When LODGING spoke to Alex Kirkwood, founder & CEO of the eponymous Kirkwood Assortment, he was “in chaos mode in escrow closing on two offers” for his fast-growing luxurious boutique lodge funding, improvement, and administration agency. At solely 38 years of age now, Kirkwood described a powerful profession path the place he moved from a profitable Hollywood movie promoting profession to constructing a boutique hospitality actual property enterprise identified for its one-of-a-kind properties—all of which just about conforms to the marketing strategy he created as a 14-year-old.
Kirkwood mentioned he first realized in regards to the worth of actual property as an funding from his uncle in Seattle, who discouraged his earliest plans to pursue a profession within the movie {industry}. “He mentioned, ‘In the event you go into the film enterprise, you may actually crush it, however it’s a tricky profession, and also you don’t get to personal your work,’” Kirkwood associated.
Nonetheless, Kirkwood majored in leisure advertising at Chapman College and, after graduating in 2007, secured a place in L.A. as an assistant to a producer of unbiased movies. Ultimately, his three movie {industry} roommates additionally obtained jobs in L.A., however within the meantime, Kirkwood needed to dwell on a ship in Marina Del Rey as he couldn’t afford to hire an condominium alone.
twentieth Century Fox and First Purchases
Kirkwood described the components—together with an actual property connection that led to a place at twentieth Century Fox—that inched him away from a promising profession within the movie {industry} to 1 in lodge actual property, together with a interval throughout which they overlapped.
Whereas engaged on a film, he turned pleasant with producers who owned a lodge in Mexico, which motivated him to start poring over a dealer good friend’s listings. Oddly, it was that relationship that introduced him into contact with the top of promoting at twentieth Century Fox, who employed him to create trailers and posters for the home theatrical movement image division. He remained within the coveted studio system for greater than 5 years, rising to director of artistic promoting. “It was there that I actually lower my tooth, working 18-hour days,” he recalled.
But, at one level, whereas working as a artistic promoting director at Fox, he realized he would by no means excel at it—not the best way his uber-talented colleague, the SVP of promoting, did. “He was sensible on the job; he may produce in two hours work that took me two days,” Kirkwood mentioned.
Nonetheless, that colleague was reasonably much less proficient at capitalizing on alternatives in actual property, which got here so simply to Kirkwood. “That’s after I determined, if I can’t be the very best at this, I don’t need to do it,” he commented. Even working 18-hour days, he had purchased three properties—two trip leases along with his household, and a 3rd, The Palm Springs Resort, as a three way partnership with the household that owned the lodge in Mexico. On condition that potential, he figured, “That was most likely what I’m presupposed to be doing.”
Going It Alone
So, he stop the film-industry job many would have killed for. “Everybody thought it was slightly loopy to depart the studio system within the position I’d labored so onerous to get solely to begin out at almost sq. one,” he mentioned.
His members of the family, who he referred to as “founder traders,” have been supportive. That they had already joined him in buying trip properties for his or her household to take pleasure in collectively and hire out again in 2012 and continued their help for the primary six resorts and trip leases that launched Kirkwood Assortment in 2016.
A lot to his shock, all didn’t go effectively at first. “I assumed I might simply depart Fox and the banks would roll over and finance no matter challenge I proposed. As a substitute, I had a nightmare of a time getting my first full solo deal. I simply couldn’t put the financing collectively on the offers I wished. I had simply sufficient capital to pursue yet another deal. If it failed, I might be one deal away from changing into an Uber driver.’”
Fortunately, that deal—The Hideaway in Santa Barbara—labored out, and The Kirkwood Assortment started to take off.
Boutique Focus
Kirkwood mentioned a part of the issue with getting financing when he was beginning out was doubtless his insistence on focusing solely on the boutique section, in contrast to a lot of the flags the lenders extra readily invested in on the time he was launching his firm. That section stays his focus: “I actually like a uniquely boutique, localized expertise and particularly love historic structure, which is why most of our belongings are historic.”
Because the Kirkwood Assortment has grown, they’re making a loyalty program of their very own, and their properties—all of that are in California—can share the administration sources of the corporate, he defined.
And in contrast to flagged properties which are comparable, there are not any restrictions on Kirkwood Assortment properties when it comes to their distance from each other as a result of competitors issues, as a result of they don’t seem to be solely distinctive, but additionally small. Three of the Assortment’s downtown Palm Springs properties are a working example: the 18-room La Serena Villas, in-built 1933; the 17-room Del Marcos Resort, designed in 1947 by famend mid-century architect William Cody and named a Class I historic website by town; and the 10-room Three Fifty Resort, in-built 1950 and renovated in 2017.
The Path Forward
Kirkwood mentioned the corporate is poised to develop, with a form of hybrid construction that features:
- The Mates and Household Fund, comprised of the primary six resorts and trip leases owned along with his household;
- Three different resorts acquired in partnership with Somera Capital Administration, a deal he sponsored; and
- A brand new division devoted solely to Kirkwood-branded administration contracts of third party-owned properties.
Describing the corporate’s plans and expectations for progress, Kirkwood mentioned, “We simply handed $100 million in complete actual property. We’re rising within the owned and operated portfolio and the three way partnership portfolio, and we’re now seeking to tackle our first lodge administration contract the place we don’t have an fairness stake. At this level, we’ve got a 10-property portfolio and a strong pipeline of offers within the works. Our workers is rising, too. We now have about 150 staff and count on that quantity to double within the coming 12 months.”
Classes From Tinseltown: The Cinematic Strategy to Resort Design and Advertising and marketing
It’s true that Alex Kirkwood, founder & CEO of the California-centric Kirkwood Assortment, walked away from his dream of constructing it in Hollywood to appreciate his dream of making distinctive properties within the lodge {industry}. But, he insisted, these desires will not be so completely different. “I went from advertising a two-hour film expertise to advertising a weekend getaway expertise—one thing obvious within the theatrical high quality of our lodge advertising, together with the ‘pedigree trailer’ we created for our portfolio,” he defined.
Kirkwood provided a notable quote from a Fox advertising government that he mentioned applies simply as a lot to the lodge {industry}: “In the event you attempt to make a film for everybody, you find yourself making a film for nobody.”
