Are you curious about what it takes to build a successful boutique hotel company from the ground up?
In this episode, hosts David Millili and Steve Carran interview Ethan Orley, Founder and Managing Partner of Oliver Hospitality. Ethan shares his journey from environmental studies to real estate and hospitality, discussing how he and his partner built Oliver Hospitality from the ground up.
The conversation covers:
- Ethan's background and early career experiences
- The founding and growth of Oliver Hospitality
- Insights into boutique hotel development and management
- Creative strategies used during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Advice for aspiring independent hoteliers
- The importance of local partnerships and community integration
- Ethan's perspective on the Detroit hospitality scene
You will gain valuable insights into the boutique hotel industry, creative problem-solving in hospitality, and the entrepreneurial journey of building a successful hotel management company.
Sponsor spot:
This episode is sponsored by ReactMobile: https://www.reactmobile.com/
Join the conversation on today's episode on The Modern Hotelier LinkedIn page.
The Modern Hotelier is produced, edited, and published by Make More Media: https://makemore.media/
Episode Links
Ethan Orley
David Millili
Steve Carran
Steve on LinkedIn
The Modern Hotelier
Transcript
Automatic Transcription - please excuse any errors
Steve Carran: David, today we have on Ethan Orley. Ethan is the founder and managing partner at Oliver Hospitality. Oliver Hospitality is a Nashville-based hotel and restaurant management company, and Ethan is an accomplished manager and entrepreneur, having a unique perspective with 15 years of real estate investing, development, and operations. Welcome to the show, Ethan.
Ethan Orley: Thanks, Steve. Thanks, David, for having me.
David Millili: All right. So we're going to get started. We're going to go through a real quick lightning round, learn about your background, your career, and then get into some industry topics. Sound good?
Ethan Orley: Sounds great.
David Millili: All right. What was your first job?
Ethan Orley: First job, outside of mowing the lawn, my father had me working for his friend's company polishing fiber optic sensors on a production line. So I listened to a lot of books on tape.
David Millili: All right. What's something you wish you were better at?
Ethan Orley: Basketball.
David Millili: Do you have a role model?
Ethan Orley: Probably off the top of my head, um, I'll go with Gandhi and Einstein.
David Millili: Yeah. All right. What's a luxury that you can't live without?
Ethan Orley: Locks and bagels.
David Millili: Alright, what's a place you've never been to that you most like to go to?
Ethan Orley: Namibia.
David Millili: So if you had your own late-night talk show, who would your first guest be?
Ethan Orley: Probably you guys.
David Millili: All right, good. Yeah, we like that.
Ethan Orley: Outside of that, gosh, wow, this is tough, guys. Probably somebody from the comedic circle. Let's go with Eddie Murphy.
David Millili: All right. Last one. If you had a time machine, you can go into the future, into the past. Which way are you going? And what year are you going to?
Ethan Orley: So, uh, definitely going into the future, 50 years might be too early, but also might be too late,
David Millili: Right.
Ethan Orley: So let's, let's go with an even 500.
David Millili: Okay. Wow.
Steve Carran: There we go. There we go.
David Millili: Great. So
Steve Carran: We're going to learn a little bit more about your personal background and what makes you tick. So, you grew up in Detroit, is that right?
Ethan Orley: I grew up in suburban Detroit because I don't want to be perceived as a poser for having said I grew up in the 313. But I love Detroit, yes, and so we made plenty of downtown trips growing up, and I'm spending more and more time down there now.
Steve Carran: Awesome. How did, how did that shape you into who you are today growing up in a suburb of Detroit?
Ethan Orley: You know, it is a really beautiful area. And I was actually just taking a lift four days ago from suburban Detroit, my father's house, to the airport. And the guy picked me up, he was coming in from Detroit, and he goes, what's this like, growing up in the Ritzy part of, uh, suburban Detroit? I go, Honestly, it's kind of amazing. And I wish this upon everybody. It's a beautiful place to be. It's not exactly where I think I'd like to raise my own family because I'm a little bit more, maybe not more urban, but I like to be a little bit kind of having spent 10 years in New York, I think has influenced, you know, me to the sense that I want to be somewhere where I'm a little bit closer to my neighbors, have that sense of community. But back to your question. I think it impacted me from the sense that, like, I know what a peaceful, you know, it's kind of, safe environment can be, but I also know kind of, you know, how unusual and luxurious that is as well, if you put it kind of relative to the rest of the world.
David Millili: You stayed in state and graduated from Michigan with a degree in environmental policy, then you got a master's from NYU in real estate finance. How do those two degrees go hand in hand? What made you kind of make that from environmental to real estate?
Ethan Orley: Great question. I've been trying to reconcile that my whole life, but I'll tell you what happened was, I was definitely, call it, you know, an environmentalist, um, somebody who championed the environment, you know, early, you know, early on. And when I got to college or prior to enrolling, I said, okay, what's the most pressing topic in the world today? And I said, well, the environment. And so I like to study the environment or at least figure out what they're talking about so I could help influence decisions later in life. Little did I know that that required a lot of chemistry, biology, mathematics, statistics, and policy papers, which I'm all terrible at. And so I went through college, probably not do as well as one would do if they took on a subject matter that they were a little bit more apt to. So, um, again, I look back, you know, and I think it may not have been the right choice for kind of excelling at college, but I still feel like it was the right choice because my heart was in it. And I felt very committed to doing a, call it a liberal arts education. Whether or not you consider that in the liberal arts, I consider that kind of a broad topic, whereas I was very adamant that I was going to do business training of any sort, it would be in a graduate degree. So kind of that, that kind of classic four years of just explore the world and then we can kind of go into business later.
Steve Carran: So, Ethan, I gotta ask you. I was doing my research on you and I came across something interesting. And there's not many two Ethan Orleys out there. So I found that, were you a photographer for a book called Weaving a Persian Heartbeat? A photo of Orly Chabanhang Persian Carpet Weaving. Were you the photographer for that book?
Ethan Orley: That is me. You guys do your research. Wow. Okay. Wow.
Steve Carran: How did this become to be? Because...
Ethan Orley: So I grew up in a family. My mother was an artist, but not a, not a publicized artist. Kind of a home artist. So she came with an artistic kind of background. My grandfather was an artist. My father left the real estate and legal profession to pursue a hobby that became his line of work, which was selling both antique and new Persian carpets. Because he was, he was the guy who college who said, I'm going to kind of, I'm going to, I'm going to go against all my parents advice and travel the world and end up between Turkey, Morocco, and Iran, and met his current day business partner there who went, who was up against revolution and had to kind of leave and my father helped him get a green card to the US. And so my father became partners with Bahram Shabahang, who was a close family friend, great guy, great family and, and, you know, settled in Milwaukee. My father started in this, in this Persian rug trade and opened a store in New York. And because of the embargo and because of the relations, he couldn't travel to Iran for many, many years. So 20 plus years had passed. And then there was a small opening and he said to me, he said, do you wanna come with me to Iran? I said, well, obviously. And so we went with one of his collectors, who was kind of the arts patron of Chicago, and we traveled to Iran through Dubai. As it turned out, I was in Peru just three weeks earlier and I had broken my ankle. So I was on crutches in Iran, photo documenting the entire trip where we went village to village seeing how the carpets were made. And so I ended up producing this book, along with a well-known graphic designer and we did this book. And so that's how I got involved.
Steve Carran: Wow, that is a story. That is awesome. That is very cool. We got to know your background a little bit. Now we're going to go into your career, how you got to where you are today with Oliver Hospitality. So, you were an analyst after college for a Detroit-based real estate group, got your master's, then you were an associate for Rossrock. What did those earlier days teach you that help you in your role today as a managing partner at Oliver?
Ethan Orley: Oh, wow. Lots to unpack there. I was actually an analyst for my uncle, who's in the real estate business. And it was a small group. And so I was out, can you imagine? I was out after college, having an environmental policy degree and I was doing exactly what they told us not to do, which was go out and buy farmland to turn them into McMansionville. And so if you can imagine, I dreaded every day of my life. My uncle was great and the company was good, but my principles were obviously at, were pushing up against what I was, what I was doing. And more than that, it wasn't really, I think, eliciting any of my creativity and what I wanted to do. So I, after two years there, I left and moved to New York City. Like all people do to kind of clean slate, they go to grad school, they go to business school to kind of find out who they are. So I went and did a real estate finance degree really because I had no idea how to actually buy a building. How do you buy a building? How do you underwrite it? What's an IRR? What's a return on investment? And so I went to grad school and that's where I kind of learned all that. And so, to me, I learned a few things through the entire experiment. One was, you do something, you dread it. You know, you're going to know when you actually enjoy something. And so I think what that taught me was exactly what I didn't want to do and now know what I like to do. And I do love what I do. It's intoxicating. Call me workaholic, but I really love it. It's like, you know, if you love what you like, you'll never, I guess, work a day in your life. And so that was great. And how did I get into the business?
Steve Carran: So, what'd you learn from those jobs that kind of helps you in your role today?
Ethan Orley: I think, you know, when you're buying farmland as a kind of an acquisition specialist, you know, you learn kind of tenacity and, you know, you learn how to be a self-starter and, you know, you got all day to try to figure out how to get a deal done. I also learned that timing is everything. I tied up all this land, and by the time they tried to close on it, the economy changed and they basically gave up all the free options. I lost all my commissions and, you know, ended up making no money for two years working for my uncle. When that's fine, it wasn't his fault. I would have done the same thing. But, you know, I think starting my own business, you know, is giving me the kind of the greatest degree of all times. And so I think my experience, I would say is probably influenced more by my own doing than necessarily by the jobs I had. And that's a whole other story because I think I probably would have done things differently, you know, had I, in hindsight, as far as what, what types of internships and work I would have done to prepare me even more for where I am today.
David Millili: In 2009, you founded, became managing partner of DNA Associates, also Oliver Hospitality, and then in 2022 you launched Oliver Hospitality Management. Tell us how those companies work together.
Ethan Orley: So my partner, my co-founder, Philip Welker, we both knew each other in graduate school in New York City at NYU. And, you know, when we had the economic collapse in 09, you know, we, we both had kind of either lost our jobs or, or our opportunities were so non-existent where we were currently working that it just made sense to leave. And so we were out playing tennis on the Westside Highway in New York City. If your listeners can kind of geolocate that and, you know, cause nobody was doing anything. We're just living on unemployment. And like, what are you doing? And he said, well, you know, there's about 5,000 apartments that have gone REO, and that's real estate owned for those who don't know, which means that the banks, banks took them back. He says, I'm going to try to buy up all the apartments in Tennessee. And I said, well, that's funny. I'm trying to raise money to buy stuff in the Midwest, but nobody's returning my call because nobody wants to invest, you know, in Ohio and Michigan, back in 09 and 10. And he goes, well, why don't you just take that money and help me, you know, buy things in the Southeast where everybody is, wants to be. Southeast has been hot, you know, for a while now. I said, that sounds like a great plan. So we, we kind of hatched the plan to try to buy apartments and that's where it all started. So, we launched BNA Associates in 2009, and our first deal was an apartment deal, and then six months thereafter, we found our first hotel deal. So, David, I'll answer your question, then I'll kind of go back in time. So, BNA Associates was first, but we actually, we had launched Oliver Hospitality Management without actually calling it that. We, you know, we were just two guys with a hotel. You know, we just hadn't split it between an op co. and a prop co. But we essentially launched our own management company. But it was two guys, without any know-how, sitting in their apartment in front of a laptop just trying to figure it out. And I was buying mini toothbrushes and sampling pillows in my office saying, I think we should just go with this one. Order 50. So, we actually launched both at the same time, but it was more official in the last several years where we've kind of helped kind of define the different entities. BNA Associates is actually just a kind of a GP holdco. All of our hospitality development is our kind of development entity which we use to develop and then Oliver Hospitality Management is our management operations company, which by and large, encapsulates, you know, 98 percent of our team members, our company, our B2C model, and so all that kind of happened, you know, along the way as we had more kind of time and money to kind of help differentiate each.
Steve Carran: That's great. So, for those that might not be as familiar with Oliver Hospitality, you guys manage both hotels and restaurants, correct? Can you tell us a little bit more about the hotels that you guys manage?
Ethan Orley: I think this will answer the question and also complete the last one as well. After we bought the Oliver Hotel in Knoxville, we went on to do, to this point, we've done about nine different hotel deals, notwithstanding additional restaurants. So, after the Oliver, we went on to the Claremont and the Fairlane, both in Nashville and Atlanta respectively. We did two more Airbnb hotels in Nashville. We did two properties out in California. We recently did one in Oxford, Mississippi, and we did several other smaller restaurant deals along the way. So the genesis was, okay, we both want to get in the hotel business. Okay, how do we do it? And it was really Phillip who said, Hey, there's a little 28-room hotel for sale in Knoxville, Tennessee. And I said, where? And he goes, Knoxville. I said, you know, I passed through it on a school trip, but I didn't know Knoxville from anywhere else. It's pretty straightforward. You know, you clean the sheets and you take their money and you do it every day. And, you know, we should be able to figure this one out. And I said, well, I traveled, you know, all over the world. I traveled through college and I love, I love the idea of being in the hotel business because it's a good to get an airplane to go somewhere. It has a real estate component, which you can finance, so I think it's good business. And it has a design component, which was good because we both had experienced great boutique hotels on both the east and west coasts of the U.S. and also in Europe. And so we love the idea of kind of spreading our wings and being able to add a component that you traditionally can't do in typical real estate because just the economics don't work in your favor so we ended up doing all these different hotels and so to this, you know at this point we're currently, uh, we've terminated or left some of the deals that we were in or were able to kind of round trip them, you know, through a sale. But today we're operating seven hotels in four states. We have around 300 associates across the company, but a 20-person corporate team, and we run everything in-house from, your kind of traditional hospitality roles, accounting, revenue management, sales and marketing, all the way to the development side of both project management, owners representation, and also, interior design, architecture, etc. So we really kind of run the gamut from a full-service hospitality development and operations business.
David Millili: And is there any types of buildings or styles that you guys focus on? Like when you're in a city, you see a building and say, yeah, that's, that's the type of property we'd like to have or have a hotel there.
Ethan Orley: Yes, you know, we had, we had a meeting the other day and we go, you know, what's, what's our business model? I go, it's very simple. Great buildings in great locations where we can make a difference in the community. And I don't necessarily mean that always from a philanthropic angle. I mean like where we can be kind of the big fish in a small pond, where we can actually mean something and be known for something. And we tend to try to find buildings that have a story. So those predominantly end up being either historic or modern with a certain edge to them. And so we like story deals, David. I think we love, I mean, it's, it is way too much work, but it gets us up every morning to kind of have to take a building and think through what its personality is and what its brand will be. And I think, so I think instead of like, I think to use kind of an analogy, I guess in the movies, we're more of the kind of writers and directors who like to kind of take on a different genre every time than just do a series. And the series probably makes a hell of a lot more money. But we just thrive on the challenge. So we like opportunistic deals, in the sense that we like the deals that have an economic advantage. So historic building, you can buy it, cheaper. You get the historic tax credits and you don't have the complexity of going through a multi-year rezoning. And so you kind of have some kind of as of right, opportunity. And we also like the buildings that have a story, so we can kind of play up a boutique lifestyle angle that you can't get from just always building ground up. You can, but in many ways, it becomes more expensive and you have to fabricate more of the story.
Steve Carran: So now we're going to go into industry thoughts, but I'm going to call this industry best practices because I found a few things that you've done really well with a few of your hotels. So we're going to point those out. And I want to hear your thoughts on them. So, during the pandemic, you were able to build out partnerships and create new revenue streams for the Oliver Hotel. What type of revenue streams did you build out? And what was the effect that those revenue streams had on the hotel?
Ethan Orley: I'll give you just the most kind of poignant example. We have some very talented, creative, and tenacious people on our team. One of those individuals is Sandra Richardson, who's been with the company for eight or nine years now. And Sandra spearheaded the execution of a number of popups at the Fairlane Hotel. And so as you guys remember, during Covid, nobody was traveling and we were all locked up in our home cities with nothing to do. And the government was sending us lots of cash. And so she's like, let's just do popups. And so we did that at the Fairlane. And every three months they literally reconcepted the penthouse, and just threw a new kind of thematic event, you know, whether it was like an ode to a musical like Wizard of Oz, or they had Alice in Wonderland, or they had like Japanese kind of cherry blossom season, or whatever it was, and those sold a lot of drinks and produced a lot of needed revenue to cover the mortgage in that period of time. And it was so successful that when I was on a flight the other day, and they go, Oh, what hotel group are you with? I go, Oh, like Oliver Hospitality. We did the Fairlane. Oh, the pop-up hotel. And, you know, for better or for worse, we actually ended up the pop-up series recently because it was just, it was a lot of energy and we had to convert the space to group meeting space. But that was an example of a team doing something very quickly, very inexpensively at the time, in-house to solve a revenue crunch problem.
David Millili: So at the Fairlane, you utilized underperforming hotel space to create revenues. So what advice do you have for hotel listeners to get the most out of their space or maybe in particular, you know, unused space?
Ethan Orley: On one hand, I could say, go ahead and just do activations. We've done that where you bring in local artists, and you have them set up tables, it creates a connection with the community. One of the things that hotels have that other places don't is they tend to have large lobby space and it's a real asset to the community that you can kind of open your doors and you automatically have a place for an artist to stay the night. You have a place where they can have a coffee, a place to have lunch. I mean, there are very few places that have all those things in one. It doesn't exist. That's why they call them hotels. But full-service hotels specifically have both that opportunity and responsibility in a community, which is why every small town in America wants a boutique hotel, because it's the cornerstone of a downtown in a sense. What advice would I give you for spaces that are underperforming? Another thing we did, at the Fairlane, I'll give you another example of the Fairlane, is we had an underperforming all-day cafe that happened to have a deck oven. And so I said, well, it's not performing well. There's a local couple at the farmer's market that make bagels in their own home kitchen. Why don't we just give them our space and say, run it. And so what we did was we actually just handed the keys over and they were like, you know, you're talking about a million-dollar space that most people in their wildest dreams wouldn't kind of just walk into, especially through an Instagram IM. And I just said, you guys, do you guys want to take it over during COVID? And they did. It was very, very successful. So I think the lesson I would like to take from that is don't be afraid to find young entrepreneurs to jump in and come up with their own ideas to activate a space and possibly generate more revenue than you could have produced yourself through some kind of short-term lease opportunity where there are some kind of guardrails in place.
Steve Carran: So I feel like every episode these days, we talk about how experiences are being incorporated into the hotel stay, and focusing more on hyper-local experiences. I noticed on Hotel Claremont's website, you have a neighborhood map. What type of return have you seen on kind of this hyper-local take and what would you, any, any advice for how to form these partnerships within your community?
Ethan Orley: So you were talking early on about like who, you know, who, who are your, who, who are your mentors? Who are your idols? Who would you, there are a lot of great hoteliers out there that I look up to and I'm on their websites. Now I get their feeds. I'm like, Oh my God, they do such a great job. I wish we could. I count myself as somebody who's kind of staying on the shoulders of other giants. And we're still learning our way. In particular with Claremont, I think, I think Claremont to us was a very obvious opportunity to do what a lot of the other kind of great hotels, you know, so I'll just, you know, coming, living in New York City for, for 10 years, the Ace Hotel, which everyone loves, was really a remarkable shift. What Alex Calderwood did was kind of what, you know, Bill Kempton did and Ian Traeger did, you know, really kind of helped transform the industry in a monumental way. And I think Ace did a very good job of just drawing in kind of the coolest of the cool. And you felt that way when you went there. And so when we opened the Claremont, I think it was just obvious that this was going to be a cool spot and kind of evoke some of those same kind of responses locally. And it was, and it had all the local flavor, including the Claremont Lounge in the basement. So I think the community knew that because we hadn't shut down the lounge and because we kept the old rooftop radio tower, and because we changed the signs up all the time, and it just felt very eclectic. And casual and normal and it was kind of like come as you are, our motto or our subtitle, actually was coined by Ashley Earnhardt who used to work with our company. It was anything goes, everyone's welcome. And that is literally on our website today and it's kind of a cool thing. It's like, oh my God, it's like a, it's like, is this a hotel? Is this a community center? It's kind of all of the above. And so I think it was very natural for us to put that map up and to kind of continue to work with local artisans and, you know, tattoo parlors and florists and it's like, come in and hang out, you know, and have a drink. It's that kind of place. So we learned that from others, but again, it was a unique hotel for that time in Atlanta and still is today because of what it represents in Atlanta.
David Millili: Yeah, it's great. You just don't get the same feeling when you walk into some of these branded hotels that you do independent, which is what I love in my whole background. Has been independent. But so you've got a good handle on the real estate market, hospitality market. What advice would you give to say the next generation, the younger guys and gals coming up who are aspiring to be future independent hoteliers?
Ethan Orley: I would say the lucky break that we got was we happened to buy at the very bottom of the real estate market. And we bought into a community that was ready for a boutique lifestyle hotel. They just didn't know it. Or at least some of the folks that were kind of naysayers didn't know it, but I think plenty of people knew it. And we were able to kind of get in and do some quick work, kind of bootstrap type real estate development, if you will. And so my advice is if you can't buy at the bottom of a real estate cycle, because you can't time that, or at least you can't wait around 10 years for it to hit, then try to buy in a secondary or tertiary market. Go to Gary, Indiana. Go to, I mean, go, go anywhere, go someplace that nobody talks about and go buy an old building. Hopefully, it was a former hotel because you don't have to move the walls and it'd be a lot cheaper. And so basis, basis, basis is the key in all real estate. And it's the fundamental basis for a good hotel business because underlying every great hotel is a great piece of real estate. So I would advise anyone who's listening to feel free to start smaller. 28 rooms is definitely on the small side and a lot of the great hoteliers that we approached early on were like, guys, it's not going to work. The way it worked for us was because we ended up running a easily 150% penetration index right off the bat. And so you definitely have to be the most expensive hotel in town to hit above your kind of key count weight class. And don't be afraid to put in a bar component and a restaurant component because those dollars matter. And so I would advise if you're going to do something smaller, to add those components that will help drive top-line revenue so you can afford a necessary, call it management team at the local level. So, all that being said, don't be afraid. Buy something with good bones. Don't be, you know, if you got to do your own interior design, procure your own, you know, mini shampoos, you got to do what you got to do. And I think it'll prove itself out.
Steve Carran: So we've been asking you questions this whole time, so now we're going to turn the tables a little bit and let you ask David and I a question.
Ethan Orley: Okay. So let me ask you guys, individually or collectively, if you could do it all over again. Last 10 years, what would you have done differently in your own careers? And what do you see as the next opportunity in the marketplace for hoteliers?
David Millili: Yeah, no, I had a situation where I was selling off divisions of a big company and I was so locked into helping the ownership sell off. It was a technology company that was Pegasus Solutions, which most people know. And I was so focused on helping the ownership group. I should have bought or figured out how to buy one of the pieces of that company. But I was so focused on helping the ownership group. And I kind of just was at the end, I was kind of standing there like, okay, now what do I do? Cause I'd sold my company into that company. So. At the end, it was like, I, you know, it was like, okay, well, where's everybody? I've, you know, for a decade, you know, almost a decade, it was actually a decade, you know, I had my team, I had all these people. So I really kind of, that was one thing where I look back and I wish I would've, you know, done that differently. And, you know, and I think the biggest thing I always do is sometimes when you get older, you take fewer chances. And I think that's the wrong approach. I think sometimes I have to remind myself like, Hey, go for it. Take that chance, do it. When I started out, no kids, wasn't married, get married, kids. And all of a sudden you start thinking differently. But sometimes you have to think about that, that person who's, think the way you were when you were 24, not the way you are now, which could be, you know, 44, 54 or so.
Ethan Orley: Yeah. And David, just to respond to that, I could not agree with you more. I think the great, Oh, you know what? You guys asked a question early on. I actually didn't give you the real zinger answer, which was that I left my job. After Lehman collapsed, I still had a job. They were paying me very little at that point. I left because another former boss said, Hey, come join us. So I left my job. And then when it came time to join him, he goes, you know, I don't know if it's going to work. And I go, Oh my God, I'm out of a job. And I was crushed. And I just got engaged. And my wife had the chance to marry an investment banker who was making oodles of money and she said, you better make this thing work. And I said, I better get my act together. And if I had not lost my job and not had that next opportunity happen, I never would have started this. And the best thing to happen to you is to lose your job. And COVID has made many, many entrepreneurs. And so I told my, I told a friend of mine who lost his job recently. I said, you know, you know, if you got rehired, you're going to be stuck for the next 10 years. If you want to start something, it's now because once you become attached, it's very hard to leave, especially if you have family or children. So take an opportunity, even if it doesn't look like an opportunity.
Steve Carran: You guys took the words right out of my mouth. I was going to say, I wish, like, we started this podcast as our third year doing it, and it's been just such an enjoyable experience, you know, building this with David and Jon, and I wish I would have done, like, taken a chance sooner. I've always been in hotel technology working for companies, but I wish, We would have started this podcast 10 years earlier. That would have been great. But, you know, not even that, but gone out and started something even if it's on the side earlier in my career. But, at least we got it started, I guess. So, uh, we're all right. But, uh, that was a really good question. We haven't, we haven't been asked that before. So, so well done on that one, Ethan. So, uh, last question we're gonna ask you here. Jon, our producer, has been listening the whole time. So he's gonna give you our last question before we sign off.
Jon Bumhoffer: First off, I'm a Michigan guy too. Go blue. I didn't graduate, but I am from Michigan. So, very cool there. I'm, yeah, I hold up the map. I'm from the Thumb. Tip-top.
Ethan Orley: The thumb.
Jon Bumhoffer: Grew up in Lake Huron. Yep, yep, yep.
Ethan Orley: Okay.
Jon Bumhoffer: Yeah, I run into anybody and they wanna like know where I'm from, I was like, alright, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna hold up the hand. We're gonna, we're gonna do it. Like, kinda give them the warning.
Steve Carran: I have to jump in here. Do you guys get offended when Wisconsin people do that? Cuz they you guys do this and we turn it around the other way.
Ethan Orley: I've never seen that.
Steve Carran: I would. I'm curious if you get offended by that like cuz we're copying you.
Ethan Orley: Is that like appropriate? That's like Michigan appropriation.
Steve Carran: Kind of. It is a little bit.
Ethan Orley: Yeah, that is, that's, that's insulting.
Jon Bumhoffer: He said it. My question is kind of following the Michigan train of thought here. Detroit, you kind of grew up outside of it. You've probably seen it over go, you know, when you visited. You've seen it. Evolve over the years. Like it's way different. Like my older brother used to live in Detroit, not that long ago. And we would hang out downtown. It's so different and kind of in some good ways. And I would, my question is, what do you see in the evolution? That's kind of cool and exciting. And what hospitality properties or hotels in, in Detroit, do you think people should go and see or visit?
Ethan Orley: Jon, have you been reading my emails? So I'm not allowed to announce anything yet. But we are working on a project in Detroit. We actually just recently signed it, and we hope to announce a hotel downtown soon and kind of join the party. It's been a dream of mine. Actually, Philip, my partner and I, we actually had a deal tied up 10 years ago downtown, and the guy wouldn't close with us, so that was kind of a bummer. But, you know, super excited to get back downtown. It is totally different from when I grew up, even just 15 years ago. You know, love the evolution, a lot of things have kind of gone right, and you know, whether you think it was the right thing or the wrong thing, between the bankruptcy, Dan Gilbert kind of just kind of going for it, you know, just the passion. I mean, Detroit is a very exciting place to be right now. And so I look forward to hosting you guys at our property if, if it's, you know, if it, you know, gets off the ground here.
Steve Carran: Absolutely. Last question for you. What were your thoughts on the Detroit sign? It was supposed to be like the Hollywood sign and then the actual thing came out. What did you think?
Ethan Orley: Wait, wait, hold on, hold on. What Detroit? Where, where was the sign?
Steve Carran: There's a so, they were the rendering for this was it was gonna be this huge like a Hollywood sign that said Detroit and it was this big thing and then they rolled it out and the letters are a lot smaller than the rendering showed.
Ethan Orley: Yeah, I would, I would say, without having seen this rendering, I think what makes the Hollywood sign unique is that it's on the side of a very large hill.
Steve Carran: Right.
Ethan Orley: And Detroit, if you've been there, is, has this much elevation. And so, I think it's probably a non-starter, unless you put it on the top of the Ambassador Bridge. You know, maybe a potential fail. I wasn't part of that one.
Steve Carran: Fair enough. Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, this was great. David, why don't you take us out here?
David Millili: That does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. Ethan, this is where you get to plug away. Tell us where they can find you, find your company. Go for it.
Ethan Orley: Just real fast, you know, we opened two hotels. Come, come check out the two new ones. One's the Oliver Hotel in Oxford, Mississippi. The other one is Lodge Marconi in West Marin, between Point Reyes and Bodega Bay, just one hour north of San Francisco. And we're launching a hotel in Detroit. We're launching a hotel in Clarksville, Tennessee in September. We're launching a new hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee. It's getting started soon. You can reach us at OliverHospitality.com. You can reach me at Ethan at OliverHospitality.com. Come visit, our door is always open. We're out of Nashville, Tennessee, and we look forward to partnering with you if you've got a project and you're looking for a management company, or if you're looking to sell a building, we'd love for you to keep us in mind. So, thanks for having me.
David Millili: So that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. So whether you're watching or listening, we appreciate you and we'll be with you again soon. Thank you.