ST. ANDREWS, SCOTLAND Debbie Taylor, new president of Kohler Co.’s hospitality and real estate group, of sits down with HOTELS to discuss ongoing upgrades to the company’s famous golf resorts—The American Club Resort-Hotel and Whistling Straits in Wisconsin and the legendary Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland. Taylor, one of nine women in the world to be named master innholder, is a fellow of the Institute of Hospitality and has served as chairman of British Hospitality Scotland for the last three years.
HOTELS: What are some of your goals for Kohler’s hospitality operations?
TAYLOR: We heavily invest. Always, 90% of our profits are reinvested into the company. We want to make sure that we’re continually offering the highest level of gracious hospitality to our guests, a really outstanding product and fantastic hospitality, which means that we’re continually investing and making sure that we listen actively to our customers. We reinvest and keep our hospitality business at the leading edge and the forefront of design and hospitality. That’s our competitive edge.
Not only in St. Andrews, but also in Destination Kohler, we have and are still planning a lot of investment into the property, both restoring the current businesses and expanding. And also we’re very keen to look at a third resort.
We are currently actively looking for a third resort. We tend to want a property either that is in existing iconic property or that we believe has the potential to be an iconic property. Both The American Club and Whistling Straits and the Old Course Hotel Golf Resort and Spa are truly iconic properties and are world-class.
HOTELS: Is there a particular geographic region that you’re looking at for this third property?
TAYLOR: Not really. It’s about the quality of either the existing resort or the opportunity to create something very special. Mr. Kohler loves to restore historic buildings and historic hotels, and to develop an unusual piece of land into iconic resorts and destinations. With Whistling Straits he really built that up, and there was no existing golf course so we started from scratch with that.
That is a very exciting opportunity to be able to look for a new property but also to have the commitment of investing and creating something that is really iconic and world-class.
HOTELS: Do you see the focus on golf and spa services will continue at Kohler?
TAYLOR: Yes, definitely. Golf is a great passion of Mr. Kohler’s, and undoubtedly our next resort will be a golf and spa resort. We have three Kohler Waters Spas now; we have the Kohler Waters Spa at the Old Course Hotel, the Kohler Waters Spa at Destination Kohler and also we have our Kohler Waters Spa Burr Ridge in Chicago, which is our first day spa. That actually is doing exceptionally well.
HOTELS: What challenges and opportunities lay ahead for these properties?
TAYLOR: Across all of hospitality and luxury resorts, I think the economic climate is always challenging. However, I think where the opportunity is for us is that unlike many other organizations we have continued to invest heavily within our properties throughout the difficult economic climate and, therefore, have a product that is second to none.
We invest not only in our product but in our people, as well. We have a very highly motivated, focused and skilled team. Our aim is always to grow market share and deliver exceptional results through our people and the quality of our product.
HOTELS: What changes have been made at the Old Course Hotel, and what is next for the property?
TAYLOR: The Old Course has been owned by the Kohler Corp. since October 2004, and in that time, we’ve completely remodeled the whole property. It’s very much, I would say, a showcase. We actually refurbished all of the bedrooms and suites and put very luxurious Kohler bathrooms into all of our rooms and suites… We had French designer Jacques Garcia, who has done a lot of work with Baker Furniture, redesign our suites. We have Baker furnishings now in all our suites and also in all the public areas of the hotel. We have a Kohler Waters Spa with our own Kohler water products, and it has thermal suites. We have a 20-m swimming pool with waterfall. It’s breathtakingly beautiful… We concluded some of the work to the front of the hotel and refurbished the lobby. We put new guest lifts in, refurbished the conservatory which actually goes out onto the 17th Road Hole with 360-degree views over the golf course, and the library, where we serve afternoon tea.
On the fourth floor of the hotel, we have our fine dining restaurant, Road Hole restaurant, which is a 3-rosette restaurant, and The Road Hole Bar, which has won the whisky supreme status of the world because it has over 270 malt whiskies from every distillery in Scotland. We put floor-to-ceiling glass windows the whole length of the fourth floor of the hotel, so the bar and restaurant have the most magnificent views over the North Sea, over the Old Course and over the town of St. Andrews. We have a rooftop deck, as well, which, again, has 360-degree views over the Old Course, the sea and the beach.
So really the Old Course has had a very extensive refurbishment. We continue to reinvest continually in the product. Most of the hotel has been done now so the enhancement of the resort is more about the continual investment with the addition of Hamilton Grand and also our next property that we’re going to launch, the Duke’s Residence, which is a listed building on the 17th hole of our own golf course, the Duke’s Course.
HOTELS: Tell us more about the Hamilton Grand as well as the Duke’s Residence.
TAYLOR: We purchased the Hamilton Grand in December 2009. We really wanted Hamilton Grand because it was such a natural extension to our resort offering and it would fit in with our portfolio perfectly, but there were a lot of other bidders for the property, and it was actually a blind bid.
The building dates back to 1895, and it used to be the Grand Hotel. It was the first property in Scotland to have a pneumatic lift and it was the first property to have hot and cold running water in every room. At that time, it was 100-bedroom hotel with shared bathrooms.
But it was very famous because the prince of Wales actually hired the whole hotel when he drove himself in as captain of the R&A in 1922. Also, Sam Snead is the last Open champion to stay there in 1946, and then Hollywood stars Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Mary Astor and Douglas Fairbanks used to stay at the hotel. It was very fashionable. It was reported in the Financial Times in London that it was at the forefront of interior design for any property in London, or anywhere else in the world. It was a very exclusive hotel. And then with the onset of World War II, the property was taken over to house the officers in the Royal Air Force. In those days, if you stayed in the Grand in the officer’s quarters you had to bring your ration book and your own soap. So after the war, it never was a hotel again. It actually was purchased by the University of St. Andrews as a residence for students. It was named after the duke of Hamilton, who was then principal of the university. It came to be called Hamilton Hall and until 2006 it was owned by the university.
Prior to us purchasing it, another investor purchased it to restore the building and make it into a hospitality residence. It was going to be a fractional ownership property. But, unfortunately, it got repossessed by the bank, which is when we bought it in 2009.
We spent nine months consulting with the town because it’s a piece of history that will be beautifully restored. It’s such a landmark in St. Andrews—it’s actually the second most photographed building in the world of golf, after the Royal and Ancient, which is adjacent to it. When you see the Dunhill Links Championship, in every shot of the first or the 18th hole you can see Hamilton Grand, so the local people and the people of Scotland are very passionate about it.
I also worked hand in hand with Historic Scotland, because it’s a Grade B-listed building, to look at how we could restore every one of its original assets still intact. We have a plan now to beautifully restore it to its former glory. It will be a private member’s residence with 26 apartments, for which you would buy a long-term lease. Every single one of the apartments is individual. The building has a great big grand staircase. There will be a bar and restaurant that will be open to the public within the property. And then for residents there will be a beautiful Residents’ Lounge with log fires and parquet flooring and historical golfing literature. And then on the top floor of the building, which is seven floors up, there will be a roof garden with 360-degree views. The penthouse apartment is on the top floor and has four bedrooms and a private roof garden.
So every single one is individual, and we actually plan to start selling the new property in the new year. Residence will be in summer 2012, because it’s about an 18-month plan for construction. We’re using some amazing craftsmen to do a lot of the restoration work.
HOTELS: Are there any particular experiences in your 25-plus years in the industry that will be particularly helpful to you in your new position as president?
TAYLOR: I’m really enjoying it. For me, my background was sales and marketing, and that’s always a very valuable experience when you look more strategically at growing the business. What we’ve done very successfully in St. Andrews is actually where the corporate market fell off. We actually replaced all of that business by growing our leisure business, really getting very sophisticated in terms of how we market to the end consumer, offering very innovative packages with a focus on quality but also value for money.
So although our RevPAR shows excellent growth, it is our innovative and creative packages that have worked really well. I think we need to take that marketing approach more global with Kohler.
Something that has been so important to me personally is personal development and management development. If you invest in people, you do have people who are highly motivated, very skilled, and that gives you a competitive advantage. We as an organization do have facilities for leadership development in Kohler. We have a whole leadership center and do a lot of leadership and development programs. We make sure that we really are, within our organization, developing our talent and attracting new talent because that gives us a really strong position as an organization and a leading edge against our competitors.