Alex Calderwood, co-founder of the Ace Hotel Group whose business card famously read “cultural engineer,” died Thursday at age 47.
Calderwood’s body was found in an Ace Hotel London guestroom and the cause of his death remains unclear. He had reportedly dealt with addiction issues in the past.
Ace Hotel Group, Portland, Oregon, issued a short statement on its blog: “Alex was our teacher, mentor, guru and most importantly our dear friend. We will miss him.”
Calderwood’s business associates issued statements as well:
- “Alex was our business partner but more than that our best friend and teacher. We will rally and continue to grow and build his vision — he left us with a keen understanding of our future,” said Brad Wilson, Ace Hotel Group president.
- “Words cannot express the loss I feel. Alex and I were more like brothers than business partners. He finished my creative thought on all the projects we worked on together from Rudy’s Barbershop to Ace Hotel. A creative genius who made more than a dent in the universe. His legacy will live on through those he mentored and the friends he made along the way,” said Wade Weigel, Calderwood’s business partner and friend.
- “Alex has been my friend and mentor for over a decade and I am not the only one. His humility, spirit of collaboration and tireless work ethic has influenced our family at Atelier Ace and creatives across the globe. We all plan to continue moving forward with the ideals Alex championed so naturally,” said Ryan Bukstein, director of PR and marketing.
Ace Hotel Group saw steady expansion over the past few years, opening the 300-room Ace Hotel New York in 2009 and the 265-room Ace Hotel London Shoreditch in September. The company’s pipeline includes hotels in Los Angeles and Panama. Ace took a unique approach to its lifestyle lodging product.
“We saw an opportunity to do something different in the middle tier. We weren’t looking to roll out a product that would appeal to everyone. We didn’t do market research or conduct focus groups. We just wanted to create a hotel that we’d like to stay in — one that appealed to us personally,” Calderwood said in a 2010 interview with HOTELS Magazine.
Bjorn Hanson, Ph.D., divisional dean, Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies, said that Calderwood had been “immensely generous to the Tisch Center sponsoring internships and hiring alumni” and extended his deepest sympathy to Calderwood’s family and friends.