Page 26 of Wilder at Heart
Nora
The charming of this guy, Kurt, only goes one way. Believe me. He’d better be jet lagged, because his chatstinks. Based on my immediate and damning opinion of his personality alone, The Montague Group shouldn’t shed any tears over this guy leaving.
The bad news is that chatting to Kurt is a sure-fire way to kill an evening’s vibe.
The good news is, it gets Theo and me some airtime with his dad: Charles Montague, OBE, hotel tycoon and a bastion of British industry. While Miles is CEO of The Montague Group, his dad is still Chairman, and it’s clear he still rules the roost. While he’s utterly delightful to me, Theo had warned me his dad was pretty pissed off with him overCharmed, and I’m grateful that his good breeding prevents him from bringing up his displeasure in front of me and Barrel of Laughs Kurt.
Kurt, it transpires, is under pressure from his wife to leave Manhattan and relocate to North Carolina to be near her family. Manhattan’s gain will be North Carolina’s loss. Kurt can’t be more than mid-thirties, but he has the get-up-and-go of an octogenarian. I make the mistake of enquiring as to the state of the hotel market in the wake of lockdown, and Kurt regales mewith what sounds like a memorised version of a PWC industry report, complete with verbal charts of month-on-month and year-on-year rack rates versus actual, discounted room rates.
It’s brutal.
When he makes his excuses and leaves, Theo, his father and I are reeling. My first thought is that if that’s the bar Theo has to beat, it’s bloody scraping the ground. This should be an easy win for him, surely? Provided he doesn’t fuck it up anymore, of course.
Charles clears his throat. ‘He’s a good man, Kurt.’
I avoid looking at Theo.
Theo manages a strangledyep.
‘Been a safe pair of hands these past couple of years. But we need to shake things up a bit.’
‘Do you mean in terms of personnel, or the proposition itself over there?’ I venture.
Charles peers at me. ‘Both, I suppose. Since the US has tentatively emerged from lockdown, it’s been about playing defence. Discounting. Just trying to fill rooms. But it’s clear the business traveller is not returning in full force any time soon. Excessive business travel’s a thing of the past. So we have a structural shift occurring, and we can use that as a reason to panic or to pivot.’
I suggested to Theo in the car that he use my ignorance of the market to explain the fundamentals to me in front of Kurt and hopefully highlight his grasp of the issues at hand. But now that Kurt’s made his exit, Theo has a chance to pitch to the main man. His dad.
I turn to Theo. ‘You said your Manhattan hotels are a mixture of business and leisure, right?’
‘Yeah.’ The corners of his mouth turn up in a barely perceptible smile of appreciation and I realise I’ve been waiting for it. For a chance to help him. ‘But SoHo’s less of a clearproposition than our other two. The Battery Park one is squarely business. The Madison one is very old school—they both have clear markets, though having said that, occupancy on the Madison one is still ramping up post the refurb. The Montague SoHo’s always been a bit of a mix. It’s mainly business travellers who don’t want to stay down near Wall Street. It also gets its share of tourists. But I’m not convinced it hits one market really clearly.’
‘It’s always been a conundrum,’ Charles says. ‘Classic architecture, good bones—but we’ve tended to play it safe. It’s got caught between the other two, whose roles are far more clearly delineated.’
‘It’s ripe for a refurb.’ Theo takes a quick sip of his drink. ‘But it needs more than that—it needs a crystal-clear proposition before any cash is pumped into it.’
‘Miles’ take is that it needs a good facelift. Nothing structural. Cosmetic changes that will freshen it up. Possibly a big-name restaurant in-house.’
Theo toys with his glass, and I can see he’s calculating whether to go for it.
‘Miles is right in that a moderate investment could do the job nicely if we want to play it safe. If we’re capital constrained. But I’d be tempted to think bigger. Bolder.’
‘Such as?’ Charles is swilling his scotch, but his eyes don’t leave Theo’s.
‘Make it a real destination. A very, very cool destination.’
Charles sucks in his teeth. ‘Dangerous. We’re playing a long game here, son.’
‘Of course we are.’ Theo’s voice is even. ‘We have an incredible piece of real estate, and of New York architecture. It’s timeless. But what’s the big trend you don’t see going anywhere, Nor?’
‘Social media,’ I say, as we’ve agreed. ‘And portfolio careers.’
‘Exactly. People’s need to document, to capture themselves in beautiful spaces, is only going to increase. We can be apologetic about this and create a perfectly tasteful, safe, tourist-driven hotel. Or we can make the space work harder. I mean, with a forty-storey building like the Madison one, you could always adopt a Pierre model and convert some of the floors into apartments. But we’ve only got ten storeys to play with in SoHo. It shouldn’t be hard to get that space working for us.
‘Soho House has cornered the market in members’ clubs, but they target a very specific audience of creatives, and there’s no slowdown in appetite there. The Montague can offer a higher octane version of that, for people who have the money and like to play hard.’
‘You’re suggesting a members’ club?’
‘Possibly. It’s decent recurring revenues. Or even just create enough incredible zones to hang out in that people flock there on a daily basis. Cultivate the clients who care where they’re seen. Work really hard on getting the bloggers in. Create a destination. Then the tourists will come too, but you’re not dependent on them. I think there’s something about getting it to resonate with locals first that will generate higher quality revenues for you.’
