Press Room
Late Night Host
Bay Area hotelier Chip Conley leaves the light on for you.
Chip Conley, the 44 year-old founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, knows a thing or two about story-telling. He's given each of his boutique hotels a theme that nails its niche. Then there's his own tale – growing up in Long Beach, getting an MBA at Stanford, training in massage at Esalen, writing a screenplay and opening his first hotel, the grunge-chic Phoenix, when he was just 26 years old. This month, Joie de Vivre is set to open its 27th property, the Hotel Vitale (which he describes as "Real Simple meets Dwell") – a project facing the Embarcadero that's been seven years in the plotting. And the story doesn't end there: JDV debuts its first L.A. property this spring and is working with InterContinental to launch a hip-yet-business-friendly brand called Indigo Hotels. Recently, 7x7 checked in with the man behind the front desk.
Q: How'd you come up with the name Vitale?
A: I think that a boutique hotel is really a mirror for its customers. The mirror we wanted to have here is the idea of vitality, a place that's full of life. Obviously, you're not going to call yourself the Hotel Vitality – that'd be like putting a Viagra and a chocolate mint on the pillow of the turndown.
Q: Would you eve want to play Eloise of the Plaza and live in a hotel?
A: I'd love to. The idea of living in one permanently would be great, especially since I'm not much of a cook. If I were on my own, the kitchen would be wasted on me.
Q: So where do you really live?
A: A house on Potrero Hill. The exterior has a Victorian flavor; inside, there's a pond and a big Buddha and a waterfall – a lot of Moroccan stuff, a lot of Indian stuff and a lot of Thai, Japanese and Balingese things. Bali used to be sort of my second home – I went there every year for five years in a row.
Q: How'd you get into hotels?
A: I was disillusioned with the business world and I was like, OK, I'm going to either start a hotel, be a massage practitioner with a Stanford MBA or be a screenwriter. I was at that weird crossroads in my life. I was actually able to buy the Phoenix out of foreclosure and bankruptcy. It was like the place where all of the hookers in town hung out. I said, "I'm going to see how it goes. If it doesn't work out, I'll do massage or I'll do the screenwriting." It sort of worked out.
Q: Will there be life after Joie de Vivre?
A: I think a fascinating second career would be to be a preacher. In the last three years, when the hotel market was so bad here, I've actually thought, If this doesn't work, I'm going to divinity school in Berkeley. I've also always wanted to start a school in the Tenderloin, like a private academy that was open to people without a lot of money. I have a foster son – Damien – he's now 28 – who lived with me in his teen years. I wish he'd had a school like that.
Q: How has JDV survived the slump?
A: You hear of all these companies going bankrupt, they're firing people right and left and the CEOs are making out like bandits. The first two and a half years of the downturn, I couldn't take a salary – there was no salary to be taken. For the last year and a half, we've actually been doing well, but I'm paying back some loans from friends and family. It's the classic stupid cliché of "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
Q: Your perfect SF moment"
A: My ideal thing – and I did this six months ago, when a friend was in town – would be walking across the Golden Gate Bridge at midnight. It's usually really cold, [but] looking back at the city at midnight is a pretty majestic experience.
Q: What do you take with you when you travel to make you feel at home?
A: My iPod and my favorite incense – sandalwood or ylang ylang – which I do not recommend people taking to our hotels because it's hard to get rid of that smell. But I do occasionally burn incense in a guest room, and that's not a good thing to do.
Q: Are there any secret staircases or passageways in any of your hotels?
A: No, but in The Archbisop's Mansion [on Alamo Square], in the Don Giovanni Suite, there's a seven-headed shower. It's not a secret, but when guests check in and see the shower, they're shocked. Our explanation is, "Those archbishops got their jollies in the oddest of ways." So there you go. I just lost the Catholic vote.
Q: Any good stories from the Phoenix's early days?
A: Faye Dunaway stayed there with her rock n' roll boyfriend, and she came into my office – she had no idea who I was – on a Sunday morning with a little baggie of of underwear, and she said, "Do you know of a place in the neighborhood where I can wash my underwear?" I said, "I know this is the Phoenix and it's funky, but I'll do that for you." So I went to the local laundromat and laundered her underwear."
