[CLIP] How Ash became a brand by accident | Ari S. Heckman (Ash)

**Ari S. Heckman** (0:00)
New York is this place where all of these like fantastical characters, some of whom we've met tonight, are jammed into a couple of square mile. Density of like creative, smart, enterprising people is such a gift.

**Adrien Garcia** (0:15)
And what was your dream when you were a kid ?

**Ari S. Heckman** (0:17)
I always knew from a really young age that I wanted to be a real estate developer. I was obsessed with the idea of like creating something, and I wanted to be involved in every facet of it.

**Adrien Garcia** (0:28)
What is a real estate developer ? What is he doing exactly ?

**Ari S. Heckman** (0:32)
It's like a film producer. They often come up with the concept and the idea, and they figure out how to execute it, and they bring all of the participants together to make the thing happen.

**Adrien Garcia** (0:42)
Why you decided to go by yourself ? Actually, what has been with the clique ?

**Ari S. Heckman** (0:45)
I think I always knew that I wanted to do my own thing. Like I was sort of like, entrepreneurship was very much in my DNA.
Maybe it's narcissism, maybe it's ego. I don't know. This feels like chaos is in the air. It's a crazy time, but a good time to kind of try to do your own thing.

**Adrien Garcia** (1:02)
What's the final destination ? What's the whole vision for this Ash Hotel ?

**Ari S. Heckman** (1:06)
We knew so little about creating and designing a hotel. And those are the things that people actually liked about it. It's what made the product interesting.

**Adrien Garcia** (1:15)
What do you make sure your brand doesn't fade away ?

**Ari S. Heckman** (1:19)
When you go into something completely naive and you bring an inexperience, there's something really, really beautiful about that. Obviously, it could go terribly wrong. You don't know the rules to know you're breaking them.

**Adrien Garcia** (1:32)
Talking about New York, how is the hospitality in New York ? I mean, this is a market you don't really look at because it's far too expensive ?

**Ari S. Heckman** (1:41)
No, I mean, we're more and more looking for a project here. I think it's interesting because the first wave, the first generation of Ash Hotels were in all of these kind of underdog cities, as I said. But now as we kind of mature, we're very open to projects in what you would call more gateway markets. But it has to be the right thing.
Nine Orchard is a project that would have made sense for Ash, because it's in a beautiful historic building. It's in a neighborhood that's, you know, we'll look for underdog neighborhoods in, you know, first tier cities or something. I see. Yeah. And not even it just really for us, it's less about the specific place and just more about the vibe. It's something that's very challenging to define. Let me just make sure I'm taking us in the right direction.

**Adrien Garcia** (2:44)
So we were talking before about Ace Hotel.

**Ari S. Heckman** (2:48)
Yes.

**Adrien Garcia** (2:49)
And as you said, it's not the epicenter of the world anymore. I mean, when it opened, it was like the coolest thing ever.

**Ari S. Heckman** (2:56)
It was. It was.

**Adrien Garcia** (2:58)
How do you make sure your brand doesn't fade away ?

**Ari S. Heckman** (3:03)
It's a fantastic question. And I mean, with Ace, I think part of what happened is the founder sadly passed away. And so that's hard to keep the essence of the brand when there isn't someone who's like thinking about it and sort of like stewarding it.

**Adrien Garcia** (3:23)
It happened very quickly, actually.

**Ari S. Heckman** (3:25)
Yeah.

**Adrien Garcia** (3:26)
And the thing is, he didn't get a chance to prepare it.

**Ari S. Heckman** (3:30)
Yeah, and it was sort of still, it was at its like launch point. You know, he was, he passed away when New York was opening and then London was opening. A risk also of being a, you know, hotel brand or hotel company that doesn't necessarily control the real estate side of it, is if you don't do a good job at the management, or your hotel is not a success, you get fired and so you don't have the sort of like longevity, you know.

**Adrien Garcia** (3:59)
And Ace Hotel was what, was it an operation or it was a...

**Ari S. Heckman** (4:02)
It was started as like, they started involved in the real estate and then they moved more into sort of like the operation and brand. Do we want to go inside or what, or do we...