there to law? Let's start with that.

The I went to three places because my family were I I'm from West Texas. My parents met at TCU. My grandfather played football for TCU. My dad played football for TCU. My oldest brother played football for TCU. Everybody in the in the kinda cousin group. Everybody went started at T C U.

M I got there and Fort Worth is a lovely place. I'm crazy about Fort Worth these days, but I always knew it wasn't really gonna be a fit for me. Um And once I

The program there wasn't that strong. So my tour of colleges. Yeah, see so Stanford you were saying was aspirational and you went there for summer school. I went there for summer school and then I d I I was accepted into re uh as a regular student at Stanford and I deferred Um I there were things going on with my family that I needed to come back to Texas

And um once I came back I just in terms of if you're comfortable saying I mean just in sickness or divorce, my parents. And um I'm was really close to my mom and so it was I felt like I needed to be closer and I you know deferred a semester and then I ended up just going to U T. I always loved Austin. And the you know in the

long run I'm really happy I did. I mean when I arrived in Austin in I think the early eighties It felt like the place was made for me. Fit. comfortably into other parts of Texas. Yeah. I was gay at at the time I wasn't even out. And I was a little more

Creative maybe. I just I haven't found my place in Texas, except for West Texas. And um You know, Austin it was the state capital, the university was huge. It was

Yeah, there's And the blueberry and the the blueberry and the tomato soup. And then and the music was amazing and there were Rivers and lakes and Yeah, it's

It was I felt it felt like home. For those people who have never been to Texas and there are certainly lots of international folks listening and they have the they may have the image certainly of the cowboy hat and the boots, but that's about it. Uh when you say Texan through and through in other respects, for for you what does that mean? I'm from West Texas and uh you know that's there are a lot of people that grew up in Texas and never

even make it to West Texas. It's a big state for the you guys who don't know. I mean Jeff Bezos may be unbeknownst to many people maybe would be one of those people. And so you know it's uh I I I I'm I think sixth or seventh generation. In the ranching business, my family still ranches, cow and calf operation. And so there was a certain Way.

Texas. I mean it's Texas is like another country for some people. It really is. I mean I think of Texas. That's right. And that comes with a good and bad, but for me mostly it's a it's a good thing. uh M travelling. He said when people If people were to ask if you were in Europe

Uh where are you from? I would say West Texas. They would say, not only you say Texas, you give the region of Texas you're from. I'm like well, West Texas is so different than East Texas, you know? Enormous. Enormous state. Yeah. Uh So you end up in Austin.

How does the law come into the picture. And why? Well, so as as I said, I was humanities major, which I'm forever thankful for. And uh then I doubled down with the concentration in poetry, which is you don't you know, they're not looking for poets out there, uh I don't think so much. Um

It's so I I applied to go to I I could go get my MFA was really the path I was on. Your graduate degree in in writing. Right. And I applied to one program at Sarah Lawrence. And didn't get in. And I was like, okay, what now? I knew that I was gonna need a little further education or some other direction.

So actually the first thing I did is I got an internship at Texas Monthly And worked there for I then went on I don't even know what it was, paid employee, I guess.

At Texas Monthly for about a year and applied to law school during the that time. Um uh law school education was something I'd never be sorry about, and it was actually the best liberal education you could get. Do you agree with that now? I do.

Actually, you know, I was afraid at the time that it was kill every bit of creativity in me. You know, that it would d somehow learning to dampened my ability to be creative. Yeah, I don't think that's true at all. So you f you finished law school.

Mm-hmm. Do you work in the law profession before Hotel San Jose. I did, indeed. So I went straight from law school to the DA's office in Manhattan. And work there for uh three and a half years or so.

And then um move. Back to Austin and Worked at the Attorney General's office. So as a trial lawyer. Um and again something I'll never be sorry about. I made

Amazing friends that I'm still in On a regular basis. From uh from a text thread to uh occasional reunions.

Um but it also taught me how to think in a way that uh has served me really well in business and in Just in the world. Um It it teaches you a former rigor, I think, to be uh a trial lawyer to

understand all the facts of any situation. And uh Jen and Yeah. So understanding the facts then of your situation at the time. If I contrast contrast isn't the right word, it sounds too judgy.

If I look at if I look at your path Side by side with the paths of other former lawyers I know. Which are many. So maybe they're they say, I I don't wanna do law, but I'm gonna do management consulting. Or I don't wanna do law, I'm going to start a company with my friend or go to business school. There aren't many who say, I don't wanna do law, I'm gonna buy a hotel

That's that's full of drug addicts and prostitutes and so on. So how why that particular choice, how did that how did that come to pass? Yeah, I think Partially with serendipity. Um

I was in the right place at the right time. What appealed about it to you? 'Cause for I mean for a lot of people that would be It would have the it would have a repellent effect. But for you it had an a tracking effect. Well, if you think about it, I was it come from the DA's office and a lot of the work I did was with a a lot of the same

I don't know exactly where that concentric circle is, but you know, a lot of the people I dealt with in New York and y in the criminal justice system that I whether it was from a police ride along or Just looking at the stories of people every day. down and out or in with in trouble or You know, with when things get cross in one way or the other in their lives.

was not something new for me in that way. And I I wasn't scared of The you know junkies and hookers and Um like I said again, there were a lot of really good people there. But we're at a at a moment in their life. Which is part of the reason why Yeah, it's gonna get rid of the lot of people hustling.

And I'm a big believer in hustling, but there was some pr I got there's some pretty good grifters in there as well, but so it wasn't unfamiliar milieu for me. Um but I always was interested in design. Um it's something that I uh And always Enjoyed.

And um uh my brother one of my brothers was um worked for ICF International Contract Furnishings Um kind of like No. And um was I wish I knew Noll. No like uh Knoll is a business that makes um that uh probably started in mid century, uh was known for Florence Knoll and uh w may issued a lot of classic uh furniture that you would see and you know like

Um design. He was in design, I should say. Um and so it's a world that I was always fascinated by And uh there was really not this clear path. It was I I've and I've also always been intro I've always loved hotels. Did you dislike law?

Um you know I I do Actually really liked the DA's office. I liked um criminal law a lot.

There's nothing no man won't do to another. And That's fascinating to me. Like why we do what we do. And why does our criminal justice system Do what it does and respond. to the human condition the way it does and you know what are our rules and laws.

Um I found that fascinating. And I also like trial work. I like talking to a jury. I like the I liked the whole uh Not just pageant of it, but the actual truth finding mission I like I said like um I liked being a lawyer where

Their whole purpose is to f get a conviction. Or you know, be an arm of the police in one way or the other. And it's not, it's really to do justice or to do the right thing. And that's an amazingly powerful thing.

You know, A lot of people with my politics would have probably gone to the public defender's office. Can you explain why that's the case? Well Because Why is that the case? Why do people with more liberal politics go to the public defender's office? I think that

Yeah. DA's office is often seen to be in in a line. Yeah, and in in alignment with police. Uh the police. And You know, you've got to d to do uh

You know, to fight the good fight you've got to be the person that that is um on the side of On the side of justice in the way of making sure that the constitutional principles are upheld. And you're down in the trenches with folks that often are sometimes wrongly accused and

So it t it tends to separate out that way. But at the time I really thought when I was in law school and thinking about uh going to a DA's office That um it made sense to go to the place that had the power. And the prosecutor's office is the place where you can choose to bring a case or not. Right.

I I was also the first openly gay person hired at uh Manhattan DA's office in nineteen ninety one. Yeah. Crazy. Nineteen one. Plenty of queers there. Yeah. First. Openly. Yeah. Openly. And so The first year that I was there we actually m marched in uh the uh Manhattan Gay Pride Parade, like right behind the the police department and in front of the fire department.

And my girlfriend at the time was She worked at the minority task force on AIDS. So of course she was like marching with the House of Africa. And they were like having a blast. And I was there with the DA's office and the police and the fire department. She be I'd be like, Come march with us and she's like No Hell No. But yeah So there was uh you know, and there was a lot of things that I You know. Um

Yeah. I guess I'm just curious why s why stop? I mean a lot of people stay in law for a very, very long time. So you did have this moment you're at the Continental Club, you see Hotel San Jose across the street. You have this Deep interest in design. you have empathy for

the people who are mostly not seen, right, indoors during the day there. Right. You have all of that, but you also have this potentially safe career in The legal profession, so why stop? Well there were a couple of jumps between there, but d so I stopped at the days I was you had a three year commitment.

And so I stopped about three and a half years in, right before you go on the homicide chart, I think in year four. I came back to Texas. Yeah, don't want the ha that happened to you. So um I came back here and worked at the attorney general's office and that was a little bit different. I was traveling all over Texas trying cases And um And it wasn't as fascinating to me. Um but I still like being a lawyer and

But I n a couple things happened. A friend of mine uh died of AIDS related causes, and that was a real um I felt You better do what you want to do.

And not what you're supposed to do. Or You know, this is your one life and your one chance. And so I think I think that probably happens for a lot of people. You face mortality up close for the first time. And that's either you just kind of push it away. Or if you

really invited in and and grapple with it. I think it's a life changing thing. It's so It it was for me. It it made me

I always wondered about the San Jose down on South Congress, and I would look at it and kinda dream about it a little bit. But that was the thing that got me out of the chair and across the street and knocking on the door to find out if they'd ever sell it. And uh We we could we could spend the entire conversation just on

The first few months of easily the first month, the first day of your experience. Uh San Jose. And I'm struggling with where to

'Cause I kinda wanna stay there. But but uh maybe what what I can do since it's sitting right here. Uh Is Talk about Christopher Alexander and certainly the other authors but

I'm curious how you found your footing and Your approach. to doing what you now do. So you kinda land there. Oh my god, you're doing every possible

I mean you're using a toothbrush to take some god awful stuff out of a sink. I couldn't even identify what the sludge was. How do you figure out Your playbook. And when does it When does it

When does Christopher Alexander not to overweight the importance of Uh Who are watching, you can see this is a book called A Pattern Language, Towns Buildings Construction, uh, which has come up a surprising number of times on this podcast. It has.

Um Well So at the time I I I thought that it was going to take the San Jose, which was a twenty four room motor court. Built in the thirties, down in South Congress.

An area of town that was It was still pretty abandoned. It was one of those places that in not unusual at the time that there were Urban core. That when highways had come in It had redirected traffic and the small kind of mom and pop

stores and urban downtowns. We're bypassed. But there you know, obviously there was a lot of interesting architecture still Or buildings. Uh that

That were Because they were older. Or um And built at a time where they were on a really important avenue. So Congress.

is a main thoroughfare in Austin that leads directly to the state capital. And at one time It was the main avenue that went all the way to San Antonio, probably sixty miles to the south. And so it was a a major thoroughfare. So there were a lot of old buildings and businesses historic and

Otherwise. Uh along the way. So I thought that I would just redo this twenty four room hotel. Motel.

What I didn't realize was that it was thirty bucks a night that If My idea was maybe it could be seventy five dollars and we could just redo it room by room and then it would be this amazing place close to downtown. I had lots of friends that would y you know, from musicians to creative people to people that were

Once I started Trying to crack that plan a little bit. Uh marketing nightmare. Sixty, seventy five bucks.

were on the highway and they wanted something that they can rely on, like a Motel Six and I was you know If I did lure somebody downtown to onto South Congress, where there were no other hotels They weren't gonna want to stay next to the crackhead next door. Mom and pop in their van didn't want to rent next to somebody with an arrest for war for murder. So I mean it was true. You saw a little bit of the documentary. Yeah. The police were around. I remember when the police first came, they would drive around the San Jose because there was a big courtyard that was just a parking lot.

And when I first got there I was like, No, no, don't do that. That looks bad for business. And by you know, is there a week and I was like, Can you guys come more off? But um so I started to realize and I would go and get new things and kind of try to redo the rooms one by one and W I get something new and it would be stolen or I would get you know, like It just wasn't gonna work room by room. I finally realized. Yeah, there was some footage also and we're like, What happened to the T V like the T V's destroy and like Oh yeah, the last person who's in here left a gift for the new person. Every one of these is a fucking mess, but they're saying it's a fucking mess. Let's see what's in here. It's like you know and it it's one of those things. It's uh it is if you clean something up People are much more lik if you respect people, people are much more likely to respect a place or a thing or a person. And the people that were living there, I mean it was you know the

Bed the mattress was bedstrings that were you know cutting you at night sometimes. So it wasn't like of course you were gonna like throw a TV out the window. It was a cycle. There was uh that I'd really Now is trying to keep it afloat. I had to have a plan. In my plan at twenty four rooms With

And then I started going to banks to see if I could you know I I they had gotten through school without even taking a math class. You know, and so now suddenly I needed to understand the basics of business or writing a business plan. And I couldn't read A spreadsheet I didn't know.

I couldn't read the financial statement. I didn't know what you know all those small numbers meant. And suddenly it was became really important that I learned that skill. And so I I went and audited some classes at the business school at University of Texas has a great business school and I took some management in the service industry classes and uh tried to finally work my way through how to do a business flame. And it was so hard. You know, I do it we do'em all the time now and we, you know, do studies and we do market studies and You know, it's it's a skill that I rely on

As we look at different hotels and different markets now. We do it all all the time and it was such a foreign language to me. So then I finally got through a business plan And I was

had to go try to convince some banks that They should loan me a bunch of money to redo this motel in South Congress Which At the time.

You couldn't convince a lot of locals they can set foot on South Congress at night much less spend the night down there. Yeah. So it was a process. So what I what happened? This is a cliffhanger. I finally um got

I I finally took on some partners that uh believed a bit. Yeah. And so they gave me some They had some track record, so they that gave me some legitimacy. How on earth did you convince the f the first person?

So banks are saying thanks but no thanks. Yeah, but people were intrigued though. So I could get you know, remember I was a lawyer and so I was I was really selling it and there was a change a foot in Austin. You could feel it in the air. People were starting to return to that neighborhood Um It was a time that it was in the mid nineties and there was starting to be some urban info downtown. And so I was right on the edge of

Um but it didn't help that I had absolutely zero experience running a business. I mean that's what really got the banks. They're like what? No, I can do it, I promise. So um it took a local bank at the end of the day. A guy named Eddie Safety, who was at um it's now Prosperity Bank. Um but it was liberty at the time.

Um basically to underwrite it. But it also was remarkably Inexpensive the work we did. Uh in the in the bigger picture. It's something that we would never get away with now. But I was there all day, every day.

It was really lucky to have like Flato, the architecture firm out of San Antonio, now also out of Austin. To be my partners and believe So I hate to bother you with the Just halting. the story and jumping into the nitty gritty, but

These are such important Inflection points. If you don't get the money So we're talking about liberty and then prosperity, both good words. How do you convince that person, how did you convince them? What was the conversation where they're like

Okay. I mean I also applied for an SBA loan and I finally got it was partially funded by the SBA. So that that was great. I have a business partner now that I'm still in business with who is A great guy.

Um His wife had brought him the performer. For the San Jose. From a friend of a friend, basically.

Yeah, totally. Just in case let me get these into circulation. Again, I didn't know what it was doing, right? I didn't know y so it was just who knew who And she brought it home and wanted to invest and he he still has the copy of it because When it when it showed that we would get a hundred and ten dollars a night

in year three or so. He wrote in the margin of the Proforma No way. He totally didn't believe. But um H I don't know how I you know, I'm tenacious and um I She I

I don't know how I finally convinced the bank. I mean again, they did take a leap. Um I'm sure there was some kind of personal guarantee that I didn't even know what a personal guarantee was at the time. I'm like, sure, take it, take my blood. I mean at that point I thought about selling the San Jose It probably took Two years to really closed about in ninety five, we closed in ninety seven. to uh december of ninety seven to start renovation. So

It had taken all that time. I quit my law job just Just to go try to find money. And in the meantime we decided to So just so I'm clear, so you were doing your law job Uh simultaneous with

I realized I had to go work behind the front desk and I quit my law job. Um Which was crazy too. You know, I have to give it Sh you know, my my mother's been gone for about five years now, but I can't believe that they didn't think that was the craest thing I'd ever done. I mean, like making no money

I my father would have pointed out that it was just at the point I became a really good trial lawyer that I just Jumped ship, you know. But I mean Yeah I guess, you know. I don't know. Even in hindsight, I don't

No, but I n the I it's I felt compelled in some way. Again, I'm really dogged and really You know I'm gonna follow it down once I decided that it that's what I wanted to do. But I gotta say there were nights I don't know why is it always nights that I laid awake and really thought about selling the San Jose. Probably two or three times. I got really serious about it. I thought there's no way

I'm ever gonna be able to do this. It's too hard. And um I just somehow powered through. Why didn't you say?

Who would have bought it, right? Good answer. That is a fair answer. So you so you finally get the money, you close for renovations. What do you do? Is there anything that you did That you no longer do? Were there things that you did where you're like Oh, that actually became part of my palate. As

An artist, so to speak. Yes and no to both. I mean there there are ways that Um It was extremely inefficient. Um th nobody would ever let me do what I did then now. But you know it was it was I was learning on the job. It was also really low risk. I mean when you think about it, we look at in in ho in the hotel business, you look at the price you pay per key.

when you talk about selling or buying a hotel. Per key. Yeah, per key. Per key. Per key per room. Per room. So the the general notion is um when you're talking about what a hotel is selling for, what you're into it for what you can develop it for, whether it's a good deal. Um you ta you take the total price of the project. From the land. All the soft costs, all the hard costs, all the working capital, everything you have in it to get the doors open, all the furniture, fixtures, equipment.

Put that in a bucket and then divide it by the number of rooms. And that gives you the price per key. Of What the hotel cost.

If that makes sense. I we were into the San Jose At the day we opened the doors for a hundred thousand dollars per key. Which is super Inexpensive.

Um Inexpensive. Inexpensive. Okay, I've got the end of the day. So it was low risk. I mean I was on the front lines, I'm sure again I had a personal guarantee and I was there every day working like crazy in Lake Flato, the the architecture firm that I've worked with repeatedly since um they were also there.

every day. And So Again, uh the okay, the question was Are there things that I did then that I Uh would never do again. And then are there things that I did then that became part of my palette?

Um Yes, and and looking back On it, I think what I did intuitively. There. It's something that we do

As an organization on a regular basis now, whenever we're looking at a hotel. And that is to say That Um

I was interested in what the neighborhood wanted and needed. in something the the place had been there since the thirties in in this South Austin neighborhood And so I wanted to look around and look at the the hotels that are most interesting to me are part of a neighborhood or part of a community. There's a places when I was growing up My granddad who was a rancher.

Didn't have an office. So he would go to the local hotel and sit in the lobby and Yeah. And You know, get his shoe sh boot shined, uh get his hair cut. You could do that in the lobby of a hotel. It was a place where people met

And whether you were From out of town or you were local. Oftentimes, you know, like a real cornerstone of the community or real imp important place to meet for the community.

Um so Those were the kinds of things that interested me the most. So one of the first things I asked is how do we serve this neighborhood and South Austin. And you know, one of obviously the first things when we were directly across the street from the Continental Club. So what do musicians need? And because at the time musicians were some of Uh our most

frequent guests when we were thirty bucks a night because, you know, they were coming through town in a van. And They would look at very cheap hotel. And a lot of times they might be wasted enough that they didn't notice how bad the bed was or carpet or anything else. And then we always also have people that were spilling out of the Continental Club sometimes late at night. But um

And the the the ne the neighborhood was starting to change and people were starting to um buy uh Homes downtown again. Um We also started a coffee shop that opened my brother and I did

uh months before the San Jose opened. And that again was a need of the community. So you were looking to fill the need. That's what drove it. It wasn't we want to make a coffee shop, it is what do people need? People need a coffee shop. Let's do a coffee shop. More than that, we needed a coffee shop.

This is a really I wanna underscore this because it it comes up so frequently in people who ultimately succeed in some capacity in entrepreneurship is it so often starts with scratching their own itch. Mm-hmm. And at least that way you know you have a market of one. No.

When you think of uh a pattern language and you think of Christopher Alexander Um What I was doing intuitively can't see it. It's it's big.

Um The what I was doing intuitively was uh a lot of What Yeah, for the for those of you who don't know, Chris for Alexander is uh is a writer and a thinker. Um

about architecture and about how we build. Um And m and more than that, but for me he he wrote a book called The Timeless Way of Building. Which I have not read. In in he wrote a pattern language which was uh basically his idea was looking at all the old villages and uh towns and

Um communities that were you know throughout the world That have been

And his point was that people figure out how to build intuitively Um more so than current at the time and probably today current architects Today. who are responding to how a thing looks rather than how it functions. And he's his argument is or his thesis is that we know intuitively You know, where to put a fireplace.

Or a hallway. or you know, a hub and spoke model in a small community. Because it f it's those ways of building that Make Uh a place filled more whole. And uh

More complete. And makes you as a person. Feel. Alright. More whole and complete.

Well you know those places that you've been to that uh buildings you've been in or places you've been in where it just feels right. And it it feels um Calming. rather than agitating it. It feels um like you are part of something And I'm

in in a bigger sense. And I think you know part of that would be You know, today we People design things today. This happens all the time that they've never even been to the place where The Tuscan village in the suburbs.

is going to be put. You His argument is that you look around you and you see how things are built. Uh in the place you are. And you look at you don't bring uh building materials that would never exist in a place

Um you do you Look at the ways of doing things that have been done for a long time. And that way you become the fabric of the place itself. Yeah, this book is so simultaneously intimidating and fascinating. I mean I just turned to a random page five ninety nine. Activity pockets and there's a diagram with the average number of people area of a one hundred fifty People

Two three hundred no. P must mean something else, three hundred something square feet. And it's looking at the placement of umbrellas in what looks like an Italian pavilion. There's another section. Yeah. Pocket of activity which bulges into the square with a picture from Italy and then there's a separate section. I was actually looking at this Uh, because I had a uh cabin

construction project not too long ago. And There's A section on the integration of outside and inside. Well okay so I don't think that the book actually is I think you're reading it in the right way. You should not sit down and read that book from cover to cover.

Uh and he's still around today, but he became a Uh software Uh What would you say it is, designer of software. His ideas about patterns. And so patterns are A thing that happens over and over again, you see, in the natural order of things. So if you're talking about an Italian plaza where the umbrellas are, think in your head how many times you've seen that. Well there's a reason that there there's a reason. People on the ground designed that themselves because that's where human activity went to.

When we were doing El Cosmico, Which is El Cosmico has probably been recommended to me by Texans. Describe El Cosmico, because when when I did the introduction, how did I describe it?

But but I think the the community lodging concept. So what is w when you're designing El Cosmico, I don't mean to interrupt, but No, that's quite right. El cosmico is a it now twenty one acres in far west Texas, which uh in in the city of Marfa, town of Marfa Um considered one of the darkest places in the United States. Um Marfa is one of the dark places. It is um also about a mile high, about as high as Denver. And it h is

Uh more clear nights. Yeah. Than your average place. There's no real

Um The There's very little light because it's uh such a sparse uh area of the country. And yeah. Yeah. So if you think about it, there there's two main um counties out in far west Texas, Brewster and Presidio. And I there's something like you can fit like seventeen road islands into one of those counties

And The I forget what the number is, but the per capita the acreage per capita per person Well that's uh redundant, but is

Enormous. Like you have every person has something like four square miles. Yeah, it's just like sparsely populated. Not m not a lot of cloud cover. And not a lot of light pollution. So for that reason, my understanding is that uh astronomers or amateur astronomers but with pr nearly professional grade equipment or professional equipment travel from all over the country to go specifically to Marfa. That's true. For the new moon and things like that. Yeah.

It's a I mean th it's incredible you can see the Milky Way Which When I was growing up we could you could regularly see the Milky Way and How often do you see it now in places that aren't Like Marfa or like Baja California or

You just we there's uh too much light pollution. We just don't see that anymore. To see Another galaxy.

So you have twenty one acres. Okay. So I digress. There's twenty-one acres. Uh we're right on the edge of Marfa. It's a town of about twenty four hundred people. And um I had done a small motel in Marfa And

Um and and walked away from it. It was bad partnership. Um We it wasn't going anywhere and I but I did know that I wanted was interested in Marfa as a community. Marfa as a community. My again my family ranches in the region.

I'd move back from New York. I really wanted to spend more time in far west Texas. Mm Marfa was a little bit on fire, if if you can say that for a c community of twenty four hundred people. Because Donald Judd, who is um you know, one of the tw twentieth century's Most renowned sculptors. uh was uh ha had made a home in Marfa and it had become an art mecha

For Um a lot of Folks. So you have this crazy mix of artists

And ranchers. People that work on the land. Um in this beautiful Place that for those of you guys who are uh f from overseas might think of it as the myth of the American West when you see those when you've seen giant or you've seen um

movies, Westerns, uh the the landscape we're talking about looks a lot like that, just stretching on forever, and distant clouds. So Um Cosmicko uh I bought this uh pasture basically that was on the edge of town. And

I wanted to build Uh um And Uh I realized that it needed to be indoors and outdoors because that's one of the reasons you go out there.

And um I didn't know exactly what I was gonna do again at the time. But realize that uh old trailers, vintage trailers were a great way to get started putting hotels rooms up quickly. And so I'd bought a few trailers and we redid them Yeah, I started falling in love with trailers of that

Of the like fifties, sixties time period because Those old Spartans and Vagabonds and things like that. are made with this beautiful birch interior. I you know, I don't even know what the walls of uh interior of an airstream are. But they m trailers of that vintage had these beautiful wooden interiors.

Or in a ship's cabin. And they we finished them with a yacht varnish at the time. And so it was this it was like these we put the first few trailers out there and it was like ships on the desert, you know, and I and I just fell in love with the whole Notion of These um Uh kind of nomadic

Ways of And so we got some yarnts eventually, we got teepees, we have safari tents. And it became this grand experiment to see how we would use the land. So all of these All of the rooms were movable.

And so we kinda lived our way into it. That comes back to Christopher Alexander in a pattern language. It was really Starting to have music festivals and parties there and people living out there to determine What did the place need and how would people use it?

So we've been talking about the Outside inside integration. Uh and Christopher Alexander gives some great Contrasting.

Photographs for il illustrative purposes. It seems based on the homework that I've done at least that you also think a lot about I'll quote here. And the internet misquotes a lot, so you can correct me if if I'm wrong. But it's here's here's the quote. And th this is part of a a longer conversation, of course, but I hate it when I visit a hotel that hasn't put thought into the products they place in their room. It's all part of the language of the place and the details that affect the guest experience there. So

If we if we look at El Cosmico, or you could choose a different example. What are the things that people might notice In inside. Inside in and outside. And outside, yeah. Sure. You know, for I think for us at Bunkhouse part of It it is a whole experience. Like being at a hotel should be and you think of some of your favorite hotels. It's not that you liked

Yeah. Or It was close to the highway. You might have liked both those things. But I think probably the places you like the most are the most immersive and you I think of it as storytelling in a way. So every hotel that we do has uh

Everything from uh Soundtrack. to oftentimes a color. Or a color scheme that is

that um repeats throughout the Uh a smell. An incense usually. Like at the Saint Cecilia we put Nag Champa

It's really subtle. But it's something that strikes your senses. And y it will remind you of the Saint Cecilia. We have um Off further back in the neighborhood off of South Congress. Um

It's it's only fourteen rooms, but it was a the main part of the Saint Cecilia is an old Victorian. That was built in the eighteen nineties. And then it has some bungalows that are scattered around about an acre and acre and half of land. W I uh

In order for us to do a hotel, for me there has to be uh a skeleton, a story. That everything is hung upon or

Yeah. And so my business partner at the time we were looking at the air. Uh the Saint Celia came up for sale. It wasn't the Saint Cia, it was just an old Victorian on an acre of land. near um downtown Austin. And he's like, What's the story here? And for me

I mean it was I I always loved that whole period of rock and roll that was about going to really nice hotels and s the super decadence. Not the throwing the TV out the window, but the you know, great silver slightly tarnished in the white tablecloth from room service and the contrast of, you know, Dylan taking tea somewhere or you know, drinking a bottle of whiskey, the stones at Nelcott.

Um Just that there's something. So awesome about where elegance kind of meets rock and roll. And so there was this Victorian and I felt like the that I'd seen a photograph of like

Maybe it was a stones. Somewhere in like Full on nineteen seventies. Um Awesome. Uh clothing.

And there was a And so this place where those things met immediately became the Saint Cecilia to me. Patron saint of music and poetry. And so If you ask where N Champa comes from, it's like

That that smell of Nagchampa is the is the hippie smell of that time. And in putting it in a place as elegant as the Saint Cecilia. Makes perfect sense to me. So many questions. So I I would think of myself in general as at least an aspiring minimalist when it comes to certain aspects of design.

And uh Certainly have very, very limited experience compared to someone like yourself, but have have had projects. One in San Francisco before I moved to Austin, where b this place was stripped onto the studs and just became an art project. And uh I've spent a lot of time in Japan, so it was uh sort of a combination of like a green and green Eslin type feel plus Japanese. And uh it's a very

Simple in summer. respects. And I have a particular dislike of of clutter, I guess, even though it's a ongoing battle in my own house. So I think it was your brother Who said the following. And uh

You can correct me if I'm wrong, but let people be the color in the room. Could you expand on that or explain what that means? I some of the best advice ever. Um I think that you know, you look in hotels At any point. I mean particularly. You know, last twenty, thirty years I'd look at some place and I'm not giving a bad shout out, but

Yeah, the loft or something or the Indigo. And they think design is fun and whimsical and it is but Oh my God, how do you sleep in a place? How do you walk through the hallway? You're just assaulted by so many different patterns and so many different like what people think is like

cool or hip or you know, now and it's just like a constant Yeah. Um and to me the best hotels or the best places are places that are more calming.

Um and so Um You know, take um It may be so subtle that no

But I think if you give people appla all all of our own lives are so cluttered in so many ways. Um but if you strip away everything To a certain degree. Um

And let The people be the colour in the room. It's infinitely more interesting. I think people feel better. About

Everything that way as well. is was the first hotel I did and We c I kinda think of it as Uh J Mexico meets Japan. It's for you guys who don't know it's um We did a real sort of minimalist um

job on the place. At the time we just we developed uh a furniture system that would work. in um in the rooms, because all the rooms were very different. Uh over the years they've been cut up in different ways. So we needed something Where we could uh Use something repeatedly throughout.

And we ended up using some uh Pine, Lob Lolly Pine, which is a local ish material from uh East Texas. And um In sort of a Judd like way, Judd being the morph of a minimalist, although I know he would hate the word minimalist. But um which I think the Judd is very informed by Schindler. And I don't know if you know Schindler. Schindler is an architect from

the twinies that was working in the LA area. uh very influential And with a very uh simplicity. And so the San Jose has Concrete floors.

Um where we took out walls, we put in an aggregate so you could see where the walls used to be. Yeah, so when when you um have uh old uh cement or concrete floor. A lot of times when you remove a wall you'll have a hole in the floor. So what we would do is we'd take um A concrete mixed with

Rock. And uh fill it in and then um And then sand it. So there was instead of trying to fit in with the existing floor, you could actually see uh the Exactly. And so um the San Jose though although it's very simple with just wood and concrete and some people would think of as cold, uh there's a ton of plantings, a ton of gardens. It feels feels really lush and feels sort of like living indoors and outdoors.

But um When it we have comet cards and early on I really paid a lot of attention to comic cards, and I'm sure the staff does now. But one of my favorite ones that I had up on the wall for a while was Somebody had written. This is the most expensive fucking garage I've ever seen.

So w what do you do in response to something like that? Or do you not are you like you know not everyone's gonna get it and that's okay? It was really hard at first because not everyone was gonna get it and you have to decide if you wanna please everybody or if you just keep doing what you're doing. And know that in the

that you will find your audience. Um and again I was very lucky in life to be in the right place at the right time because Austin was changing and And now just did not discount your skill set completely. I mean you're in the right place at the right time, but you've also now

How many how many properties do you have? Um, I think it's not a lot of Eight, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean once you're lucky twice you're good, eight times Okay. They continue. Yeah. Okay. So but it you know, but at the time with a first project, you don't know what you don't know. And you don't know I have a lot more confidence now. I mean I had confidence then, but not necessarily as a designer.

Um but I remember when we first opened, we opened We open in March, which is um Uh Spring break, but it's also South by South West, which is a huge conference. used to be more music centric, but now it's

Tech and film. And a lot of people. So there's not a hotel room in town. Well we sort of did a soft opening, which is crazy, but uh Soft opening is when you invite people. to that you that might be friendly towards you or at a very discounted price to a property or a restaurant.

And let Let the staff Practice on you knowing there's gonna be some mistakes. Um right before. It was like February fourteenth. February fourteenth was the first day that we had in so it was Valentine's Day had anybody

that actually c spent the night in the hotel. And I w put a banner outside that um we sold rooms for sixty nine dollars. For Valentine's Day. And uh so that was the special and I mean like trying to just get people in the doors was uh was the whole point. We opened during South West Southwest Totally sold out. Crazy because of course we had

Something in the something was in the uh waste pipe that was going to the street Like An electrical fixture falling down into it. So entire wing of the hotel flooded with sewage. Complete chaos.

Yeah. I everything is stretched to max capacity. Yeah. I I'm sure that stress is running high for a lot of people who have flown in to perform or whatever. So you have Sewage flooding half the hotel. How do you handle that? I don't know. I mean, you know, you d you have to be on the front lines of it and with rubber boots and the whole thing and again, really You know, I don't know. It's it's hospitality. Yeah, I mean usually people don't know this, but behind the scenes we you a lot of places overbook No'cause they're counting on

Yeah, exactly. And so uh hotels You know the hospitality business is really interesting because Hotels really are behind the scenes usually, most likely, want to be friends with each other. You can say it's competition, but you're sharing information all the time. yield management and what's going on in town and Um It just so you know, a rising tide raises all boats to a certain degree.

But you're also gonna have to walk somebody sooner or later to another hotel. Which means that you're gonna you're gonna pay for their room somewhere else because you've either overbooked or Made a mistake. Yeah. But there was no hotels to walk anybody. I don't know how we managed it.

What do you say did you get them to stay? They're not sleeping on the street, presumably. I think that we went in and cleaned like crazy. and disinfecting like crazy and remade the rooms all hands on deck. Completely. Do you comp the room discount? Yeah. Totally. You know they say in the service industry.

A good recovery is gonna make a bigger Uh more loyal. Guest. Then If you hadn't fucked up at all.

How how do they handle things and do they own the problem when things go sideways on their watch. Kind of hard not to own that one, Mozart. How dare you flood your own room with sewage. Uh Chip Conley. Chip Conley is

Someone we we both know. Uh Chip, if you're if if you're listening or somebody passes us along, miss you. Would love to see ya. It's been a long time since I've spent time with Chip, but um I've heard you describe him as a mentor. I don't know if that if you If or I haven't heard you, I've read it, so who knows if it's accurate. But could you Describe for folks who don't know the name, who is Chip? And uh what what have you

learned or gleaned or observed from show. Chip. is a mentor to this day. I saw him last week. Um for those of you guys who don't know, Chip uh started a hotel company called Joad. That was based in San Francisco. Um and he started when he was

Fresh out of business school, probably early twenties. The Phoenix was his first hotel, which was a motor court, not unlike The San Jose or the Austin Motel. Um and was uh a favorite of

Chip. continued to grow a very successful hotel company. And decided at some point In his Around fifty or so. I don't know how this chip when he sold Johadaviv.

It might have been might have been right afterwards. I remember I was at Chip's we didn't talk about this Burning Man Camp. Oh no kidnapped. Yeah. So I was that's crazy. I wouldn't have one of the yurts that was um you know the fold up. Of course I did. Uh that's wild. All right, so we were at the same camp at Burning Man and just didn't bump into each other. Or maybe we did. Who at the catered chip food Which by the way, I mean, it was such a contrast. My first experience not to digress too too far, but my first experience at Burning Man was Trying to build a geodesic dome with my friend on the spot that we had put together based on internet instructions when I was in San Francisco. And then realizing none of it would fit together, we ran out of water. The R V we had

broke down so the air conditioning didn't work. It was just it was absolute survival mode. And and then I came to to ships and I was like, oh my God, this is like the four seasons of you I mean like he really He did the whole camp with some friends and basically you could get food at any point you wanted. There was a full service bar. I had a air conditioned yard. uh some kind of building materi it was like fold up. The whole thing folded up into a very small package. But it wasn't a bad way, kinda in and out. Yeah, that's so wild. I can't believe we were there at the same time. So he sold the company around. So Joadviv, he's still a very young man, by the way, if you're listening, Chip. And um He the the guys from Airbnb.

tapped on the shoulder and said, Come help us a little bit. And what was helping uh in an advisory role for a while, he became the Head of global hospitality for Airbnb. And along the way he's written a lot of great business books that um we often have our managers read like Peak. Um and uh the

Yeah, you know, well I'll I'll if people I'm blanking on the title, but I will tell people that uh Chips Chips' been on the bl on my blog a few times. And if you search how to become an effective CEO Chief Emotions Officer and my name, or just search Tim Ferriss ChipConnley, and that'll Right. Chip has written many books and he is uh often uh has done a TED talk and is often a lecturer on business and just on being a more complete person

Chip continued throughout so the way I met Chip is I co called him. I bought the San Jose Didn't know what I was doing, had no idea what I was gonna do. And I saw his name like in a trade magazine and so I called him up. Unbelievably, he called me back in about thirty minutes. What was you did you leave a voicemail? I I think I did. I don't remember exactly. Yeah, I think I did leave a voice money. I don't know how I got his number. I have this motel in South Austin and I just wanted to talk to you about it.

Click. Um But the fact that he called me back Was I have cursed him. For

From this from that day. to this day because now people constantly you know now they email me or in some way ask if I could spend a few minutes and for advice. And you know there just aren't the hours in the day. But He just pops up in my brain every time, like what would have happened had he not called that. You know, and I don't know. But um

Over the years he was one of the first guests at San Jose. He was passing through. Um He came to see it. Uh after giving advice. He looked at my numbers that I didn't really understand and tried to make sense of them. But I could have had that conversation I could have that conversation now much better. Um and then uh most recently We have a hotel in Baja, California.

Uh in a little town called Todos Santos. So right outside a little town called Todos Santos. That is about forty five minutes from Cabo. And he is the one that got me into that because um he had sold his hotel company and uh was not I I don't know if he had a non compete or just not supposed to be in the business and he was very interested in the community. And so he kinda pointed them in my direction. And now we have a r uh really great hotel there and

Chip lives part of his life in the Yeah. What what other best practices or principles or Do not or does have you Oh.

Um actually our had our president now at Bunkhouse, I work for CHIP for ten years, a guy named Christian Strobel. And um I you know It's good. Here's the thing, you can be as creative as you want to be and dream as big as you want and create an incredible experience and programming and everything

along those lines. But if you don't can't keep the lights on, if you can't return money to investors, if you can't keep your Employees happy. Um then you're never gonna have a successful business. You've got to keep the lights on.

You know, and you gotta do a little better than keeping the lights on, but Um d I think a lot of people fail in business because they don't Have Operational rigor.

And that can be a lot of different That can manifest in a lot of different ways. But um I think that Chip was uh influential from early on about

uh operations and And how important it's a little bit more. not just your guest was, but your employee and your investor. As well. The chip is um

And peak, I mean as it relates to Maslow. uh Maslow's heart hierarchy of needs and hence Maslotopia as the name of the Burning Man camp. Uh is something that he would apply also to these various stakeholders. Uh

So another mutual acquaintance. Larry. uh Maguire of Maguire Mormon Group here, many different restaurants. Uh I I texted Larry to ask him.

You know, what topic or questions might I want to explore. with Liz and he said, Oh well there's so many things we could explore da da one of the things he brought up was The question. How do you balance and and I'm paraphrasing here, but it's not that far off. Uh how do you balance Wanting uh the desire to be an artist with the desire to be, say, a business tycoon.

Right. It's really interesting question. It Yeah, I mean it's such a balance. I mean it is uh Larry's actually very good at what he does. Uh Larry has several restaurants here in town and um

I've known Larry since he was about sixteen and started work for my brother. Um but Larry is one of those rare people that um understands both Um again.

Rigor in operations. uh which is gonna be really important at the end of the day for somebody to have the right experience. And uh the artistry of creating an experience. Um to mi

If you don't Like people make hotels, people design hotels, and then they walk away. And so that is always gonna get um diluted over time if if you don't remain involved in the experience

Or what your v vision was in the first place. Then What you created It's it's not just an a uh object, it's a living, breathing thing that has Employees, people that work there, that spend their lives there.

It has guests that come and go as part of a ever evolving community. And it has uh people that uh have part of the ownership in in the in the place. So I think your vision is not complete. If you just create something and walk away. It is in other

And other Uh Genre. Art but in a hotel or in a restaurant. It begins anew every day, in a way.

And so to create a guest experience that is right for Yeah. Takes um You know, constant vigilance in a way.

And um And that is always gonna translate to the bottom line. I mean we don't m market most of our hotels in a certain way, but people market'em for us. Instagram is obviously great and um So are a lot of other social media platforms. But we could a fair amount of Print as well. And that comes a lot not from us necessarily pitching stories, but for people becoming real believers in in what we do.

And so I don't know if I'm really answering that question except to say It's uh you have to have both things. Whether it's you doing it or someone else that believes in your vision and you believe in theirs. You've got to have both the Artistry in the beginning. and the good practice

to contain in the good business practice. uh to continually Uh Then the fire. Do you have an idea of

If if you're going to be continuing to develop hotels. And put your craft Do you have an idea for

Say how many properties you'd like to have in five years. Uh if you want to scale. If you don't want to scale three years, it doesn't really matter. I'm just wondering if you Um I'm s at such a crossroads right now, really, about this. Um you you know the pressure in business and the bigger your business gets Is to grow, grow, grow. And then sell it. That's seems to be you know, I wonder if we'll look we'll be thirty years from now that won't be

the thing or if it was it wasn't you know fifty years ago. We live in a time where it's about growth. and m making your business worth as much as you possibly can and then selling it. And to me that's It m it makes no sense in the world to me because I'm a bit of a the journey is a destination kind of person.

And so if I'm I think that I'm both doing If I grow it at If I push not only myself, by my team to grow as fast as possible. We're not gonna do the quality of work.

That we want to do. Um And Well we might have a higher value in five years as a company.

I don't think that the end game is to sell. I and Larry McGuire I think believes the same thing I do, and a lot of people that I look around at and I'm interested in their careers. And their lives. Also are people that are Interested in what they do from a Uh now and from the people they work with.

Day to day. And um creating an asset like a a hotel that can just get better over time. Rather than say you know, we live in a time where you have hotels that they're redone every seven years or every five years. There's a big you know big repositioning or whatever. It's Oh.

The most interesting places to me just get better as time goes on and layer upon layer and texture upon texture. And get better not by reinventing themselves every seven years. Exactly. Timeless way of building. So you know can you have a good life and make your uh and have uh employees who are invested And

that business And ha and also keep an asset. Uh And have it You know,

This I'm gonna digress for a second, but the hotel business as we know it today. is um A result of a lot of things, but we've come to a time where most hotels are not owned by the management company. So you have a group of owners

And you have a management company that is a brand. So from the four seasons to the Hilton to You you name a de Marion. Um Or it even Ace, those guys over there, great friends of mine.

Every ace you look at is owned by a different ownership group. And uh you know, you we can talk all day long about why that is. Uh a lot of times a management company wants to say stay asset light. Because the hotel. business is uh you know, in in waves. So you don't want to get caught in a downturn owning a property.

So you mitigate your risk by having a brand. Um And that is um That Easier or much easier.

When you are a Marriott and you're gonna be the same everywhere. And you have in and there was a there was a time in the hotel business that or a time in hotels and those of us as consumers of hotels wanted that because there before that you could You know, take a trip across country and All these hotels were independent and God knows what you might find, or it might be delightful or it might be horrible. And there was no way of judging the quality of a place. And then we got Hiltons and Holiday Ins and

What was great is that you could You knew what to expect. Well the cup of Starbucks is the same everywhere you go. Yeah. Yeah. And we and so you you can depend on that. I I read something from I was I was look uh the other day I was looking at some stuff about why musicians and hotels, you know, why that love story and the they're interdependent in one way or the other. And somebody was saying I don't remember it was probably Keith Moon or somebody who was well known for just totally trashing hotel rooms. It's like yeah it's the fifth you know this is like it's the twentieth fucking holiday in

You know, we've woken up and and just as many days and they all look the same, anybody would be mad at it. But Uh that time is that time began to change with you know what we think of as a boutique hotel or a lifestyle hotel. From Schrager to Chip Connolly.

You know, I think you the you asked me about What are the next three, five years hold. Business wise or hotel growth wise.

Um and it's I feel like I'm At such a crossroads there and and trying to determine what's it's not only what's best for me. It's also what's best for the company, but also the people I work with every day. And so You want to grow. Because you want to be able to

Give the people you work with more equity. Um More chance for More of a chance for um Yeah.

higher fulfillment, uh moving into other jobs. Just all those things. You want to can there I think that we have a natural a natural propensity toward growth. But then the question becomes how fast and how much and What's the what is the end game there? And In this business I think in in this day and age,

People just mindlessly want to grow and explode. The bigger you are, the better you are, the more people know about you. The better, but it's a lot of it. I think that a lot of that you appreciate in day to day living become lost.

I think one of the reasons we're successful as a company. internally at least, is because we are like a family in some ways. And so How much can you maintain? That as well. I guess the answer is

I I don't want to mindlessly grow. I want to thoughtfully grow. And that may not be at the pace that a lot of companies would want you to grow. It's also about the in game and I don't think my end game would be to grow really fast and to sell the business. Which is you find a lot of brands want to do now.

What you've been saying that Your a philosophical lens through which you view your life, which is the journey is the destination. Is uh a fundamental juxtaposition with what a lot of external pressures

would want to impose on the business. Absolutely. It's tricky. No, it's it's such a balance is and and it's a struggle in a way. Um It is, but you know, some of Um But uh

It it's a really good question because I'm in the middle of it right now. And I have lots of thoughts about it, but it could go on and on and on. But I do know that I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. You know, and uh and we all could. And You're not gonna care about that. I P O

You know, five years from now. Um My wife is pregnant. And uh gonna I I'm older and she's

young enough to be pregnant, clearly. And um And that's a whole other life change. I also again when you see You know, w I do real am a big believer in the realization of mortality. I mean all those things really point me in the direction of

Uh quality life with in relationship to other people. And In those ways I I think it's

much more in a much more real manner than you find meaning in making a lot of money. I agree. I mean money's supposed to be fuel.

Uh in a in a sense. For transferring it, transmuting that into other things like experiences and So on ostensibly, right. I mean it's a money is a representation of value. I'm not against money. And it's super important for a business. And it's super important for the people you work with and for and all those things. It's just the means to the end, you know. No, it is. I mean if we look at

Uh There's a f there's a really fascinating book called The Biography of a Dollar or The Biography of a Dollar, which walks through the history of money in some respects, which becomes even more interesting when we start looking at more recent develops developments like cryptocurrency and so on, but at the end of the day. Uh at least traditionally speaking, it's a medium of exchange. For what? Uh

Let me let me ask just a handful more questions. Uh because uh I think we could have many, many more conversations, and hopefully this isn't the last. Uh We we mentioned a few books. Are there any other books that you have gift often to other people or re read.

A lot yourself. I love that you asked that question that way because um It really puts it in a different perspective.

Um which I thought about a little bit this morning and I mean it's so clear. I made it Like y I didn't have an immediate answer. And then I had to think why did I do that? But um I think When I was younger and and still to this day I sometimes gift uh A book of poetry by Adrian Rich called A Dream of a Common Language.

A dream of a common language. Yeah. Which was a book written she wrote in the in the late seventies and she's a poet that um I was trying to think why was that book so important to me. It's really funny when I read Sheryl Strayed's uh Wild. That was one of the books that was most important to her that she had as she That's right. I totally forgot about that.

Um I gift a lot slouching towards Bethlehem, a book by John Diddy, which is a collection of essays. That I uh love that book so much. It is a lot about how what the kind of writing Joan Diddy is doing. Um

And those essays are both You know, of the time there's one uh about John Way, there's you know, about California. But there's also this Uh collection of personal essays she does that one's called On Keeping a Notebook. That

I go back to again and again and I share a lot. There's one called on self respect. There's one on morality. But It's a it's an awesome collection of essays, um And there are other books by John Diddy, but that's one I tend to gift the most. You know the other one that I'm sure people mention to you, I can't imagine they don't, is um when things fall apart.

But Pima Children. Does anybody recommend I think only once and I'm I Seth, I apologize if I'm misattributing, but he he does recommend Pema Chodron, at least one of her audio books. But no, this was not a book that has come up a lot. So if you could e explain why things fall apart, I think has been important to me. I've given to people in my life because it had an impact on me. But it's um I th I don't know. I could be wrong that it was um Pima Chodron's first

Uh Shot across the bow. I mean I it might have been the first book she did. I don't know if that's true or not. But it was really my introduction into Uh

Yeah sh Pima Chodron for the those of you who don't know is a Buddhist monk. Who became a Buddhist monk I think probably thirty years ago. Um when she had uh when her husband she found out her husband was having an affair and he left her

And she was left in this place of what to do about that, and she kind of accidentally found her way into Buddhism. But Um, to me it really revealed this struggle we have day to day of w in the face of anything, loss, adversity, all those kinds of things, you know, how much uh how uh we tighten up and struggle or we get angry or we get bitter or we just Continue doing the same things over and over that don't necessarily work.

Watch TV, movies is an escape, drinking even exercise sometimes. I mean whatever it is we're doing. Um and how Uh we always think if we would just get to that next perfect place, it would all be okay. Like if we had the next job or if we moved to this new city, or if we just had this relationship, it was it'd all be okay. And then it as it turns out, when you get to that place

Lo and behold, on the next horizon is you feel uncomfortable because you need this next thing. It's really the idea of um It again the journey is a destination. to on on the way to that island, roll rowing across the ocean, you need to get find comfort in

uh being on that boat in the roiling sea. Uh in in the idea of impermanency and how I think anybody who's lived their life with loss or death or anything of the sort understands what a What a jolt it is to figure To understand that things aren't permanent.

And uh when we do accept impermanency of things and learn how to live in the moment or on the roiling sea. And live with that discomfort. Uh it really chang it's a life changer. And so

when things fall apart. I realized just in saying all that, the Joan Dinnham book slouching towards Bethlehem Poems poem. Yeah. Slashing towards Beth what's it called? Um Slashing Towers Bethlehem, right?

Oh God, you're far more literate than I am. I'm I'm failing my my exam here. We'll we'll definitely put it. We'll put uh we'll put all of these in the show notes and you we've talked about mortality a few times. Uh I've had quite a bit of revisiting mortality in the last few years with very close friends and uh uh even now currently uh some of the effectively family members and I have a coin

that sits on my kitchen counter which says Memento Mori. Remember you're going to die with iconography on it. Uh Coincidentally enough, I should give him credit, made by a friend of mine here, Ryan Holliday, who's an authority. Uh in the Austin area. Who writes a lot about stoic philosophy. Which is highly compatible with a lot of Buddhist thought and contemplative practice, in my experience in any case.

Uh Do you have a favorite? Favorite's a weird word to use here, but favorite failure or a failure that you feel like taught you a lot or set you up for later success. Um

It's I've failed so often and um I've been successful very often too. I think if you if it were a formative Uh favorite failure. Um But again, Yeah.

You know, sometimes don't we all feel like we're beating our head against the wall and you like you know why am I doing that same thing over again? I mean that's a whole I think uh we're still doing that. That's a whole other subject, but You know, when I was young, when I was in high school I was um I was in there was a a thing called uh youth and government. And you from all over Texas. I they did it in other states as well, but you would learn about government by Mm.

And um it it w came through the YMCA to and there were like little social clubs and All of that. But you think government was um something I got involved in the air. uh when probably when I was a sophomore junior in high school. When I was a senior in high school

I ran for youth governor of the state of Texas, which was a big state, but you had to r you had to run on a local level and then you had to run on a regional level and then you came to state. And my grandfather at the time was a rancher Um Uh and uh w one of the men I admire most, um was at the time older.

And I think I think at that point he had broken his hip and he was in uh uh bed bound at home. But as I ran for youth governor, I would read the paper with him on a pretty regular daily basis, if not every other day, and discuss current events and current issues and it was uh awesome time period of time. Uh

Yeah. And we came here to Austin for the Youth and Government Week and they do it they do it at the Capitol. And they do it in the chambers, so in the Senate and in the in the the House of Representatives. And uh it's right after the uh the the real thing has let out. And so You it's you know, really awesome because you're in these

And the night that um the they're already taken the vote, we're staying in a hotel right over here, not far from here at all the La Quinta over there. And I was staying in a room with three friends who were there for the party for sure. I was very serious. They were there to be in Austin and one of them had an older boyfriend who lived here in Austin, so they started drinking in the room And I knew that we weren't supposed to be drinking in the room and so I left the room and went

And visited some other friends down the hall. Yeah. And um We got call I got called to, you know, whoever our supervisor was and she said, Did you know they were drinking? And I was like, Yeah, I knew and I left. Well it turns out that the whole thing was running on the honor system. I yeah, I'm sure I knew that at the time. And because I did not report them.

I was kicked out and sent home with them. And by that point they knew that I had won the election for youth governor of state of Texas. Which meant that like in the next year you were gonna go to nationals and do all this stuff. But instead so the morning of Yeah. the announcement it you know went to the next person in line and I s was sent home on a bus.

with them, you know, sitting with them. And um when my mom went to report to my Grandfather what had happened because he was following play by play. Tell this we're really proud of her. And to me that was

uh this formative moment of Realizing that There were rules and there was authority. Um and you know, the honor system was what this whole system was running on.

And I realized that he was really proud of me. Well, I'd grown up with brothers and with you know, a whole community that really believed that you Didn't rat on somebody else. You didn't call somebody out. You I was right to remove myself, but I I think there was a whole system of belief

that uh I had grown up with that if we've been wrong I think it was the first time that I you know, over the years and looking back at it. I think I learned more from

than I would have learned from a going right. And it was about questioning systems and questioning values of just because somebody feeds says this is the these are the rules and this is what it is. Doesn't mean that that's really The rules you need to incorporate.

You know? That's a great story. Ha ha What a lovely experience. Also not that particular uh

time in the capital but with your it was your grandfather said, right? Yeah. My uh my grandparents passed uh all of them when I was very young. Really? Yeah. Yeah, I was lucky that way. Yeah, that's and they and we all lived in different states. So even even when they were alive, we only got to see them very briefly. Uh Yeah, just just a few more questions. Uh If you had

Gigantic billboard, metaphorically speaking. Right. Billboard. Uh on which you could put a word, a quote, a question.

Anything non commercial. Just a message to get out to millions or billions of people. What might you put on that billboard? Um Yeah, we do uh over down by the San Jose and the Austin Motel there is a big billboard, but of course We rented.

Yeah. Um But on the side of um there are a couple things on the side of Joe's. One is that iconic I love you so much that people take pictures of all the time. On the back side of Joe's there is a quote from Jack Karaouac. It says don't break your tenderness. And

I love that quote. I think that's a good thing for everybody to remember. Don't break your tenderness. Don't break your tenderness. Yeah. I love that. I've never actually heard that before. So this is right on the back side of Joe's on con South Congress. Yes. on the corrugated so it doesn't bounce out. Maybe we need to repaint it, but it's been there since we opened. It's from I think Mexico City Blues. Well in in in a very real way. I know you you wouldn't take full credit for this, and there were macro forces at work and so on, but the fact that I the first thing I just thought to myself was, Wow, I should go check that out next time I go for a nice walk.

Down South Congress. I mean if you had not Looked out. Perhaps.

gazed across the street from the continental and taken the San Jose upon yourself as a project. Who knows what that neighborhood would look like? I mean you have played a formative role in making it what it is. That's a big that's a big deal. It is a big deal. I mean it's it's an interesting we could talk for hours about that too. You know I think it's about to change Yet again. I mean it would have changed and it would have grown and everything is always changing and neighborhoods are always changing, but um You know, th I think we're about to see an a whole next wave of South Congress happen.

Well this This is so fun and I'm really glad that we finally had a chance to to sit down. Uh do you have any Requests of the audience, asks of the audience, suggestions of the audience. Anything you'd like to say before we

No, but uh No, but I'm very excited about getting last days of the San Jose out there. Yes. Yes. And uh we were just chatting. Uh

In between uh brief Uh cut that we made. about a f handful of things that probably need to be done just in terms of clearing rights, music and so on. So for those people listening, it might not be immediate but we did clink tea glasses. So last day's of San Jose. Sooner than never. Yes, that is something that I think we're both comfortable. uh committing to and people can find you At the Liz Lambert on Instagram and Twitter.

At Bunkhouse Hotels, Instagram, Twitter. And bunkhousegroup dot com. Definitely if you're in the Austin area and if you're have never been to Austin, for God's sake. Take a visit. It's uh it's a very cool town. The uh self proclaimed but believable.

Uh Live Music Capital of the World. And Uh It's been really lovely spending time with you. You too as well. It really has been. Thank you. And for everybody listening and watching, potentially. Links to everything we've discussed. Maybe even the doc. We'll see how much progress we make. is uh available

On the uh page with show notes. Uh for this episode and every other at Tim.blog forward slash podcast. And until next time, thank you for listening and watching. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share The coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up.

in the uh the world of the esoteric as I do, it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite. of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that and check it out, just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. And I'd heard about Peloton over and over again, but I ended up getting a Peloton bike in the whole system after I saw my buddy Kevin Rose, I've known him forever, some of you know, and he showed up at my gate at my house a while back and he looked fantastic.

And uh I asked him, I was like, dude, you look great. What the hell have you been up to? Because he's always doing a weird diet or another, but it only lasts like a week or two. So he always regresses to the mean after like 75 beers. And he said I've been doing Peloton five days a week. Now that caught my attention because Kevin does nothing. Five. days a week and you know I love you Kevin but it really piqued my curiosity ended up getting a system and it's become an integral part of my week. I love it and I really didn't expect to love it.

at all because I find cycling really boring usually. But Peloton is an indoor cycling bike that brings live studio classes right into your home. You don't have to worry about fitting classes in your schedule or making it to a studio. with some type of commute, et cetera. New classes are added every day, and this includes options led by elite New York City instructors in your own living room. You can even live stream studio classes taught by the world's best instructors or find your own favorite class on demand. And in fact, Kevin and I rarely do live classes and you can compete with your friends, which is also fun. Kevin, I'm coming after you, but we usually just use classes on demand. I really like Matt Wilpers and his high intensity training sessions that are shorter, like 20 minutes. And I think Kevin's favorite is Alex, and everyone seems to have their favorite.

instructor, or you can select by music, duration, and so on. Each Peloton bike includes a 22 inch HD touch screen, performance tracking metrics. I think that, along with the real-time leaderboard, are the main reasons that this caught my attention. when cycling never had caught my attention before. It's really pretty stunning what they've done with the user interface to keep your attention. The belt drive is quiet and it's smaller than you would expect, so it can fit in a living room or an office. I actually have it in a large closet, believe it or not. and it fits with no problem. So Peloton is offering All of you guys, listeners of the Tim Ferris show, a special offer, and it is actually special. Visit OnePeloton, that's O-N-E-P-E-L-O-T-O-N, OnePeloton.com, and enter the code Tim. All caps T I M at checkout to receive$100 off accessories with your Peloton bike purchase. Now you might say, meh, accessories? Wait, I don't need fancy towels or whatever.

other supplemental bits and pieces. No, the shoes you need. You need the clip-in shoes and those are in the accessory category. So this hundred dollars off is a very legit$100 off. So If you wanna get In your workouts. If you want a convenient and really entertaining way.

to do high intensity interval training or anything else. Or you just want to get a fantastic gift for someone, check out Peloton. OnePeloton.com and enter the code TIM. Again, that's O-N-E-P-E-L. O T-O-N.com and enter the go Tim at checkout to receive$100 off any accessories, including the shoes that you will want to get. Check it out. OnePeloton.com code Tim. This episode is brought to you by Soothe.com, the world's largest on-demand massage service.

I have been broken so many times over the years. that I usually have bodies once a week. I have a very, very high bar for this type of thing. And I was very skeptical of Sooth until I tested them not once. but I would say at least a dozen times. around the country in different cities. I do not accept anything less than excellent for any type of soft tissue treatment and uh would not suggest that you accept anything less than excellent. So I can affirm personally that Sooth delivers

A licensed, experienced, and above all effective in my book, massage therapist in the comfort of your own home, hotel, or office in as little as an hour. So you can think of it as Uber for massages available in 55 cities at this point, across the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, so you can relax. just about anytime, anywhere. And I've tried many different types of massage that they offer and the process is super, super simple. Download the Sooth app, that's S-O-O-T-H-E, or go to sooth.com. Choose the kind of massage you want. You can select Swedish, sports, deep tissue, or even couples massage. I usually do deep tissue myself. Or I'll do couples massage and then tell both of the therapists that I'm actually intending to get a four-handed massage instead of having two people get two handed massages, if that makes sense. Then you set the length of your massage, whether 60, 90, or 120 minutes. If you're looking to get fixed, I usually do 90 or ideally 120. You select the gender of your therapist, and then boom, you're done.

and you will see who picks up the call. The service is available from 8 a.m. to midnight. and Sooth brings everything that you need to create a spa experience in your home. And the therapist handles all of this. The massage table, linens, oils, music, the whole nine yards. So try it out. Download Sooth, and as a listener of this show, you'll get$25 off of your first massage when you enter the code TIM25. All caps T I M25. Again?

Download the SUT app and use the code TIM25 for your$25 discount.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 3 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.