Barry Sternlicht made a fortune building Starwood Hotels and Resorts, which spawned successful brands like W Hotels, into a giant of the travel industry.
Now he wants to do them again – under the Starwood name.
Mr. Sternlicht is turning around the Starwood Hotels brand starting in February, nine years after the previous company was sold to Marriott in a $13 billion deal that created the world’s largest hotel chain. His current hotel company, SH Hotels & Resorts, will take on the Starwood name.
The move is a sign that Mr. Sternlicht, 64, is looking to reassert himself as a force in hospitality 20 years after leaving Starwood. Since then, he has focused heavily on Starwood Capital, the $115 billion private equity firm, where he built Starwood hotels.
The hotels remained part of the Starwood Capital business, with Mr. Sternlicht to buy and sell them just as it owns apartment buildings and other real estate. But since 2015, he said, he wanted to have another crack at making a mark in the hotel management industry under the Starwood name.
“I’m like a singer who has a song,” he said in an interview. “I want to have two songs.”
Reviving the Starwood name may seem like small change in the grand scheme of things. Indeed, Marriott had retired it years ago. But beyond his attachment to the name, Mr. Sternlicht believed getting it back would raise the company’s profile and help recruiting. He got the trademark back last year.
It is the last step in the campaign of Mr. Sternlicht to build a new hotel empire. By the time Marriott acquired Old Starwood, the company oversaw more than 1,300 properties in 100 countries, with brands such as Westin, W, Sheraton and St. Regis. The newly reborn Starwood has three brands so far, with 12 hotels in five countries.
It will probably be compared to what Mr. Sternlicht succeeded the first time.
A real estate investor by background, Mr. Sternlicht had not worked in the hotel business specifically before 1994, when Starwood Capital bought him Westin from a Japanese company and then began adding other chains. In 1998, Mr. Sternlicht created the W chain, whose glamorous lobbies and bars made it synonymous with Sleek Chic.
He picked up on even tiny details—the number of pillows, how porters handled guests’ luggage—at existing chains like Westin and Sheraton. “I’m like the style police, so people don’t get carried away,” he said.
And at Westin hotels, he introduced what he called The Heavenly Bed, which quickly became a selling point for the chain. It was a bet to upgrade the experience in the chain, although the partners initially bought into the cost.
“To change every bed in the Westins costs $17 million,” said Mr. Sternlicht. “It was the best $17 million we’ve ever spent.”
The sky bed quickly became popular, leading to it being sold at Nordstroms—and to rivals rolling out their own fluffy offerings of the snow-white mattress.
“He was the one who really nailed the concept of lifestyle hotels,” said Bjorn Hanson, a hospitality consultant, calling Mr. Sternlicht one of the architects of the modern hotel business. “The industry needed an outsider to say, ‘What is important to hotel guests?’ “
Mr. Sternlicht stepped down as Starwood’s executive chairman in 2005 after years of often clashing with the company’s other top executives. A decade later, Marriott bought Starwood after a fierce bidding war with a Chinese insurance company.
Up to that point, Mr. Sternlicht had returned to the hotel business, creating three new chains. One is the high-end Baccarat, whose Manhattan location features elaborate crystal chandeliers made from the French glass that its brand allows. (Starwood Capital once owned this company as well.)
Another is 1 Hotels, an environmental lifestyle brand, with wood, stone and green foliage adorning the lobbies. A third is Treehouse, which Mr. Sternlicht described it as a playful brand with vintage stylings meant to remind travelers of childhood. And he said he’s working on at least one more brand.
The new Starwood plans to open 22 hotels under development by 2028, including 1 hotel in Austin, Texas. in Crete and Seattle. Trees in Manchester, England and Miami. and Baccarats in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. the Maldives and Rome. All three brands are expected to open locations in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
(Mr. Sternlicht added that while he had no intention of selling the hotel company, he had considered selling a small portion to raise money for further international expansion.)
But the hotel industry has become much more crowded since Mr. Sternlicht built the original Starwood. Its innovations – in amenities and customer service, design, marketing and more – have been absorbed by competitors. Every major operator has a lifestyle brand and many independent boutiques have opened.
For Mr. Sternlicht, though, the work itself is part of the motivation.
“This is my passion,” he said. “Designing hotels and keeping them on brand is fun.”
