An Ever Evolving Industry - Christina Zimmer - Episode # 097

what I do is inconsequential why I do what I do is I get to shorten people's Journeys every day what I love about our
hospitality industry is that it's our mission to make people feel cared for while on their Journeys together we'll
explore what Hospitality means in the built environment in business and in our
daily lives I'm Dan Ryan and this is defining Hospitality today's guest is a valued member of our
Hospitality Community with over 30 years of experience she has an enlightened eye for design
she consistently composes and collaborates with world-class teams of Architects and designers to execute
unique and Innovative Hotel Concepts she is the senior vice president of
design at Highgate hotels ladies and gentlemen Christina Zimmer welcome Christina thank you Dan nice to be here
it's so good to be here and I know that you know 30 years of experience we've
experienced each other and we've been in the same places so many times
but I feel that I've really gotten to know you much better since you've transitioned over to the ownership side
at Highgate and I think also I think that's important to
to share with everyone that through the pandemic from before to after I'm just
so impressed by a few companies that actually came out of it much stronger and Highgate is definitely one of those
few yeah in that fraternity or sorority of companies that have have done that and
before we get into that Journey from the design side to the ownership side
you know the topic of this conversation is defining Hospitality so in your experience and you've you've been in our
industry for so long what does hospitality mean to you well first of all thank you so much for
dating me by repeating twice how long I've been in this industry so that's great
um but you know I have been doing this for a long time and I think about Hospitality a lot I um experience it and
I do think how people experience hospitality is almost like how they convey it too so how you might have
grown up influences what you think about when you're designing something just
your experiences over time influence you know just how you oh I remember this
thing that I saw somewhere or even back in childhood or last week so experiences
absolutely go to the definition uh it's not about just you know giving you a
place to sleep and some food to eat it's about much more than that um and in fact if you looked at I looked
it up at Webster's Dictionary the original uh definition did come from the
experiences that you would give to a guest so it's it's much deeper than just
meeting the basic needs I completely agree and again with so many of these conversations one of the
things that I've experienced as far as you know there's not like a black and white definition
it's more of this all these Venn diagrams kind of create this little gray bundle of energy
and feeling um but you were mentioned I really liked how you said it's about how you convey
it right so Hospitality can be conveyed in so many different facets right from
hotel design with and development which is what you do to just a simple dinner party to
a walk in the woods if you will it's it's but I think while we're in this world of hospitality design I think what
is so exciting and why people are drawn to this podcast is that invariably
Hospitality touches everything and we can all learn from
giving and receiving Hospitality better and if you think about
conveying Hospitality for from your vocation right you're an architect
and you work for one of the bigger Hotel ownership companies and management companies
um when you think about kicking off a new project how do you convey Hospitality not just
in what the project is but in the teams you assemble and all the different stakeholders right
well um you know we want to have a good time doing it and that kind of usually
comes through in the outcome you know you want people who are uh enthusiastic about the project you mentioned before
that Highgate came out of this pandemic even stronger and I think that's true and I've I've known uh Highgate for a
very long time because they were my client before I even worked for them so you know they have
um we have a very very good um track record of coming out of
hardships even stronger than before and so we're led by some very smart
people and I'm you know thrilled to be there I've been there um almost like six
and a half years now so uh it's been great looking at people who come at design and working on a project by
project as a designer um you know there's so much joy and just digging deep and Diving deep into that
singular project but as you switch to the owner's ownership side it's a different mindset right because you're
actually not necessarily doing the designing or you're like conducting the symphony if you will
I've has actually been drawn to that in a way um you know even way back when I was
chatting with my husband should I go back to school and get my MBA what I really want to be is like the Medici you
know the one who um is conducting that Orchestra who's a bit more behind the scenes
um you know it's not my name blazed and Glory I'm not I don't really care about
that um I really like the projects I like being part of the projects and bringing
something to life it's I find it extremely um
I don't know interesting and I have been doing it for a long time and it's it's new every time you know every time and
on the ownership side in some ways it's even more new every time because I get to work with different groups yeah so we
have a different design on one project or the next we're always trying to find the right designer for the project I
mean I would say that's one of the most important things that you know we do is
making that alignment and if you kind of get off a step at one point it's nobody
ever wants to rejigger that it has happened but by and large we really want
to make that first fit up front and of course we want to have a good time but we also of course do demand excellence
and we demand something unique you know I think there's most of our projects are
in no way cookie cutter no and I can speak from experience on that on that
front too um I think you know going back to where you
said it's really about how you convey it right and everything you do and then you just just now you said it's really about
what excites you and lights you up is really bringing it to life um how has your journey went from being
on the project as the designer to being on the ownership side working with these really incredible like entrepreneurial
thinking non-cookie cutter projects how do you think your how you approach a project has changed
and how you convey hospitality and execute projects now
well I would say you know uh yeah I was at uh Stonehill Taylor for um you know a good chunk of my career
when I first landed in New York and we can go backwards a bit ago to find out how I got here but
um you know great firm really knows hospitality and you know I I grew up
with them and most of the projects especially in those days you know I started there in 1999
um you know we're very unique nothing cookie cutter about the projects coming out of there and I was fortunate enough
to work both with Stonehill Taylor as designers and with other designers so I always got to also see you know what
other designers were doing and um you know I was just it just gives you
a breadth of who people are how they think what they do to get outside of your own
environment every now and again and so I had that uh fortunate uh kind
of work at Stonehill Taylor as well as then since then obviously since moving to the uh to the honor side
one of the things that um strikes me about
Highgate is you know schedules are schedules on every project are really
intense but on the Highgate ones I think as far as approaching those non-cookie
cutter projects and really being able to reposition them
really quickly yeah and faster than other people in the marketplace can do
it it's almost like you're CR you're printing money in a way right in the sense that the faster that you can get
those rooms turned over the faster you can bump the rate um and the and the more profitable the
Endeavor is and I think a lot of that is a testament to how Highgate has grown
through the pandemic so when you look at projects and kind of conveying and
bringing these things to life in crucibles of a schedule how do you like
how do you keep your head calm through the storm of opening projects well
some people that have worked with me will say that I don't always keep my head calm so I'm sure there's some of that but of course schedule is always
important and I do think that is a huge part of highgate's success you know they are looking at that in the bottom line
but they're also looking at the product 100 like you can't reposition if you
don't you know actually pay attention to the design itself so it is always a
balancing act and I do think that our role as designers within Highgate and and I'm not alone but our part of our
job is to you know help our um ownership groups understand the
schedule help our designers work to the schedule find the critical path what can
we do to help move one thing along while we're working on something else so you
know there is always a um you know a way forward but at the end of the day if you
hurry up and build something and it's not good you will have failed you know people will have forgotten the schedules
so schedule is important and we can't keep our eye off of that but we also you know
always strive for that excellent so I think I I think of my job as partly helping people find get there helping
people find that way forward to balance it make it work it's almost like a coach almost like a coach or maybe a coach
right yeah sometimes yeah yeah um so a couple other I want to go back to
some of the things that you said because like this idea of bringing things to life and having a good time doing it
um if you were to look back in your life or career on your let's
just say on your journey generally speaking what do you think has drawn you to the
world of hospitality and from the idea of bringing projects to life but also
having a good time doing it like how did you experience your journey and then wind up
where you are today the person I'm sitting across from well I'm going to rewind a little bit okay so I've started
my career actually in San Francisco as an architect working on high-end residential
and I liked it you know as an archathetic designer you always want to be working on you know with bigger
budgets you get to do a lot more there's a lot more you know sort of candy
um in in luxury and higher end and so that was great however you're also
dealing a lot with personalities um people's personal money it can get
very uncomfortable I guess I would say at moments and dealing in high-end
residential so um I knew when I left San Francisco and
eventually got a job that I didn't want to go back to high-end residential I was
going to find something else um in between there and I don't I'm
gonna go off on a tangent here but I left San Francisco with my then uh boyfriend future husband and we traveled
in Europe we ended up in Europe for over a year and by the time we left San Francisco we settled in New York we were
gone and not working for in the neighborhood of 14 to 15 months oh wow
which was amazing um and I want to I'll talk about that more later and working as working as an
architect both because both of your Architects yes but working as Architects you know you made so much money and you
were able to you just had like steamer trunks full of cash to go on that 14 month trip right yeah I know it would
see lot of discipline and a lot of savings and you know we drove across
country in a U-Haul Van and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and it was blast it was it was a lot of
fun but it was you know so yeah by the time we landed in Europe and those hotels we stayed in were by far from the
luxury property that I've you know my husband will definitely call me a princess and the kind of property that I
stay at today um but you know having that experience was
important to us both we really wanted to grow our own
minds and I I call this time away is more or less like our own uh you know
education and art and architecture of Western Europe so we you know we had a
job and that job was to you know basically a city a week for about five
months and longer stays kind of in between
um and we would go to museums we would walk around cities we'd experience the architecture
um you know back then Frank Geary was doing like some amazing things and we were trying to practically tracing his
Evolution and eventually got to Bilbao Spain and saw because that that the
museum had just opened the Guggenheim Bilbao had just opened we got there yeah so very
um or like a year or so anyway uh that was just and so I find that as like
a baseline of my education was this self-education in art and architecture
of Western Europe so a city a week
so that's four a month so you basically went to 20 cities probably something like that or more I
mean we we also you know we two months in Paris stayed for
um we went skiing for a month we stayed in Rome I can't remember if it was three or four
months we had a friend who was Roman and so many funny stories about that but he helped us get us jobs so we were
actually working as architects in Rome for a few months um so that was a fun that must have been
amazing yeah okay but let's just say more or less you're in 20 cities over five months right so I'm a little longer
some a little less yeah and you're going on this exploration of art architecture
culture food wine everything well we were poor and we you know so the food
and wine part I would actually say would be like less on that or a bottle of wine that we could buy at the the liquor
store um but you know and but culture is very important because you can get you know
not that I would say in one week you're super immersed in the culture but the two months in Paris or the time in Rome
we did our best to immerse ourselves I would even say on the wine and the food just from like having traveled a ton
with my family and just as myself the dollar value of a bottle of wine or
the food oftentimes is inversely proportional to like the amazingness of the experience
right because I've had so many incredible meals and experiences with
just the table wine and it's the best and it's local and and just the regular food you know I I feel and I don't know
much about wine so it's not like I I like wine it could be if it's red or
white I like it you could I'm also easily uh I'm able to suspend disbelief
very easily so if you were to tell me that there was a finish of vanilla and blackberries I would believe you and I
I'm just like okay I get it but of the let's say the 20 cities if you were to
pick your top three from that Journey what what were your top three yeah I can't do that each one is
different um so you know there is uh you know it's it there's a richness to all of them and
and partly when it when you go back and again start to Define hospitality it's
sort of like the experience you had in each City you know you might have been and when you're
traveling for that long you know I had I was sick in in one city you know even though it might have been an amazing
City I was not feeling well right so there's some of that um I guess I have to give a shout out to
bill frosh in in southern France but in part and I'm going to go back for a
minute so you're talking about it doesn't take a lot of money and and it's true we were staying at this really not
nice hotel in nice and you know the room was like damp and I have vivid memories
of that room and its dampness but you know every morning we would get up and
we'd go buy uh go to the local bakery buy a baguette and some butter and jam
and sit on the beach and watch the sunrise and that was our meal for that
morning and you know probably I'm sure we had a cafe olayo in there too so it's extremely delicious very local it it was
so simple nothing extravagant and stands out as you know one of the like best
meals right we did that for a few days eventually we had to leave nice in that damp hotel room I couldn't take it
anymore and that's what brought us to vilfrost which hadn't actually been on our itinerary and a friend of ours had
been there a couple years prior and turned us on to it so we end up in Bill France and had a much better Hotel there
so even though I say I was poor you know some standards were still you know
your inner princess was satisfied
um but also you know in so many things that we all do okay we're attracted going back to
like the trains that we're attracted to the things that we love doing right so Hospitality design for you
um but oftentimes those experiences that are just like whoa that was
that wet room or that damp room or a work experience
could almost be as valuable as following your passion and what you love because sometimes you might not know what you're
passionate about what you love but but just knowing what that hot stove is to pull your hand away from right it often
gives us more more information moving forward um so you've talked about Bill franch a
few times if you were to think about going from
a poor room experience but also finding that the the wonders of the sunset and
the boulangerie and and the and the jam and the bread but if you were to go from that hotel to The Ville French like
again it's poor experience great experience have you been back to it
and do you if you have been back to it are do you look at it from a different lens from when you were first there
after that poor experience I have not been back to I'm not and I
I have strong memories of it I do I don't get to travel nearly as much as I want to so in part going back to a place
is kind of hard to do I feel like there's so many more experiences out there I've um never we don't have like the summer
house a lot of people do or go back time after time to a destination like a lot of people do we're usually going to
different places unless we have friends there you know that's a it's a different story
um but uh I went back once to uh the same you know same Hotel same Resort and
it's like yeah it wasn't as good the second time and I think for me anyway that newness and exploration kind of
really is is is key to um you know just my personal uh interest
in uh in travel okay I want it to be different awesome and I'm kind of with
you too even if I go for a run I don't like going out and back
I like to do a loop because I don't like to see things I just saw oh yeah my
husband and I always say this never go back the way you came yeah yeah it's it's it's it's but oftentimes like
living in New York City it's you got to do the out and back otherwise you're running across town and you're gonna get hit by a car so I managed to deal with
that um so I know that your experience in Europe
was incredible it's hard to like pick a pick a winner if you will a favorite city um but on your on your art slash culture
Journey is there a museum or work of art
that you remember most fondly from that hmm and for instance like what I'll share is
I remember in Rome I went to Villa Borghese I had no idea what anything was
I'd heard of Bernini a little bit but to see those sculptures of Daphne and the
hair and how he got that through the I don't know you could like see the
strands of hair through the marble it's amazing or going up to the Met here I'm always drawn to these like paintings by
Turner of I don't know what I'm looking at but I think that's a ship back there I don't know what it is but I'm drawn to
that are there any other experiences at any museums or just out on the street that you were drawn to or
remember fun most fondly I mean it's hard to narrow down to enter one or two
no I guess in with some time has obviously gone by
since we've had this trip the memories that stand out the strongest or when I'm with
um friends and family and um you know I would say if I'm gonna straight up answer that question it
would be like the actually the Contemporary Art Museum in nice was a surprise and loved it and partly because
it was a surprise and it wasn't art that I was used to looking at at the time and you know really was drawn to it
um but if I step back I say well maybe it was the Louisiana Museum in Denmark
um so my mother the Louisiana Museum yeah I didn't know there was one that's the name of the museum it's called
Louisiana Museum it's outside of Copenhagen um and my mother
um she's passed now but she was Danish and she emigrated to the United States
when she married my father who's an American of Italian descent
um so I have a lot of stories and memories about Denmark and I've been
there many times I have cousins there and aunts and uncles there so it's and I lived there actually when I was in high
school I lived there for a year so on this big trip as John and I refer
to it you know the big trip when we were gone we um coordinated to be in Denmark at the same time as my mother and so we
were at our families and visiting and then we went together to Copenhagen and
we stayed in this crazy another crazy hotel and because we didn't have family and Copenhagen at the time
um and of course back then they allowed smoking so there's like breakfast room that's like just like just smoke like
you wouldn't believe the Danes used to smoke a lot and pickled herring yeah pickle Herring got it Gotta Have It
um and then we went together to the Louisiana Museum which is outside for Copenhagen and it didn't have a question
on the Louisiana museum is it just called the Louisiana Museum or is there some relation to the state of Louisiana
is there any connection there is no relation to this day date and I'm from Louisiana too I know that's why I know
um it's just called that and I don't know why maybe it has I'm not sure we'll
have to look that up but it's it's actually a beautifully designed Museum too very set in the landscape with lots
of glass has incredible yakimedes and um just it's it's it's it's a wonderful
Museum also as an experience so not just you know room after room looking at art
pieces and no windows it's you're sort of in and out of the landscape and that
kind of connection to to Nature is also a very Danish thing
um that you know you're not just you're always sort of in or about nature in
Denmark I think um so hearing about the friends and family
and also this idea of experience and going back to the the baguette with
the butter and the jam on the beach at nice how does that feeling
or did did did that feeling that you had that incredible feeling of that the small
groups family friends how did that influence you when you were doing residential and you went on this
journey to come back and not do Residential but to find this career and
Hospitality design well partly it's just luck but um I I
came back and started looking for a job and you know let's face it I was working
is not working for somewhere between 14 and 15 months I did a little bit of work there in Rome but you know
um so I wanted a job that you know would and allow me uh time to explore New York
and um you know not something that I would have to be slaving over all the time and
at the Times Daniel Taylor actually had a 35 hour work week so um
unfortunately for anybody who's working there today I think that's long gone but um and I was like well this sounds
pretty great and they had some great projects and they were just really kind of getting a lot of work in Hospitality
so I didn't go into it thinking I wanted to work in Hospitality projects but I
just spent a year like staying in hotels I had a lot of really relevant experience as a guest
um and um so got hired there and you know
worked ultimately I was there for 15 years worked my way up from Project
architect to principal and have um just such you know I learned uh
Hospitality there there's no question under under the tutelage of Paul Taylor um and the The Firm Grew From when I
joined in 1999 uh it was 17 people
um and when I left and they've grown since then but when I left I think it was 70.
um so it and the hospitality was by far the the focus after I would say just my
first couple years there then we really focused on hospitality and almost all the projects I did from then on were in
some way shape or form a hotel project and when you were there were you more on the architect side or on the interior
side uh more on yeah on the Architects side um and you know I I that did give me
this unique perspective like I said before of having worked with different designers as well as our own design
teams and I have always considered myself an architect and designer
um and I you know sometimes gonna when the architect and somebody else as a
designer can be a difficult role but I also feel like you know you don't have that good partnership the project
doesn't turn out well so I probably was prided myself on caring even though you
know it wasn't necessarily my name on the door which I think is very important to the success of these kinds of
projects yeah and also in Hospitality that idea of caring is really feeling
and if you're caring you're really concerned with how others are feeling as well right right and that's why I really
think this idea of whatever hospitality is it transcends everything and it can be
applicable to every single industry every vocation every profession because it's really about from my perspective
just open-hearted listening and empathy yeah um Paul Taylor yes so
I've heard of Stonehill Taylor forever I've done a lot of work with Stonehill Taylor supplying furniture on projects
um I only met Paul Taylor for the first time I think it was the HD Awards last June
maybe yeah and he was there and i j he was I didn't know what to expect
and I was like oh my God he's so cool and he he exuded this like really cool
energy that like I had a very limited react uh limited interaction with him
but I just got the feeling that he just looks at things differently and I don't know he had like a magnetism about him
um when you said that learning so much under the tutelage of him like what did you appreciate most
about him as a mentor well he was just that and I mean I I
still have a great relationship with Paul and he and I get together every now and again and I just saw his daughter Eve who works there now she and I were
together at a conference last week um which is just thrilling that you know she's kind of part of that business
um Paul oh he he could read me like a book like I don't understand exactly because I can't do it but he knew
exactly what would make me Thrive and he gave me those
opportunities and I always had him to kind of go back and check with things on but ultimately he gave me a lot of rope
which is you know just what I always want I'm sort of like okay I got this
let's go um so Paul was a really wonderful Mentor in that way and um
you know he's not necessarily out and about at all the conferences and and that sort of thing he's he's a very
um strong family man a very good businessman and I think he
um you know I I learned just just a ton from that and the the culture at
Stonehill Taylor has always been one of just that sort of family and you know
it's been 10 years since I left so it's it's been a while since I've been there but I still remain friends with
everybody and have strong ties and the utmost of respect so I'm always curious like for that magic that superpower that
mentors have and how they impact all of us like we've all had mentors they're not just one we all have many and we all
I don't know all of our successes like we all stand on the shoulders of those before us right but
it's interesting to hear you say that Paul could read you like a book and his power was seeing kind of what what made
you thrive or the kind of what made you light up um how have you
taken that or have you been able to take any of that special sauce and apply it
in your in your own life in practice I try I'm definitely not as good at it as
he is um and I feel like actually it's fairly recently at Highgate that I also got
some sort of outside mentoring that I felt like in a short amount of time really helped
um you know how did people perceive me I I definitely never really knew you know I always kind of had my head down and my
projects and um it's like all of a sudden was able to sort of spin it out a bit and see that
which was very helpful so I don't know I think I'm always growing and changing
and hopefully I'm better today at leading than I was
um and just uh but I have you know actually was it two years ago two
different people who used to work with me were honored at HD next gen and I was just thrilled both of them gave me a
little shout out I was thrilled I love being able to uh help people in any
small way that I can and when you were thrilled were you also surprised or or
thrilled they would succeed not at all surprised oh no were you were you surprised that they gave you a shout out
oh oh I was in the audience okay I'm always surprised by you know in all
the courses of in the course of what we all do in our in our life personal and
professional you know we have so many collisions with people and I'm always surprised at how
a simple conversation with someone or listening or I may share something where it just I
forget about it it's not like an important event or it's not memorable to me but then months or years later I'll
encounter that person again and they'll be like you know when you when we talked
about that like you really changed how I think about all these things I like to me I was totally surprised because
that wasn't the intention right I was just talking well I will say that one thing as a
woman of a certain age I have had um a fair number of women that I work
with um in various forms seek me out for advice
um and I you know part of me is like gee I don't really know why that is but um I
I partly I do you know and I um and I enjoy helping where I can and if you
know you know I'm like doors always open and just this morning I was on the phone
with um another former uh Stonehill tailor designer that she and I were together on The Refinery Hotel in New
York one of the highlights of my career that was a three woman team that was I was principal of charge Carmen was
designer in charge and Stephanie Liu was a project architect and um we had a blast and we did the whole
thing you know the architecture the interiors and it remains one of the highlights of my uh career pulling that
all together I love it so anyway I stay in touch with a lot of people and I'm
always happy to to help and sort of discuss Mentor sometimes more on like
the business side of things like how to help somebody um you know see their way through
wonderful and then if you just going back further in your life so you grew up
in Louisiana at what point in your childhood
did you realize that you were Super Creative or drawn to a creative
field or at what point did you did you know even in your childhood that this could be a potential path that you would
take well I think I was actually I mentioned before I lived in Denmark for a year and
that kind of danishness coming from a Danish mother who lived in the U.S and
you know she always revered anything Danish you know and there is a certain
sensibility to Danish design that absolutely permeates the entire Danish
Society um much more about um quality over quantity and you know
finding the right thing and so that has been just kind of my how I grew up in
that culture so I've always been exploring that
um but not necessarily particularly creative in the sense that I would sit
down as a kid and draw or sketch or things like that I never did um when I went and lived in Denmark I
had um a friend of my sisters who had actually gone on to become you know in architecture school and I met them
talked to them and I thought well this could be cool I love this and and I love looking at the plans when I was a kid we
moved from actually from Virginia to Louisiana we were going to build a house I was completely into the plans I love
looking at Halloween look how old were you then we moved when I was in sixth grade sixth grade okay so that's
probably so it was like 11 yeah so you know and before we moved down we were
going to build this house and so I was studying the plan book so that was kind of early always loved that so I've
always had this kind of like infused care about design
um a bit of the technical side and of course then everybody always says well I you know it's a perfect architect so
um you know after meeting the architect I just came back and I wasn't sure at first it would be good for me so it was
actually something I did when I transferred in at College it wasn't something I started right off so I
transferred into it and then you know I love it and I I also love the fact that there are lots of avenues within the
profession to go so whether it is interior design project management
construction you know you know there's a lot of different ways you can go and um
you know being able to sort of touch lots of those is keeps things interesting
um what did you start off as in when you went to college that you switched in the
yeah business I think is this generic just trying to find my Find Your Way find my way so and then architecture was
a five-year program and so I ended up at school for six years but at Louisiana state at Louisiana state and then I
immediately moved to San Francisco right after that so with some girlfriends packed the car up drove across country
oh so you all live with like a group of friends in San Francisco well what our
first girlfriend she she we dropped her off in La she's settled there and my other girlfriend and I moved to San
Francisco together and got on our feet and were roommates and eventually got
jobs and eventually met my husband and so I was in San Francisco for um seven
years wow um my first adult experience after college
was also San Francisco and I've always it was such a magical place to start a
career I feel like it's um I don't know I feel like everyone would
love to live in San Francisco but many wind up going to other big cities around because they're not sure what to do but
to me it was it just had this kind of magical tales of the city kind of experience and
uh I didn't know what tales of the city was when I moved there but I think I wound up watching it no I read it I read
that uh almost done Mountain pen right yeah yeah so I read that book Laura Linney and then I watched the Laura
Linney PBS thing and and it was just such a a magical I don't
know it just struck this nerve yeah um was it hard for you to leave San
Francisco um in a way no because um I had met John by then and what
happens with a lot of young people when you move to a big city is a lot of
people start heading back home after a certain amount of time so you sort of either stay and put your roots down or
you head back and so out of our group of friends many of them had had started to
leave and we kind of looked around and we're like wow we're really like the last ones here and his family was
outside they were scattered he comes from a very big family but you know my family was in Louisiana and we just said
you know it's a good time and we we're always interested in New York as just as
Architects the place to really um you know build big stuff and San
Francisco would have a big project next thing you know they're bringing an architect from New York to do it you're like what the heck so we decided we
needed to to eventually settle in New York so that was the plan when we set
off in our uh check across country it's like uh waiting for government right the big guy
from New York's coming the big gal from New York center it's always the New York Powerhouse is coming yeah and then
they're just like yeah I'll move somewhere and I'll get paid New York wages and although San Francisco is pretty expensive so San Francisco is
expensive but I I I loved it and and getting you know away from home and on
my own and with my friends and then meeting John I mean it was an incredible time and like you said it's very magical
city um and I'm going back now actually for for work um so I've been more in the last couple
years and I was in the previous 20. um and I I still love it uh well also
you um Highgate recently completed a project there that got a very high sustainability rating as well yes the
park uh it's the uh it was the Park Center Park Central uh San Francisco and
now it's the uh the Hyatt oh yeah yes um worked with uh I I wasn't involved in
that project so I can't claim any credit for it but yeah we are are big into sustainability at Highgate there's a big
push to um be careful not just on the operation side but on the design
side and watching where we're sourcing our furniture and materials from and
trying to make sure that because they do get thrown out so much to and they get
heavily used how can we make them last how can we make how can we reinvent them
um how can we store sustainably it's uh it's important yeah well I can just say from my experience
um your high uh High Gates push with sustainability
um it really helped us at Berman Falk formalize all of these processes that we
were doing and start to measure them and it's interesting because sometimes and it's so aligned with our with our values
too because sometimes you're not it's like holding up a mirror at yourself right but you don't really know
what you're looking at until you actually start measuring it and I think again as
a huge player in this industry to be able to mandate that or to make that not
necessarily mandated but like to have that be of driving force in the projects you're
doing and how you execute projects and how you assemble the teams and how you kick a project off
it's pretty awesome because it you can change the way things are done you can
change the status quo so just as just from my experience I'm really glad that you guys yeah kind of yeah put your foot
down so to speak and it's been it's been a cool experience for us I'm glad yeah because it's it is you can't really
affect change until you know your Baseline right so the measurement aspect is important and trying to get you know
there's always so many factors on any project you know and schedule you mentioned before and budget but you know
trying to have a a mindset from the outset that this is also important and
how we you know our footprint is important you know is it's another
Factor you have to kind of figure it out one of the things I really loved about it in the measuring from the cradle to
grave is it's very easy to see where you're doing well but it's also cool to
see the points where you suck so like for instance on packaging everyone's but that one also was like a really low
hanging fruit that's like hey how can we think about this differently and improve our score so that we become better so
you know getting rid of a lot of styrofoam packing experimenting with new
um different materials that are recyclable and from post-consumer recycled content it is interesting and I
think we would have gotten there eventually but just being able to look at that mirror again I was like oh well this is
an easy one to improve let's pick that one and see if we can create a story from that that's great yes I'm glad to
hear it yes I I I and we really appreciate that yeah um
so we've talked a lot about you know your journey from
building your home moving to Louisiana all the way to where you are now
um as you look forward in this position of where you are
um what's exciting you most about what you see out there well I think you know the industry
continues to um evolve and you know and the words become
almost like repetitive we have to be careful that they don't lose their meaning but you know hyper local
experientially driven all these things that I feel that as a young person you
know traveling and staying in a damp hotel room in nice you know are you know
things that it's not just you know honestly it's not just about the design it is there's so much more that goes
into uh that guest having that memorable experience so keeping our eye on what
that is how to achieve it um how to evolve it how to get
um you know the next project to do to be better than the last and in whatever way
shape or form that might be you know design did we can we have more fun can we get closer to budget can we
um you know can we make this next one more sustainable all you know I think always trying to improve
um and it's like if you think you've already got it all isn't that kind of boring like always trying to make it the
next one just a little bit better a little bit different yeah hyper local and experiential
um recently I had an experience where we went to Paris as a family it was about a
year ago for spring break nice and we we stayed at a hotel and you know it
actually was a great Hotel it was um kimpton's first property in Paris it was actually
awesome I think it's a UNESCO world heritage site for the lobby and the stairway it's like an Escher M.C
Asher painting it's crazy um but as far as looking for things to do around there we looked
um when I say we my wife looked at Airbnb and found experiences local experiences so we
found this artist and she met us up in the tularies I'm not pronouncing it my
French is not good with all of this water coloring equipment and paraphernalia and then we wound up
just painting and she was teaching us water coloring technique it was awesome and I think that um
you know Airbnb terrifies me but also excites me because like it those hyper
local experiences also can inform what we're doing on the regular on the hotel side and I think together that
competition makes us all all better because like we have to think
differently to succeed and that's kind of that Marketplace of ideas with with competition so it's exciting to think
about that and how you execute on hyper local and experiential yeah is it is there a is
there a specific um example that you could share of of a project that you're working on where
you're really like peeling back the onion on hyper local and experiential
well I I want to say all of them honestly it's it's probably you know and how how much it comes
through in the design you're always kind of like double checking too but I'm working on a project right now I mean
honestly like I tell people my project list or where they are everybody's like oh my God it's amazing it's it's amazing
I've got projects in Laguna Beach California amazing right on the water Monterey California amazing right on the
water um Portland Maine one of my favorite cities uh Scottsdale so it's like great
projects all over the country um and with different designers on each
one I don't think I'm working with any of one designer and two
um although my colleagues might be but yeah so it's like also allowing the designers that space to
um you know Define that first you know I try very hard not to dictate
um but to encourage react you got to have the Practical side you know of
course a lot of this is like oh that's not just not going to wear well you know those kinds of practical things come to
play but we absolutely are looking for the designers to be
um the ones more immersed in the project than we are um defining that that kind of localness
and what they think it is and bringing it to to the table and not that we won't
have our own opinion or wanna Infuse something else that we might have but
um you know I think designers are just really great at it and um yeah we're working with some just
incredible people right now she's great well I can't wait to learn more about those um if we
go back in time to that you know your 11 year old self looking at the architecture books
um or the designs of the house that you guys are building and kind of where where you found that you were really
intrigued but maybe didn't necessarily know your path um and then the Christina that I'm
speaking to now appears in front of your 11 year old self as a mentor to yourself what kind of
advice can you give to yourself just always be curious you know keep
thinking about um well sure I'm on this path but what else you
know could I look at and you know and I don't just mean that from a career
standpoint it's a life approach standpoint um just always approaching things like
you're never stuck anywhere you know um so if this is you know you started in
business that's kind of boring not really what my thing was you know I was always interested in those architecture books let's try it what's the worst that
can happen um and so pushing yourself to keep trying new
things leave Louisiana move to San Francisco leave San Francisco travel in
Europe move to New York um I'm more so much more stable now but um you know trying different things
there is no there's no failure in in that just try it and I feel like it goes back
to how we originally started the conversation where it's all of these changes
really bring new experience to life right yes and inertia
is a real it could be a real anchor at a certain point so it's I think you know and so many of these conversations with
people about Hospitality it is that experience yeah right and and I
think we're all drawn to that change of experience and it's a really cool tribe and the other thing is
we were talking about this before we we hit record but you go to a if if I go to a cocktail
party or you go to a cocktail party that's not industry related like it's family friends neighborhood
and we say what we do you know I furnish hotels you design and build hotels they're like wait
people actually do that it's not like Hilton or Marriott or a core or like
they don't these Brands don't do that yeah and and it really leads into a 20
Questions rather than like oh yeah I'm on a hedge fund I I work on a hedge fund it's like oh okay great but I feel like
everyone is always so curious about yeah creating working in a place where we create these experiences for others do
you find that for sure and I think you know especially working at Highgate hotels anybody outside the industry has
no idea who highgates hotels is for the most part within the industry yeah and
sometimes I'm I'm still struck oh you know who we are and they're like yes of course but um yeah Highgate is uh is a
big player within the industry but when you talk outside of it not know and people didn't understand that well they
assumed that the Hilton owned the property ran the property they're everything it's like oh there's multiple
entities uh involved along the way here so yeah it's a unique business that
affords I think also lots of different um places within it you know
um purchasing agents what a fabulous and unique job outside of hospitality
somebody'd be like what the heck is that no one has ever heard of that yeah and that's where I got my start too and it's
it's a vital component to collaboration and creating all of these incredible
projects I think it's also I I don't know if this um superlative is still in effect but I feel like it is Highgate
manages or owns manages and or owns more hotel
rooms in New York City than anyone else is that possible not owns a upper rates
would be the word just operates in New York City um yes we
are the largest operator of of hotel rooms in New York and okay so then also
going back to that before pandemic after pandemic and the just that growth and
abundance mindset of abundance that the people who run Highgate have
as hard hit as New York was in the pandemic to have that many rooms and still yeah come out so far ahead it's
really incredible it's exciting I mean we've just announced you know um a whole
portfolio in Portugal I'm very excited have had a couple of calls with people
just looking uh to staff up in Portugal um you know of course we bought a huge
portfolios of select service properties across the United States
um you know there's Peru you know the projects I just mentioned those are all post pandemic so yes very Nimble
um and approach to being able to work um in lots of different markets and see
that kind of um what hybrid Highgate brings to the table of you know seeing the vision and
something and then we help bring it to life uh it's and that's another thing which I want to experiment with this
podcast like when I post it um the team you currently have
is not going to be able to execute on all those projects you're always growing and looking for new great
people yes so when I post this out there I'm because I know that you guys are always
looking and looking for really great people to join the team and grow on the design and construction side and I'm
sure all other all other parts but share with us like kind of what you're
looking for in the in the near future well we we do have a couple of job postings
um currently out there uh I think we're looking for another design director
um and uh for a New York City position and another
um director of construction also in New York so yeah definitely beefing the team
up also in Europe we are looking for people for that Portugal and you know
again we're looking for people in all you know that's in in Highgate yes but also those
designers so again constantly looking for the designers to pair up the right
designer for the project awesome I'll experiment with that I know you've shared some uh
job postings or job listings or job descriptions with me uh so I'm going to experiment with the reach of this and
see if we can help fill those for you yeah that'd be great awesome okay um
and we'll post all that too but in the meantime if people wanted to learn more about you or Highgate how do they do
that well I'm on all the normal you know UNIF although I'm not the biggest poster
maybe one year it'll be a New Year's resolution but not this year um
if you find me on LinkedIn and um uh that would be the probably the
best way awesome and we'll also put the Highgate company website maybe if there's a Highgate careers thing there
we can put that in there okay cool um Christina this has been awesome this
has been great thank you thanks for having me you're very welcome um and all you people out there who are
listening or watching um I just want to say thank you and if this changed your ideas on what
hospitality is and how to deliver it to people please pass it along we're growing by word of mouth and thank you
we'll catch you next time
thank you

An Ever Evolving Industry - Christina Zimmer - Episode # 097
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