It’s a cool but sunny day in January on the terrace of the NoMad Bar in Las Vegas. A jazz trio is playing a special set inside to a buzzing brunch crowd but out on the patio, the vibe is calm and relaxed. Inside feels like old New York with its lit-up bar, tufted camel-colored leather seating and maroon velvet-covered banquettes. Outside feels like the South of France with the bright sunlight, palm trees, and rattan seating. Yet the airplanes cruising over the Strip are constant reminders that this is neither New York nor France, but Las Vegas.
Andrew Zobler sits down near the Mediterranean-style wall fountain and places a hardcover book he’s been carrying with him on the table, “Ritz & Escoffier: The Hotelier, The Chef and the Rise of the Luxury Class.” This is what a busy hotelier reads during his downtime.
Zobler is coming off one of the most demanding years in his career as founder and chief executive officer of Sydell Group. Last year, the company—which created the NoMad, Line and Freehand hotel brands and also manages The Saguaro brand—opened five new hotels, including Park MGM Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, a partnership with MGM Resorts. More impressively, three of those hotels opened within the first month of the year.
Needless to say, the somewhat elusive Zobler is looking forward to taking a break in 2019. “Personally, I’m trying to find some balance,” he says. “This past year has taken a toll on me physically with flights and meetings and all that kind of stuff.”
While Sydell Group has no new hotels to open this year, the company still has several exciting projects in the works. Plans are underway for a Line Hotel in San Francisco, opening in 2020 as a new build, a rarity for Sydell, which often seeks out historic buildings for adaptive reuse. Another Line Hotel is being dreamed up for Detroit, while the upscale NoMad brand is expanding to London. This would be Sydell’s second hotel in London, after The Ned, which opened there in 2017 in a partnership with Soho House. More hotel announcements will come soon, Zobler adds.
In the meantime, there is the ongoing “bob and weave” strategy, as Zobler described the adjustments being made at the just-opened hotels including The Line Austin, The Line DC, and The NoMad Hotel Las Vegas, a hotel-within-a-hotel at Park MGM.
“I always ask, ‘Is it going to be as good as the NoMad New York?’” Zobler says of his expansion philosophy. “Probably not. But can it be better than what’s already there?”
Dealer with creative chops
Zobler’s hotelier career is at once predictable and unexpected. His background as a real estate lawyer and investor gave him the negotiating chops necessary to hold leadership positions in both acquisitions and development for Starwood Hotels & Resorts, and as general counsel and chief investment officer for André Balazs Properties. But to have joined the ranks of visionaries like Ian Schrager and Balazs was something out of the blue.
“When I first met him, I was not convinced he was an industry mover and shaker,” says Sean Hennessy, chief executive officer of Lodging Advisors, LLC and an assistant professor at NYU’s Tisch Center for Hospitality. “But he has won me over. The boutique hotel market is an increasingly crowded field, which makes it difficult to do what he’s done, which is stand out from the rest.”
Zobler credits his grandmother Sydell, who owned a successful antiques business, for his passion for interesting and old things (she’s also the company namesake.) He used to travel with her to Europe in the summers and accompanied her on antique hunts, fostering his appreciation for design while teaching him the ins and outs of business.
At Starwood, working with Barry Sternlicht, who Zobler still speaks with regularly, he saw first-hand the evolution of a hotel brand, W Hotels. Later, working with Balazs further exposed him to design, particularly with regards to the guest room experience.
But it was partnering with the late Alex Calderwood of Atelier Ace for the Ace New York Hotel, Sydell Group’s first venture into the hotel development world that showed Zobler the importance of partnerships. “Alex was just a super lovely human being,” Zobler says. “And he taught me about the value of partnering with young, talented artists.”
Indeed, what has made Sydell Group properties so successful and endearing to guests is that there are collaborations in every brand, at every property. Freehand Hotels has the Broken Shaker bar from Gabriel Orta and Elad Zevi, a tropical bar oasis that originated at the first Freehand in Miami and has now expanded to the Los Angeles, Chicago and New York locations. NoMad has partnered with French interior designer Jacques Garcia and Be-Poles branding for all three of its hotels, as well as with Chef Daniel Humm and restaurateur Will Guidara for the NoMad Restaurants. Designer Sean Knibb has set the style for all three Line Hotels but the brand has also picked up chefs and bartenders from their individual cities.
Being willing to partner up with artists and other brands is also what’s given Sydell Group their edge over other hotel companies, particularly as bigger brands continue to mimic boutique style. “The hotel industry is just taking what has statistically proven to work and they keep doing that over and over,” Zobler says.
When going through the design process with MGM Resorts, which has 42,000 rooms in the Las Vegas market and very thorough market research behind it, Zobler says he was grateful that MGM gave his team the latitude to do their thing. “I’m not saying we weren’t edited,” he says. “But we were definitely given a chance.”
Another challenge for Sydell Group in Las Vegas was to create something that’s beautiful and bespoke but also durable. “Anyone can design a beautiful hotel room but it really comes down to the materiality,” he says. “We try to prepare as best as we can for what guests will do in the rooms, but we don’t always get it right.”
About partners
Another testament to Zobler’s success is who he surrounds himself with. Sydell Group is a partnership between Zobler and investor Ron Burkle who’s also an investor with Soho House. But the operations and development team at Sydell is stacked with industry vets from indie and major brands alike such as W, Standard, Sixty, Bunkhouse, Kimpton and Four Seasons.
“He’s assembled a high quality cast of talent,” Hennessy says. “It’s a testament to his leadership, especially on the creative side of the hospitality industry.”
Here too, Zobler has been willing to cede control to those with more in the know. “When I was younger, I was out all the time,” Zobler says of his time scouting out what was cool and happening. “But now I’m happy at home in the country with my dogs.”
And he’s not worried about what the competition is up to either. “I don’t really look at what other people are doing to be honest,” Zobler says. “There are some
people who absolutely hate the NoMad in New York. They say, ‘I just didn’t get it.’ And that’s fine with me. Then there are the people who love it. They feel as if they are staying in a French’s girls apartment with a little New York flair.”
Looking ahead, Zobler says he would like to do more partnerships like the one with MGM and Soho House. Also on his mind for the future is revamping traditional hotel meeting spaces or as he sees it, “bringing the soul to it” particularly for large technology companies like Google and Amazon.
As for slowing down, or stepping away, that’s not a chapter he’s ready to start. “We had a moment where we could have sold the business,” he says. “And that was a bit of an introspection process for me, but ultimately this is what I want to continue to do.”