Latest / Brand Insiders / Jersey Banks and Lyon Porter of Urban Cowboy on Nostalgia, Community, and Building Hotels That Feel Like Home

Transcript

Jersey Banks and Lyon Porter of Urban Cowboy on Nostalgia, Community, and Building Hotels That Feel Like Home · Brand Insiders

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another exciting episode of Brand Insiders.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm joined today by the co-founders of Urban Cowboy.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: We have Jersey Banks and Lion Porter.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: How are you both doing?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty good.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, uh, so you're both coming in from the Catskills and uh northern New York.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're up in uh big Indian wilderness, which is uh kind of the dead center bullseye of the Catskills, uh uh Protected Forests and uh the Catskill Mountain Range, where we're about two and a half hours north of uh Manhattan.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: So uh just to dive in there a little bit, uh we have an international audience who may not know uh exactly what the Catskills is.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Can you just describe how beautiful the area is?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's you know, uh probably the closest protected large mountain range to New York City.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so the majority of our guests, not all of them, uh people come from all over the world to stay, but the majority of them are New Yorkers.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: So we started our brand in 2014 in New York, then expanded to Nashville, and when we were doing our third project, we really wanted a nature escape.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so the Catskills uh has had many different lives.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_02: It was at first kind of uh during like the uh you know Walden era, a response to the Industrial Revolution, so people like in cities with factories and they wanted to escape to nature, but then it's gone into like the the hippies when it was up here, you know, it's where Woodstock was um in the 60s, and then uh kind of before that it was uh the borscht belt, um, you know, think dirty dancing, yeah, uh Marvus Miss Basil.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: That was all the cat skills, and so a lot of things were born out of here of you know, New Yorkers escaping the city before there was air conditioning.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: People would come up here for the whole summer, um, get escape the tenements and the hot you know city life.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's always been a respite from the fast pace of you know, whether it was New York or industrialism, uh, and then um, you know, it was like you know, the the naturalist movement, the Borsch belt, the hippies, and uh then the hipsters.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: So the the last uh the last kind of group of people coming north um started about 10 years ago and really accelerated during the pandemic.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: We opened up here one week before the the lockdown.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh this was a lot of people's uh in in air escape, yeah.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, June of 2020, their first time leaving their apartment, quite frankly.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because New York was pretty locked down more than anywhere.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's uh that's an incredible history.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to sort of uh put a pin in that to talk about regenerative travel and uh escapes, and particularly right now, the context is we are recording uh June 29th, and over in Europe it's gotten above 40 degrees, and stoplights are literally melting in cities like Berlin.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: So there is something to be said about this escape from uh the concrete jungle, so to speak.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean before air conditioning, this was your your natural IC, right?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so people will come up here in their Ford Model Ts and uh escape the city for you know two, three months um as temperatures continue to climb and heat waves are you know going all everywhere.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, it's still cool up here at night, um, even when it's 100 degrees in the city.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: So uh yeah, even with AC, it's still a uh a cool nature escape.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, nature escapes are a huge trend, but let's uh take a giant step back and give everyone just the elevator pitch on Urban Cowboy.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we uh we started Urban Cowboy in 2014.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um Lion Head purchased a townhome in Brooklyn, and um we kind of opened it up to the world, you know, it was his first design project, and people really liked it.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we kind of thought we'd fly under the radar and just like, you know, have like friends' parents staying with us and things like that.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it turned into um, you know, we were hosting a lot.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: We were we had a great commodity in New York, which is space.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, every no not a lot of people have that.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so it turned into a huge local hang.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: We were having a lot of parties, um pouring a lot of rose.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and we it kind of just took off and exploded.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people that were coming were saying, you know, this would be really great in Nashville.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: And we uh we took the we took the hint and we went on vacation after six months of literally nonstop.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Just it was just the two of us running this like proper bed and breakfast in Brooklyn, New York.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um in our home.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: In our house.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we're hosting people from all over the world.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm waking up every morning after partying all night with everyone, putting out breakfast, cleaning all the rooms, like just nonstop for six months.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then we were like, let's take a vacation, we called it, but it was a weekend in Nashville.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: And within you know, an hour of being there, we had found a new property magically.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but and we uh so started that we we started the going in on that project, and that was the second one that opened in 2016.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I ended up moving out there to open that, and then we had two properties under our belt, which seemed very easy, like an easy thing to do, and then we realized how intense that was.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: It was actually our first public bar and restaurant.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Our first public bar and restaurant, and we also we uh we also fashioned it more as a boutique hotel and less of a bed and breakfast bottle.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we also it doubled in size, so instead of five rooms, we had eight suites, and we thought that was you know massive.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was like the biggest thing we could ever do.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and in Nashville, we also had the opportunity to do a second project there, the Dive Motel.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then as that was opening in maybe it was 2019, we were also working on our lodge upstate, which is where we are now.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then shortly after that, we the pandemic happened um as we opened in March of 2020.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so we shut down almost immediately, as soon as we opened, um, but then got to reopen in this new fashion of like being able to invite people up from the city and having it be this great nature escape, um, open air uh kind of space for people.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And shortly after that, in 2022, 2022, we found the space in Denver, started construction on that, and that took quite some time.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um two years after that, we opened in Denver.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: I moved out to Denver just two years ago, and then here we are.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Here we are.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: So five properties down, one full bar downtown Nashville that we also opened last year at the same time.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so you know, in 2014 when we opened up Urban Cobway Brooklyn, it was the second boutique hospitality offering in Brooklyn, and it was when Brooklyn was becoming a brand.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: There wasn't a Brooklyn of every city or a Williamsburg of every city, and it was a magical time when you know it was about the hottest place in the world, and you know, Instagram was instant, and we started um like Jersey State, kind of low-key hosting it.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: We thought it would fly under the radar, and it ended up in every magazine in the world in six months.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we then quickly opened the first boutique hotel in Nashville, and then you know, Nashville exploded as well.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: We opened up one of the first boutique hotels in the Cat Skills, and then the Cat Skills exploded.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: So it was kind of just following our intuition of the place we wanted to be.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: We always looked at them like homes all around the world that we opened up to our community of travelers and and and you know, you know, adventure seekers and people looking for more than just a place to sleep, but really a full immersive experience.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: And we're very design-led and experience-led.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so now we're 12 years in, four hotels, and then our last project was Urban Cowboy Bar, our first standalone bar.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: We do bar and restaurants in all the hotels, but uh the bar is an 8,000 square foot, three, four bar in downtown Nashville, which is um um really an amazing place.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_02: So uh, you know, four hotels and and um you know our first stand-alone bar and restaurant, and that kind of takes you from 2014 to today.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And every location also has bars and restaurants and Link as well.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot going on there.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's that's awesome to hear that full background.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, I guess my first follow-up question there is was the name Urban Cowboy with you from the beginning, or how did that emerge?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so we we were having kind of a uh uh a very quick naming process because we were about to open in 2014 and like New York magazine was coming to cover us, and uh they said, Hey, you need a website and a name before we can cover you.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um the Urban Cowboy is not about the movie, it's really about kind of this romantic nostalgia for Americana, which is a theme through our spaces, and the design imperative for each is different, um, but it's always based in kind of this nostalgia for uh uh uh design style of kind of early Americana mixed with um you know this kind of a reverent sense of freedom that cowboys have always equated to in kind of Americana and and that romance of that freedom of the cowboy spirit kind of is woven through both the design and the experience uh of of every property.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um now I guess with Urban Cowboy we should mention that every single place has uh it has a different design aesthetic, as you said, but they're all highly Instagrammable.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you've sort of caught the wave not only of choosing locations like Nashville and Catskills, but also the wave of social media marketing and really generating that buzz from the ground up that can serve direct channels instead of just the OTAs.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk about how that emerged from a marketing and distribution standpoint?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was very organic.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um when we opened the Brooklyn location, like in the first week or two, uh an amazing photographer named Jared Chambers emailed us and said, I'd like to take over the whole place.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'd like$10,000 and I'll my Instagram post following.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: And we said, Hey, we just opened, we have no money, but you can stay in the cabin.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: We had a log cabin in the back of Brooklyn for a weekend.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and he said, Okay, I'll be there tomorrow from London.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: So we quickly created an Instagram uh and said, Hey, we should probably do that.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and Jared tagged us uh after shooting this amazing kind of creative shoot, and then immediately we became this hub for some of the best photographers and creatives in the world.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we said, Hey, I saw Jared, stayed with you, and then Jared came back and other photographers came, and so we became this kind of very um known uh property.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: We only had five rooms, but I'd get calls from people who were having brunch in London and say, I just saw Urban Cowboy.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so we've never spent a dollar on marketing.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we early days of Instagram, it was instant and it was word of mouth, and it wasn't really commoditized and pay-for-play.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: So we organically built our following and that engagement through word of mouth, which was at that time you know social media, and you know, we got voted the most Instagrammable hotel in the world.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it was very organic.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but there was kind of this um design in symmetrical vignettes, and photographers and creatives really love staying with us.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Jersey always yells at me to just do set design, yeah.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because I I I do look at these as kind of immersive art pieces that you can stay in, and that really um organically fed into people taking pictures, and you know, when you're on vacation, you take pictures and share with people where you are, and so um all of our properties are very uh almost cinematic in design and really set the the stage for you to really sink into the experience, but also um if you want to snap a quick photo in a claw foot tub or something else, um you know it kind of is word of mouth of where you're staying and what you're doing, and and uh like I said, it organically developed from there.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, uh I guess we uh love to talk about in hospitality about this idea of storytelling and Urban Cowboy.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Each location is incredibly cinematic.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you determine what to film?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's funny, Netflix is doing a shoot at our property today for our pizziola in this 1800s bar with a bowling alley where we have to put the pins back, and you know, we're very selective on what we do, and we're very highly selective on who we let in.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh, but we've done shoots with I mean, you name it, it's it's been shot at one of our locations.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like Garth Brooks's documentary was shot with his daughters in Nashville, and you know, that all the way to band cover album shoots uh and um you know movies.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: And and so uh when we were up with the Catskills, uh we shot a movie, a horror film that was a friend's uh production that ended up being really successful.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's a lot of different um, you know, both film and uh you know, New York's such a hub for creativity and production, and so uh whether it was uh advertisement or a uh creative shoot, and we've done our own, you know, our direction on shoots, and and so it's really kind of does it fit with the brand?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Are we excited about it?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and uh, you know, do we have the availability?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: So it it kind of is uh uh always you know, is this on brand?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we've had some amazing people do some amazing things in our spaces, and each one, you know, whether it's a photographer or film takes a different vantage point and shoots it differently, and that's been really fun to see how they play in the space creatively.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, it's a matter of having the incredible space by which to give those different vantage points for each photographer or videographer.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: So then if we can draw this back to design, how do you determine what to what to build, how to decorate a space, how to to determine what is going to be that story that you're gonna put in in the aesthetic and through every feature?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, each one is of the place that it's in.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: So the first Uber Cowboy Brooklyn was, you know, a response to what I wanted.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's always what we want in our lives.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's a personal reflection.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I look at them as like albums, right?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, each one is a representation of where we are creatively, what we're looking for.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the first Rupert Cowboy in Brooklyn had a log cabin in the back, um, a sauna, a hot tub, and two garage doors.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: It's in Williamsburg, so it's kind of uh rustic luxury industrial townhouse that was open air, and then the front uh tree in the front yard and a front porch, and then a log cabin and a sauna in the back.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: So it was kind of a respite from city life in the city.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh but it leaned into you know the kind of loft industrial chic in Brooklyn.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that's what I wanted in my life.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted a place to host people, a third space before that term was coined.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh if you had the coated the keypad on the front door, you swung by.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're a traveler and a guest, you got to meet locals who were hanging out there.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: And and you know, that's you know, really a space for travelers, romantics, creatives to sit and talk, uh, think of a salon in the old days.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: So that's what we were wanting in our life in in Brooklyn at the time.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: And that mixture of locals and travelers is always very key to what we do.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, when you travel, when we travel, we want to not only stay at uh a beautifully designed property, but one that is embraced by local community and meet people, and a lot of people meet by the fires.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: We have elemental activations, whether they're claw foot tubs or um fire with a lot of wood fire everywhere and smell, taste, touch, sound, lighting music.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um you know, Nashville, we built a musical parlor in Nashville that we do live music at, and some of our favorite artists just have come in there and played on the instruments.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: And uh one of our favorite bands was staying in headlining Bonaroon.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: I came down in the morning and they were all playing in the musical parlor and these you know different communal spaces for travelers and locals to commune.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, a Victorian mansion is much different than a townhouse in New York, and our Catskills Lodge is on 200 acres.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, it has like 13 buildings and two bars and restaurants, and is really a luxury resort.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so each one, you know, that's we built our dream lodge in nature.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so yeah, um, yeah, you know, Denver's an 1880s mansion, they're always reflections of what we want in our lives and what and what also is is there, you know, the buildings tell us a lot, the spaces themselves give us a lot.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: We we've worked with a lot of um old historic uh buildings that have really great bones and um have been like well preserved.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, you don't have to, you don't have to decide much with that that kind of tells you what you can do.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you're in a Victorian mansion, it's like it's not a square box.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know, everything is everything is uniquely custom.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: All the windows are different sizes, all they're they're too low, they're it's made for Victorian furniture, you know.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: You kind of there's only so much, you know, you have to like you have to lean into those kind of spaces.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the location tells you a lot too.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: In Nashville, we have a musical parlay because Nashville's music city, and it just that's what you feel when you're there.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's what it's what people are expecting, it's what they want, you know.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: So you go out and you you listen to music and everyone is a musician, and all your bartenders are musicians, and everyone's in a band, so it makes sense.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, and it never really did into like a frontier western expansion spirit of when the building was built, you know.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um the history of the building will tell you a lot too.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was built by, you know, a silk hat bar.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: A silk hat baron like brought his fortune over, and then I'm pretty sure was an arms dealer or a bootlegger.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of switched it up a little bit, but uh uh you know, they they they love to host parties.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: The matriarch of the house is still present.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's definitely hot tool, yeah.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so you can like you can lean into these stories, you listen to what the people tell you about these spaces and yeah, and then design impaired by how we put it together.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we drive trucks all over the country picking found objects, and I drive everyone crazy because I don't know where anything's gonna go, but I still love I look at my design as like a collage artist and get all these different clippings of found objects, textures, hand printed, hand-carved custom wallpaper.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um you create different layers and layers and layers of um both you know textures, colors, soft goods, furniture, and place it around until it feels right.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so it's always an iterative process.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: We're always tweaking and refining and adding, and so the projects are never done.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, and you also see the pathways people walk once you've opened.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_02: You have all these ideas, and then you see how people move in the spaces and respond to that, and then build, you know, different experiences along those pathways.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you mentioned a lot there, but what I get is that it is a labor of love.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: They're never finished, is yeah.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're constantly, there's always new things, new layers to add.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um yeah.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's it's it is a labor of love.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, design's my love language.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: And it's how I kind of express my art.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I think what set us apart a lot is, you know, if your design and the program you're doing elicits an emotion, right?
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: We're not looking to just make uh a, you know, and again, no, no uh shade to this brand but like a marriage experience where you come and you stay and it's fine and you use your points, and you know, that's that's not, you know, we're not for everyone.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we have no TVs in any of our rooms.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, we want you to sink into the place and the moment and get out of your normal loop.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we design places to be very experiential and not just a hotel room, but a full immersive experience of the place you're in, the room you're in.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's like you know, take a bath, have a cocktail, sit by the fire, have a conversation, and you know, sink into whether you're alone or with a partner or a friend, uh the moment, and uh that's done through, you know, like I said, those elemental activations of water, fire, music, food, uh, and you know, we really lean into you know that as a kind of core pillar of what we do.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh well, you mentioned Marriott, not me first.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna go there in terms of Urban Cowboy not only being, let's say, anti-scale versus the multinational brands, but also the hand selecting of every single room versus what's now being called the Great Hotel Blanding, where hotels zylo off into your design and every room, whether you're in Manila or Manchester, UK, all looks the same.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: There is something to be said about the McDonald's McDonald's McDonald'sization of hospitality, but the storytelling and what you can do there for making each room unique.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um so do you get guests that return to your properties and they want to experience different rooms to have a different perspective on each property?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: We do.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: We do.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: We we have we have um, you know, for instance, it's a crazy way to do things, but you know, we'll have in the national property eight different room types in eight different rooms.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, you know, the lodge we have you know 26 different room types around across, you know, uh 45 rooms.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: So you know, there's um a craziness to it, and it's it's not um it's not your normal experience, but you can stay with us in the lodge and have literally a different experience every time you stay.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh the penthouse is you know a full floor where you can have your entire friend group stay with six bedrooms, or you can lock it off and make it a one-bedroom.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: And there's um, I think an excitement.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, we have people come back multiple times at the properties and stay with us, whether it's over the years or over the year, and they'll want to try different experiences, but all of them have that same design thread if it's our design.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but uh you know, as we have grown, you know, we've mixed in different things like cloth with tubs in every room and things that we want to be um thoughtful for and give that experience to everyone.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so each one's unique.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and as we think about growing and scaling, it's you know, we aren't McDonald's and uh we don't want to be.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but as we grow larger, and you know, there's certain things that we'll do the same, um, and then respond to each face.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: These are all adaptive reuse projects, right?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: So usually in historic buildings that are over a hundred years old, and so every room has its own quirks and uh tweaks and kinks to figure out.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: And ghosts apparently.
• 25:49
  unknown: Yeah.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: In every property, yeah, yeah.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Every single property.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah there's an energy to it.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, like you look at other places like the the Overlook Hotel, and there are places that where people go specifically for that type of experience, whether they uh get a good night's sleep or not.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: Most of our ghosts like to party, so it's uh they're usually they've all been luckily very good energy.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and you know, uh, we we like to think that they've uh been kind of confused as we're building the places, and then once they see what we've done, they they they have a good time.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: So one thing with historical buildings is uh once you get behind the walls there, you have to deal with the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing to bring that up to speed.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: How have you dealt with that whole can of worms?
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, it is a very it is very unique and very difficult for every single project.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: You never know what you're dealing with.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, when you're turning something that was not a hotel into a hotel, there's a lot that you need to add in for, you know, the standard of comfort and our time.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of bathrooms.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, we try not to move too many interior walls if we can, because a lot of them are like made out of like this old plaster that's essentially concrete.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Laugh and laugh, but um, but yeah, you do you do run into it, and also every every location has been in a different state.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: So there's different codes that you have to follow and different um historic preservation laws that you have to follow and all kinds of stuff.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: So um they I would say every property has been an experiment in those in that way.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um we've learned from each other.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: And we've learned from each one.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: We I don't think we've done the same thing twice anywhere, and you know, yeah.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's it's HVAC, plumbing electric, and mechanicals are always um triple the cost and triple the time, right?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: No matter what anyone tells you.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so we've weaved through all different types of systems, you know.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: We try to be as energy efficient as possible, with also aesthetically um trying to you know weave it in, especially in the old 1800s buildings when they were built before um any of these things were even invented.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: So uh always a challenge, always kind of a fun maze in your mind to weave through.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, we've done everything from you know recirculating systems to you know, we're putting in claw foot tubs, so then you have to figure out how to get hot water through an 1880s mansion to 20 different claw foot tubs and always have your unique challenges and uh you know, wheeling on mechanical engineers and architects to help us, but end of the day when you're building it, the plans, however well laid, always have to be tweaked in the moment, like a lot of the design.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's always iterative, it's always uh a headache, and it's a very, very involved process.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're constantly uh you're constantly fighting the uh the age of the buildings, right?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so always fun.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, to throw in a cowboy term, um, it seems like from the beginning you've largely bootstrapped a lot of these projects.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Is that correct?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, we we've scaled like uh mom and pop, right?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_02: So each one has been a different investor group um on a property company basis, and then our operating company is is us, right?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: So we work with the different budgets we have with the different partners that we have, and um, and we've had uh fortune of having amazing partners that have helped us grow in different cities, and um uh you know, rather than bootstrap, we're kind of we're like we'll cowboy it uh and you know, kind of wing certain things.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: And for instance, our bar in Nashville, you know, we opened the bed and breakfast kind of boutique hotel portion in the eight suites, um, and then iterated that into a full boutique hotel with a wine bar in front.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_02: And then we then built in the back in the carriage house the bar while we were running the hotel and kind of funded the building of the bar while we were you know uh figuring out the hotel.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of these things will come in stages of Catskills.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: We bought the main lodge on 68 acres, and then we're in conversations with um a resort across the river for three years until we then bought that generational resort, and then over the last two years, we combined both sides of a mountain valley and then opened up the full you know 120-year-old pool, bar, and bowling alley, and then five more you know, lodging options with another 25 rooms.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_02: So these things are always growing and expanding and changing and iterating.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because you really don't know how something's gonna function until you open it uh and and listen to people and watch their experience and tweak it.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: So um all of it has been very bootstrapped.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we've mom and pop scaled and you know, now we're looking at a lot of larger projects, and Jersey really wants to do one on a beach.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: We're looking at different cities um that we want to be in and we think our community would enjoy.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so it is always iterative.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: We always cowboy it or bootstrap it.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and as we've grown as a brand, budgets have grown, experiences have grown, size has grown.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we start with five rooms up to now a 200-acre resort.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you both talked a lot about this idea of community across different properties and just having a nice casual conversation around a fire.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, can you talk about this in terms of this growing trend about hotels as places of finding like-minded people and this idea of fostering a sense of community?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_01: Traveling has just become so commonplace for people that uh you know everyone is flying.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's kind of it's so normal to travel.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that they miss their sense of community because you're not staying in one place.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so places like the Ace kind of invented this hotel lobby experience where all of a sudden hotels that became an accessible space for people, local and traveler, to really hang outside of their room and like it became a living room experience.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's something we really embraced with our original property, which was having this space for people to really gather.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we don't have um TVs in our rooms.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want people to just stay in their rooms.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: We want them to experience the sense of comfort with like bathing and relaxing and getting a really good night's rest.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, for the experiential travel, I th traveler, I think they are also looking for connection.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: And connection happens in these communal spaces.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: So you kind of have to you have to educate a person how to be in the space and what to do and how to like sit down and talk to a stranger, but you have to make that a really easy thing for them to do and an easy thing for them to lean into.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so that was kind of, you know, that's the service model that we kind of set up in Brooklyn.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it has been a you know a pillar of what you know of our values and what we kind of design around at every uh location.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's always about good food, good drinks, and then you know, that kind of le that leans into people relaxing and uh starting conversations and sitting around something elemental like a fireplace, like we have up at the lodge, or a fire pit like we have in Nashville, you know.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's you know, you can put a bunch of people together and kind of see what happens and it they usually interact.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think the our whether it's our marketing, branding, design aesthetic, or ethos, I think it draws a unique person that's looking for that communication with others.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, we've had people that have met by the fire and have become fast friends and gotten married, gotten married and traveled together next and um have met their best friends there.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, our her best friend met one of my best friends and now they're pregnant with their second baby, and so there's you know, yeah, um a lot of those stories of you know our kind of tagline is arrive as strangers, leave as friends.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's on the front page of our website in every property, and you know, it's not a uh cheesy thing, you know.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: The people that we've met at our properties sitting by the fire and having a cocktail with have become some of our best friends, and it's not only changed our lives, but um you know that communal spirit of you know, you go to hotels and you travel, and whether you're alone or with a partner or friend, uh, you know, you check in, you get you know, with a shower, a bath, whatever it is, and then you go down to the wine bar, or you go down to the parlor bar of the Catskills, or you sit by the fire pits, you know, in Neshville in fire season, you know, we have a fire concierge.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's literally like doing eight different fires throughout the property.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: And these are the you know ancient historic things people sat around and communed and ate and talked about the day.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, whether it's a bar, restaurant, uh outdoor hang, you know, it it's it's a place for both locals and travelers specifically to sit and have a chance to have a conversation.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I think as things are digitized and everything's automated, um, these spaces become more and more important in your daily experience.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: And like Judy said, whether it's you know the lobby uh that's then activated where locals are staying or an outdoor activation, um, you know, we purposefully designed around that um to allow people to organically connect.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think also keeping it accessible, you know, we don't have an exclusive model.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone can come.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, these are public spaces.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that, you know, even from the beginning, it was a public space.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: As long as you knew about it and you were a local, you could come and you you wanted to engage in the space in a way that, you know, was available to sit and have a conversation or to sit and you know be a part of it.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that really changes the perspective of like going to like a SOO house or something like that where you're very much you know, there's a barrier to entry that you have to get through.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so the purposefulness of it kind of changes.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a lot to follow up on there, but I guess to pull out one thread is the food and beverage side of things, which is another area where a lot of hotels really put a lot of effort in to tell that story.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so do you work with a food and beverage partner, or is that also something that's within both of your purview?
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, we we started um hosting people in Brooklyn, you know, and we had an open bar that we were pouring a ton of mezcal and a ton of rose and a ton of, you know, hosting secret sushi pop-up dinners with chefs.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_02: And and so that was very much getting invited in the space and being hosted.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I kind of looked at Jersey, I'm like, well, if we ever open a bar, we'll make a fortune because we're pouring so much free booze.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so we did that in Nashville.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_02: And we just had our 10-year anniversary at Urban Cowboy Nashville and our public house bar um uh and in a restaurant.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we do capital B and the lowercase F in a lot of these, um, in the sense that we run our own beverage program.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_02: We have amazing cocktails and uh you know a wine bar in Nashville as well.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we really lean into um you know that aspect of it.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: And we have different food providers, for instance, in Brooklyn, uh, we would do different chefs and cocktail programs, but in Nashville, um we opened with a chef that did an 18-course live fire tasting menu, and that's iterated to um, you know, we now have Roberta's initial and star pizza there, uh, which is my favorite pizza.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_02: And in in Denver, we have Monarch doing amazing um wood-fired food.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: And at the lodge, we have a full service bar restaurant with our own chefs.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_02: So each property has their own um uh, you know, but the bar with the bowling alley has you know another pizza.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_02: So a lot of wood-fired food.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, a lot of um different you know, chefs and food operators will partner with or run in-house.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we always lean into like a capital B and really love to focus on the beverage program.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: And and um, you know, uh Urban Cowboy Bar has, you know, Frankie's um spatino pizza in it.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_02: So different food providers, but we always run the beverages and um you know, like I said, at the lodge, we have a full service restaurant.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_02: So they all iterate, they're all different.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they're all led by you know what that place and set and setting is.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um Nashville's a really boozy town, and Denver, you know, is uh a little bit different where people might have one or two cocktails and then you know uh weed is legal there and smoke and joint, microdose mushrooms.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a very uh it's always led by the um uh set and setting of of you know the property and the the city that they're in.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, you use the term set and setting, which is actually a term from I guess uh the 1960s psychedelics era of when these um, I guess alternative forms of um altered states first came uh to the public uh knowledge there.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: And where I'm going with this is where we're seeing things going with Gen Z is towards less alcohol consumption and more other consumption, whether it is cannabis, um, you know, uh xilocybin, uh, which is on the forefront of being legal, or even just this whole idea of functional beverages, zero zero-proof cocktails with a health and uh whatever benefit.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: Are you looking at these trends and seeing how urban cowboy can really meet the market where it's heading?
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, you kind of can't not look at it, you know.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think everyone sees it.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: If they're if you're watching your numbers, you see it, you know.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um Yeah, you know, for instance, I was just working with our head of beverage uh in Nashville, right?
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: Which is a still extremely uh alcohol forefront town.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's a party town, and people go there to eat and drink and play and listen to music.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: And um, but with that, um uh, you know, a lot of times the NA menu is a couple little options and it's in the back.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_02: And right now, RNA cocktail program, we just added like 10 different um non-alcoholic options where uh one of the bartenders is an expert in specific tea kind of um extracts and um, you know, really leaning into elixirs, you know, that have uh obstruganda mushrooms and um different health tonics, right, that aren't just sugar bombs, which at a a lot of times it's an afterthought, and we're really developing that into our beverage program.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, you see a lot of people not drinking, which is fantastic and healthy.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and there's a whole other conversation to have about you know uh what that does for social kind of uh lubrication.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, people still want to go out, they still want to commune, they still want to be with people, but not everyone in the group is drinking.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so having options that are not just, you know, uh sugar bomb with uh some tonic in it, um, but really kind of beautifully artfully designed cocktails that um not only taste good, but uh you know you feel good after, um are definitely at the forefront of a lot of our beverage menus.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think that's been a trend in the past few years, but we've seen it even more and more every day in in our properties.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: And people still want to be together, they still want to have a great meal.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but in that capital B on beverage, they you know having a real option for them to enjoy several different um, if not multiple options, and as many options as our cocktail menu, which is very extensive and award-winning, um has been a big focus for us, yeah.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: So aside from beverages and uh uh meeting people with these functional uh whether tea base or other, what other ways is uh Urban Cowboy meeting the future trends and what's next for Urban Cowboy?
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think travel's changed so much even since we've opened.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when we opened in Nashville, we were the first boutique hotel, and I think there's been like 20,000 hotel rooms built since.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think you know, really the experience from start to finish is something that we always iterate on, and it's always a reflection of what we're looking forward to.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, we wanted also healthy options to do in the Catskills, for instance, we have a Estonian sauna and a river plunge.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's always these different um you know, we built tree nets up the mountain um where you're climbing up a fifty foot treehouse made of climbing rope.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um and different Elemental activations to commune with nature, for instance, at the lodge.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, you can play tennis or do shuffleboard or kind of these old uh catskills, borsch belt, dirty dancing things that are you know, the bowling alley has two lanes from the 1800s, and you have to put the pins back yourself.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so these different activities that um are nostalgic and fun and uh you know don't always revolve around alcohol, mixed with um, you know, things like uh in Denver and Nashville, like we do yoga in the garden in Nashville, uh, but then you know flip the space to then have you know thousands of people come through on the weekend to eat, drink, and sit by the fire.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's um mixing in the health and wellness without leading with it, um, as well as uh live music, um uh DJ sets uh and all the things that a lot of the hotels have you know it's kind of starting to do now, we've been doing for a very long time.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um but I think the personalized kind of human element of it of um you know, we say our biggest amenity in the Catskills is there's no cell phone service.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you can you know do a Wi-Fi call if you want or do a Zoom meeting.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but um uh when you leave the property, you know, the buildings, you you know, you're you're offline.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: And we did a really fun activation where if you gave us your phone for the weekend, we gave you like a 20% discount on your your stack, uh, just to really encourage people to lean into you know the digital detox trend, but also really like sink into the experience.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so doing fun, cheeky things like that.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um you're always iterating on you know what people are responding to.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to go fly fishing, you can.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but even in these cities, uh, we're seeing it more and more and more.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_02: People are tired of being on screens and they're um over inundated with you know all the different digital trends.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we invite people to to be present in the moment.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there's a simplicity to a lot of things we do that um, you know, they're not gimmicky, right?
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_02: They're they're a real reflection of what we are uh you know, going through all of us, which is you know, any time being present and off a screen with human beings doing things um is great time spent.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_02: And those are where I think the best memories are made.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_02: And we're trying to, you know, design the set of the experience to encourage that.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's absolutely beautiful.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so much needed in today's screened out and AI out world as we uh have it.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um earlier you mentioned that you're looking at a a beach location.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: Are you able to announce any any new properties or new ventures that you want to put out to the world?
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'll be cautious on announcing the location because you're looking at several.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you don't need to, yeah.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_02: And they're they're in different iterations of of uh LOIs, but I think um I'll give a hint that it's a very Hemingway inspired environment.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh I know exactly where it is, yeah.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_02: And there's it's it's not where you'd think we'd go, but it's a really special property.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: So uh, you know, there's there's uh international locations that we've toyed with as well.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like we lived on the beach in Mexico for a summer and fell in love with a little town, and you know, all of these different um options are coming at us now, and you know, we're people are looking at us to activate you know their properties, and uh we're very open to larger, you know, 50 league properties and up, and we're looking at different size properties that kind of offer a different scale and different offering.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so we're in uh multiple levels of talks with different companies and partners and family offices.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um but this is the first time you're you're finding us not in construction uh in 12 years.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so we're gonna sit at our lodge and um sing into nature with our family.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_02: We have a five-year-old daughter and a 13-year-old son, and uh we're gonna sit here with our great dane and look at the year to come and look at the different opportunities.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, we're very open to growing the brand and uh new projects with you know the right partners.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_02: And uh we're very excited about that.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: And we have a lot of exciting properties that we're looking at, and we're very excited to sit in the woods and turn off our phones for just one month before we uh break ground or decide anything and uh and and really reflect on, you know, because again, this is always a personal expression of where we want to be and um and look at our our different opportunities together.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_02: And um uh we uh after 12 years of we've done everything backwards.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_02: We opened six businesses together, then had a child, and now we're engaged to be married.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so we're basking in the glow of our uh engagement after 12 years, and we're maybe uh maybe our next big uh collaboration will be planning a uh a wedding for next year.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: So we're gonna sit here for a month, look at all the different amazing and exciting opportunities, and yes, um kind of take uh a moment to sink into nature for the month up here at the lodge uh in the Catskills and and just enjoy the moment.
• 49:14
  unknown: Awesome.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, first off, congratulations.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's that's fantastic to hear, and you know, it seems like the perfect life.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you have you're up there in nature, you have uh a gigantic dog as well, which I love to hear.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so that's always a big plus.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm a dog person, yes.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I guess as one more follow-up here, uh, have you given any thought to branded residences?
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_02: A lot.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, my background's in luxury real estate.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_02: I've uh helped create, develop, and launch and sell uh about three billion dollars worth of uh real estate in Manhattan and Brooklyn and done Skyline Changing Towers.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I'm a real estate nerd.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_02: I have my master's real estate development and finance.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_02: So my my previous life before this was real estate.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_02: That's actually how we met.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_02: Jersey uh came to work for one of the companies I was running uh in real estate, and uh and you know, we come from a very, very deep-rooted um luxury residential background, and so uh it's always been a dream to build uh a little community on a beach in the mountains.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and so um on the beach in the mountains, with a mountain behind it.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, and so we're always looking at you know that that kind of dream dream Shangri-La project or something in the city, we'd love to do something larger in New York City where you know we both spent 20 years and um, you know, as I said, we're kind of taking stock of, you know, obviously that's a huge trend, private clubs, branded residences.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think uh, like I said earlier, set and setting is gonna be everything.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um that would literally lean into kind of mixing my previous you know life with with this one, and I think we'd be really excited to explore that.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I guess to throw in another big trend is this whole movement around wellness.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: So if you were to design an urban cowboy spa, what would it look like?
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_02: We've actually designed one and the project didn't end up happening, uh okay.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_02: It went through the whole design imperative of uh cowboy baths, right?
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so yeah, um, obviously the bathhouse movement is exploding.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um very good friends with the owner of bathhouse in Brooklyn.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, um, you know, we've built our own kind of rustic spa experience up at the lodge, right?
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_02: Whether it's a 120-year pool or the Stonian Sono with the river plunge.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so very rustic and and lo-fi.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but you're it's gone to nature, and really that's the uh that's the dream there.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I think we'd want to iterate on that.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um and like a natural setting.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_02: In a natural setting, and yeah, and lean into the architecture and design imperative, you know, a self-guided uh you know, we went to a you know place we love spas and um and and different wellness approaches, and like we got a lot of inspiration in Iceland and we visited there and uh went to Sky Lagoon and places like that, and all of the prevariant constant nature.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, so yeah, we've thought about and I think that'd be a dream design project.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that would be amazing to look forward to.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we've covered a lot of ground here, and it's been incredibly fascinating and just beautiful to learn about the work that you've done over the past uh, I guess almost 15 years now uh on Urban Cowboy from ground up all the way through to uh looking ahead to the future.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything else you want to tell the world about Urban Cowboy to close up?
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think you know, we're like I said, uh very open to doing projects in the places that we love.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, whether it's Austin or um, you know, uh a mountain lodge on a ski and ski out, and I love snowboarding.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we're looking at nature escapes as well as kind of city hubs um that uh speak to us.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so um, you know, stay tuned for next moves.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: But uh uh if you haven't experienced urban cowboy, come stay in uh uh the Catskills, Nashville, or Denver.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_02: And and uh, you know, uh for us, it's just a really exciting time where uh we feel like we're just getting started.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_02: So uh it's kind of a really moment to connect with you.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, absolutely fantastic.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you both for coming on the show.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's been uh it's been incredible and very enlightening to me to learn about just that message of returning to our roots, the nostalgia, the fun, the cheekiness all coming together, uh, and as well just the labor of love, how you're constantly iterating on a property, never letting anything just set it and forget it or rest on its laurels.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're constantly making each place better than what it uh what it was and offering more to every single guest that comes there.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_02: It was really nice chatting with you.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, thank you both.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_02: Have a great day.