Sebastien Leitner
In 2023, a hotel in the mountains above Palm Springs was doing about $100,000 a year. The owners cleaned the rooms themselves. They’d fill in the pool, not to renovate it, but to stop paying the water bill. They were collecting rainwater in it.
Today, that same property does eight times that revenue. This year, it’s on pace for 10. And 98% of those bookings come direct. No OTA, no flag, no loyalty program.
Just a sauna that went viral, a pickleball court somebody had to fight the budget for, and a very deliberate bet that people don’t remember your bathroom tiles. They remember who they were with. My guest today is Tim Ensmann. He and his partners went from 20 short term rentals to buying the Pine Tree Hotel in Idlewild, California, and turning it into a destination.
And they’re about to run the entire playbook again in Blue Ridge, Georgia, with two more properties opening this winter. We get into all of it. Why he thinks occupancy and ADR are the wrong numbers to stare at. Right?
Take a 20 room over 40 room one every time. Our group bookings, weddings, reunions, birthday parties cover his debt service before the entire year even starts. And the thing that actually keeps him up at night, which isn’t demand, isn’t competition, and isn’t AI, it’s money. Specifically how badly the lending world misunderstands what he’s building.
He fell out of financing twice, went through three lenders on a property that was already performing.
If you’re building something the banks don’t have a box for, this one is for you.
Hit follow so that next episode finds you and if you know an owner operator who needs to hear this, send it to them. One more thing before we start. On the day Tim was getting Pine Tree ready to open, during the final punch list, he looked down and found a tombstone on the property. His actual first thought, is there a body here?
I’ll let him tell you how that one ended. Tim, it’s a pleasure to have you on the podcast. How are you today?
Tim Ensmann
I’m doing fantastic. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me on.
Sebastien Leitner
I wanna get started with a standard opening question, which is what keeps you up at night. Tim, what’s your answer?
Tim Ensmann
I think it’s too hard to bring these places that are in such demand and, like, good for the world, the community, your guests, and you as a business owner to life. And, like, I’ll I’ll give an example.
The Pine Tree Hotel and I’ll I’ll I’ll talk about the numbers first because I think it validates what we’re saying. The Pine Tree Hotel, we bought the property.
The previous owners were doing, like, a $100,000 in revenue a year. Like, they were cleaning the rooms themselves. They filled in the pool. They were doing everything with that adage of, like, cut costs and and try to why would you invest in something like a pickleball court? Like, that’s tens of thousands of dollars. Doesn’t make sense. We, like, eight x the revenue the first year, and we’re probably on pace to 10 x the revenue.
And good luck telling a bank that. Good luck showing in the underwriting that, hey, we’re gonna be able to support this type of financing. So really today in this space, there’s really two ways to go do these types of projects. It’s like seller financing or some form of SBA debt.
Right? Or you have a relationship with someone and and connect that, you know, trusts you to do the financing. But those are the wrong type of challenges to be solving in my opinion. Like, you have so many challenges in the design element, the construction element, the amenities, like which ones you’re choosing, the acquisitions side of things, like finding the right properties.
So to have misaligned financing, it keeps me up at night, and it’s a problem that I’m solving and, like, we will solve and allow people to go be able to go execute and and create these beautiful properties that are really sought after and high demand a bit easier than the way that we’ve been doing it. So I think that that’s a massive challenge in this space, and and, yeah, and I think it’s it’s the wrong it’s the wrong challenge. Because done right, there’s not a doubt that these properties outperform, you know, their better guests, better experiences, better groups, better businesses, and that’s, you know, that’s the business we wanna stay in.
Sebastien Leitner
So let’s break that down.
I mean, you mentioned a huge success. Right? Eight x of revenue, but you also articulated in this in this, I guess, opening that the access to financing is a hurdle, and that keeps us from developing these amazing locations and destinations. Is that fair?
Tim Ensmann
Absolutely. It’s like we without without just some blood, sweat, tears, calling in as many favors as possible, the pine tree would have never come to life. Like, the amount of that we fell out I think we fell out at financing terms twice with two different lenders, went through three different lenders on the SBA refinance front, and the property was performing. Like, you know, you think about if we were had normal bank debt, not SBA debt, we’d be cash flowing and producing even better.
So it’s just interesting to see that where these are these make so much sense from a profitability and and business perspective, yet they’re so misunderstood from traditional hospitality lenders, traditional, you know, government lenders in general. It’s just a a massive gap. And the reason for that is because this is arguably, like, a little bit newer playbook. Right?
This isn’t a it’s not like, Hey! Throw a Marriott downtown San Diego. That’s very easy. You can underwrite Occupancy demand.
You have years of historical income. What we’re talking about is, hey. You’re ninety minutes outside this, you know, market like LA or San Diego or Atlanta, where we’re actually attracting demand, and we’re, driving bookings through social media. And our model is just a little bit different, which it’s misunderstood, I’d say, right now.
But, you know, we keep seeing numbers and bookings like we have been. You know, it’s only a matter of time, and it’s either a partner that works with us for that or or we will we’ll solve that.
Sebastien Leitner
There are so many interesting pieces of what you just mentioned related to you’re almost creating a destination, if I if I hear you correct. Right? Like Pinetree Hotel as it previously was operating may have not been the destination that you’ve built it to become. Is that fair?
Tim Ensmann
100%.
Sebastien Leitner
So let’s tell the story. When did you start? How did you start? What made you start? Right? I mean, that’s probably one of the more interesting question because clearly there’s a story arc here and you’ve had probably a few bumps on the road.
Tim Ensmann
Yeah. Would you why don’t I’ll start with, like, why I love this space and kind of the the why behind me, because I think there’s probably easier ways to to make money or easier things to do in life, but I think I felt a pull.
You know, obviously, probably most of your audience as this just draw to travel, hospitality, experiences in in some capacity. So I had always been investing in different types of real estate just because of the goal of building wealth so you could go experience things like travel and, you know, build a good life and all of that. But I got into short term rentals back six six ish years ago where my philosophy was, hey. If I can purchase a piece of real estate and it serves as an investment but also as a personal lifestyle, you know, investment where I get to use it with friends and family, that’s a huge win for me.
So I purchased a property out in Park City, Utah, and our first booking was during ski season, and it covered my mortgage for half the year. And I said, oh my gosh. This is there’s something here. Like, I’ve never seen that on a single family home or multifamily or anything like that.
So at the time, my, you know, good friend, my best friend growing up, and business partner, he had gotten his first short term rental in Palm Springs, and he saw something similar. And we got excited about the space because we’re like, hey. This ties into us, our love for travel, our love for design and hospitality and, business too. You get to compete from a marketing perspective all the way down through how you’re acquiring customers, your operations, the guest experience you’re providing, using that feedback to get better.
We scaled up a portfolio. So personally, we had purchased over 20 of our own short term rentals across The United States and realized that the things that were making our properties win were we leaned into design. You know, we were we were something you were proud to stay at.
We leaned into the guest experience. We were constantly making, you know, offers of, hey. You should go check out this hiking tour. You should you can go to this winery. You should go, you know, play around the golf here. Like, always, what are ways that we can improve the experience?
And then what we also started noticing was a lot of our properties, we wanted to go share with our friends and family, but, like, they weren’t really able to accommodate groups in that fashion. Some of them were, you know, Scottsdale. We had some larger properties. But we noticed this demand for, I’ll I’ll use the cliche, but, like, Instagramable type properties, like places that you’re proud of. Oh, this is cool. This is unique.
That could host groups and then that we’re really leaning into some form of, you know, not wellness in the sense of you have to be, you know, doing sauna and cold plunges, but just, like, relaxing in nature to get you off the screen to kinda reset. We saw just a a high demand need for these things, and our short term rentals really couldn’t service that. So that’s when we made the pivot and said, well, what if we had, you know, 10 of these really cool cabins that we’re producing around a, on its own piece of property where you’re sharing the teams and efficiencies and marketing and all that, to which we we said, we believe this is we believe this is the direction of where things are going.
People want unique, bespoke. People want, enriched experiences through those amenities. You know, where we can compete is coming in. We had the teams.
We had the experience to add value through the design and and through some of these updates. And we did have a have a lot of experience through operations and marketing and and systems and guest experience and running teams. So that’s when we we went very hard into boutique hotels, but more specifically, like, hospitality. And with that, you know, came the Pine Tree where we had probably looked at 20 plus hotels in Palm Springs because we knew that market.
We knew Southern California. None of them penciled. Like, the the value that was being you know, the price that was being requested just did did not make sense. We’re like, well, if we’re purchasing it for this, then we need to put this much into the where’s the money gonna be made?
So, we came across Idyllwild and, you know, fell in love with the market because it’s drivable from LA and San Diego. We got the property at a really good price, which allowed us to really invest in the amenities. Like I said, the previous owners had been collecting rainwater in a fully functioning pool because they didn’t wanna pay the water bill. It’s like, guys, you have one of the only pools in Idyllwild, like commercial pools.
Heat that thing and rent it all year. Like, that is a massive, you know, driver. That’s, like, a great experience. So, you know, things like that, we we really leaned in on and added the amenities that people want.
Like, we have a very famous sauna that just gets a lot of love on Instagram and social media, the coal plunges, the wellness deck, the, you know, pickleball courts, the heated pool, plenty of space for group activities.
And and once we got started, like, we really haven’t looked back and the property has been just a massive hit. Right? We’re 98% direct bookings. We cover our our full debt service from group bookings in, a very small percentage of nights.
So, like, we’re creating predictable revenue for our business, and people just really resonate with the type of experience that we’ve we’ve developed. So with that, you know, that’s kind of our our model and our our playbook, what we’re doing, and we’re doing the exact same concepts in Blue Ridge, Georgia, that fit a very similar demographic. It’s drivable from Atlanta. It has these wow factors on the tenth hole of a golf course, resort style pool, just set up perfectly for reunions, retreats, group trips, you know, wellness events, all of that stuff.
So we feel like we’re in an interesting time where this space is in in high demand, and we’re just providing properties that, you know, that people want and are different from what’s out there.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s amazing. So you found the location, so it sounds. Right?
Like, the the the other location, was it Palm Springs that
Tim Ensmann
was in is is just down the mountain.
So Idlewild is, like, a mile high, so we get snow and stuff up there, but you’re two hours from San Diego. So Yeah. So Cal, so just down the mountain is Palm Springs, which we we know and, you know, operate and had the teams.
Sebastien Leitner
So you were looking at properties there, but realized, hey. This is out of price range or budget, or it’s not going to, you know, realize any benefits for you in the short term or maybe long term. Found a mile up the road, right, outside of Palm Springs. An amazing location. How many years ago?
Tim Ensmann
2023, we bought Pine Tree.
Sebastien Leitner
2023. Okay. Cool. Previous owner had something, but probably did not realize the potential. You saw the potential, put some money into it, renovated it, I assume. Yep.
And now it is an amazing location. How many years did it take you to get, like, from ’23 to where you’re saying now comfortably, I’m I’m happy where it’s at? Or maybe you’re not happy yet. I I don’t know. What what what’s the status now for you?
Tim Ensmann
Yeah. I think that was the longest year of our lives of 2023 to 2024. I think, you know, it’s one of those things that, like, our part like, myself and and our partners, we kinda talk about this is there was actually zero doubt that it was gonna be a success. It’s just how long it took.
Right? Like, I think it’s that at eight eight age old adage where you overestimate what you can do in a year but underestimate what you can do in ten. And I think this is like we are so far ahead of the curve. Like, these properties are so in the money in even five years, in my opinion.
But that first year, I mean, it’s just everything. I I’ll tell a story. It’s funny. But the the end, we were, you know, getting the property ready for a social hour for the community.
And it was like, we’re literally pushing a wheelbarrow behind. There was, like, some punch list items to just get it ready.
And I’m moving something over, and I see, like, a tombstone on the property. And I’m like I’m looking at Isaac, and I said, is this do we have a body on the what is going on? Is this a cemetery?
Sebastien Leitner
Like Is this a skeleton? Very damaged.
Tim Ensmann
It’s like, what what are we gonna do here? There can’t be anything more. Anyway, it ended up being a cat. It was like a cat cemetery or something like that.
But point being is you just go through everything. I mean, it’s delays in the financing. It’s delays in construction. It’s, you know, learnings.
It’s pulling budget to make sure you can accommodate the pickleball court. It’s all of these things that you’re doing because you know it’s important to the overall product. But, you know, every day that you’re not rented is is a day that you’re not in business to, you know, have some cash flow coming in and all of that. So point being is I think it took a lot longer than we were hoping for.
But in hindsight, I mean, we we haven’t even been open for three years, and the success we’ve seen in that short amount of time with really lack, I’d argue, of resources is is phenomenal, and it gives us that much more confidence in, like, being able to execute like that is giving some larger macro trends what we’re talking about with what people want today, the type of experiences people want, the type of experiences groups want, and us being able to provide that. So, obviously, there’s always room for improvement, and we’re never gonna be, you know, fully fully happy. But I think where we’re at today, we’re very proud of.
And I’d say that that really started turning the corner after about eighteen months of acquiring the property, where it’s like, okay.
We’re we’re almost
Sebastien Leitner
2525 twin or end twenty four?
Tim Ensmann
Yeah. Yeah. So end well, ’24 end of twenty four, we were still, you know, getting things moving. Still did, you know, did well. But I think moving into mid twenty twenty five, we were we were like, okay. This this is really this is really fun.
Sebastien Leitner
Hindsight is always 2020, or there’s some expression that goes very similar to this. When you sort of look back, what what did you underestimate in that year that sort of elapsed? Where what did you think you could do quickly and it ended up being taking so much longer?
Tim Ensmann
I think it’s more personal expectations versus, like, the deal expectations. One of the things that you are eager to do but just have to have patience is a lot of what we’re talking about of telling the story and what’s coming and the marketing and all that. And we’re in a very this is a real life type of business. Right?
There’s a lot of people, there’s a lot of teams, there’s a product that is very much not on the screen or the the vision or the renderings or anything that’s coming. So I think that just like anything, your expectations around the development process, the ramp time for being able to market and advertise so people can actually come and stay on-site. There’s always just some some learnings and it feels like it takes longer than it should. But that’s kind of part of the the industry.
Right? Like, you can’t just buy a property, and then the next day, it’s gonna be this big thing. Like, the brand takes time.
Even some of the decisions you make for the amenities or what your phases look like. Right? Not everything has to be done in the first year. You don’t need to have three saunas and multiple amenity. Like, you can kinda phase that out. You wanna get the big stuff in, but then you can use feedback from your customers on maybe a different yoga deck or, you know, maybe an additional sauna, whatever that may be. So I think I think a lot of the things that you already know take time.
Just get comfortable with setting that expectation with yourself, around everything, the design, the construction, the understanding that you may need to make some modifications in your plan when it comes to amenities or what’s important now, And then, obviously, the ramp time. Right? Like, does it make sense to go push really hard to go book out rooms next month when you won’t be available for four? So just be patient.
You know? Realize that, hey. It’s okay to, you know, not have viral videos and stuff yet, that it’s just kinda telling the story and here’s what’s coming. And then when you start seeing that light at the end of the tunnel, then you can really go in and and lean into the fun stuff.
Sebastien Leitner
Yeah. I’m currently decorating a new place right now, so I’m very curious around this. Next question. Was there was there anything you spend way too much money on as you sort of onboarding this property?
And in hindsight, you’re sort of like, oh, I wish I had spent more on this.
Tim Ensmann
I mean, that’s something we think about all the time. I think I think we did an okay job with that to start because we were so because we had done so many of those types of projects where may maybe I’ll say maybe I’ll give advice with instead of just with how we thought about it because I think it did us some some good, is when you’re in a property like a pine tree or, you know, that needs pine tree needs a lot of love. The properties we’re doing now definitely need some love. You wanna focus on, like, the the end to end experience of when someone comes first comes on-site with, like, what they see, how they feel, how they check-in, what are the activities they’re doing, who are they doing it with.
Like, you really wanna think through that because I think what you’ll find is spending $20 on brand new kitchens and, like, really leaning into that is probably not the right move. Like, you’d probably wanna save a little bit of money and invest in, you know, some really nice outdoor spaces, whether that’s cabanas by the pool or, you know, the pickleball court or the, you know, speakeasy downstairs or whatever that may be. So, like, lean into the programming and the experiences versus really high end, you know, types of supplies and materials. Like, you wanna be tasteful.
You want it to feel curated, but, like, we’ve, you know, we’ve made that mistake in the past where you’re spending all this money on tile in the bathroom, and it’s like people are in there for twenty minutes. And, like, what they’re gonna remember is gonna be outside playing pickleball with their kids or, you know, hitting the sauna with your significant other in the morning versus that twenty minutes in this really nice custom shower. So I think that’s kind of our perspective is, like, lean into the things that really have that wow factor and create the memories versus I think a lot of times, it’s always been kinda it’s been so focused on more this developer mindset of having really nice buildings, but it’s not about the buildings.
It’s about the memories you’re creating in the buildings. So I think that’s how we thought about the whole thing.
Sebastien Leitner
You consciously made a decision to stay independent, to really embrace, I guess, boutique. Right? But you at the same time, you mentioned financing was a challenge. Is it safe, or is it the right position to stay independent to to lean into the boutique from your point of view? Like, you would you would keep doing that because there are brands that cater to sort of boutique more individual hotel type properties.
Tim Ensmann
I think we will stay independent.
I think a lot of you know, when I’m talking about financing, you don’t experience that for for more flagged brands.
I personally have a take too with I think we’re very bullish on things like social media and community and building out a sales function that I don’t think we need to be, you know, paying the fees for OTAs or some of the the flagged, like, loyalty programs just because, in my opinion, like, when when it’s late at night and you’re on your phone, like, you’re on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. You’re not on, you know, Marriott Bonvoy app, Airbnb, booking.com. Like, that you’re just naturally there. So if we can meet you there, we wanna be there, and we know we can do that well.
So I think because of that, we’ll always have our own brand, but I think there’s definitely a case in, like, a lot of the the larger operators are moving into this boutique, like, you know, outdoor hospitality. So I I think it’s coming.
I think there’s there’s cases to be made for both, and I think it’s more about like I said, the our model is not based off of the rooms. Like, we’re we’re we don’t really care about the rooms. We care about getting outside the rooms. Like, I’d argue that a, you know, 20 unit really cool hotel like ours could outperform a 40 unit okay, you know, hotel that’s, you know, subpar, like, you know, more of a economy brand.
So I think I think I think it’s case by case. And for us, it was more a matter of, like I said, like, getting kind of outside the restrictions of a, you know, a flagged hotel or more of the, I’d say, you know, past playbook of how others have done it. And and that’s why that’s why we like the independent strategy. It’s definitely harder, like, absolutely, especially on the financing side like she talked about, but I think we’re making good progress on, you know, working with the right partners to get them educated on how our model works and how this works and what to look for and how to assess risk and, you know, finance and and do all of that.
Sebastien Leitner
And now you have a track record. Right? You now have a proof or a point and say, success you mentioned it. Right? Eight times the revenue multiple?
Tim Ensmann
Yeah. That was from the previous owners. Will likely be 10 x this year.
Okay. What what financers will like right? Like, you think about a a bank needs to underwrite for risk.
Hospitality in general has risk from transient demand. Right? If the economy, you know, recedes or we have a a down quarter or something like that, typically, discretionary spend is cut, meaning that, you know, the the normal person is not spending a ton of money on travel. I would argue that if there is any discretionary, you’re probably gonna travel to a drivable destination like an Idyllwild or, you know, Blue Ridge because it’s close to the major metros versus flying somewhere to go travel.
So that, you know, that’s up for debate. But then second to that is because we’re not just dependent on transient demand, We actually sell higher ticket group demand that gives us predictability. Like, we have weddings that are booked next year. We have birthday parties that are booked next year.
They pay you nonrefundable deposits. Most of that is collected well before the event, right, and it’s non refundable. So for us, we can create more consistency and predictability in our business. So it’s not like, oh my gosh, we had a down December, what do we do?
Well, it’s like, well, we’re still I mean, we have our debt service covered for next year. We are already booked out. So I think that level of understanding, you start to realize, like, oh, this may be less risky than a flagged hotel in a major metro just because these guys have years of bookings that are on the books, you know, contractual stays, all of that. So I think that’s also helpful, and I think we just operate at a higher margin too where we’re not paying 15 to 20% to OTAs.
Like, we own that data. We do stuff through social media. It’s a lot cheaper, I promise you that, than paying the OTAs, and I think those types of things are the way that we can educate our lenders or finance partners to share that there’s a reason to be financing these types of deals and how how it should be structured.
Sebastien Leitner
It’s amazing. You keep mentioning social media. I do need to double click on that. It seems to be that’s your that’s your sales funnel. Right? Like, that’s where you where you where you’re attracting.
So I guess two questions. One is how many postings a day, a week? Like how much time are you investing in social media? Number one. Is it an agency? Is it you guys doing yourself? Help us understand like how much resources you’re dedicating to that.
Tim Ensmann
Yeah. So we we have a few pillars.
We have our own, you know, internal team. So we have a marketing manager that helps us with pretty much everything. But if you look at how we think about kind of the content funnels, it’s you need organic content, so just natural, you know, shots of the property throughout different seasons, different room types, like, what is your product, and then being able to tell that story. So that’s kind of our own organic content.
You need different perspectives, so we use influencer marketing where you have curated influencers. It can’t be anyone. If they have a million followers, it doesn’t matter if they’re, you know, talking about basketball in Kansas City. It doesn’t that’s not the demographic you want.
So you want influencers that are relevant for your properties, and then there’s also the group sales function that we repurpose trending content that’s worked for us to go attract the type of groups that we wanna go attract. So those are really the pillars of our marketing funnel. And then, yeah, our our marketing manager helps us facilitate action against each of those. So we we have a good place of organic.
Like, we have the different seasons. We have the different requests we’ve gotten. Right? And to give an example of that is in the beginning, you’re kind of learning, oh, we need some better fall content.
We need some better summer content. You know? We need to get the snow here. So you’re definitely investing in those shoots.
What’s nice is once you get good stuff and it’s it’s worked and it’s resonated well, you typically don’t need to keep reinvesting in that unless there’s something worth reinvesting in. Then what you can do is we use a lot of influencers to come tell their story and to keep us relevant and to repost what they’re posting. And between those two funnels, we see what works. Right?
There may be a viral video that we post, does really well, and it talks about doing a, you know, a birthday that’s like a camp theme. Well, then we can take that. We repurpose that. We run that on Meta, so we target specific types of folks within that area to go drive group demand.
And then from there, we have a whole, you know, system.
Our team, you know, follows up, and we book those calls and and close those those group sales. So there’s definitely systems. There’s teams associated with it. It is a big part of our strategy.
I think it’s taken, you know, a few years to get it refined, to get it really dialed in, but we feel like we have a a really good predictable sales pipeline from from those areas. And then for posting, you know, we’re posting two to three times a week. We are reposting stories. You know, we run meta ads, and then there’s a lot of influencer collaboration type stuff too.
So that’s across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and, you know, primarily those channels because that’s where you’re driving a lot of bookings.
Sebastien Leitner
Top three, Instagram, Meta, YouTube, or no?
Tim Ensmann
Yes. It’s Instagram is definitely number one. TikTok, Facebook, but then meta ads do a lot of the the heavy lifting. Like, through Instagram and and Facebook, we’ll get really good bookings from those ads.
Sebastien Leitner
Okay. That’s amazing. So, I mean, I sounds like you have a playbook. Where to next?
Right? I mean, you’re not gonna sit still and and, you know, rest on your laurels. You’re going to go places. Right?
So So let’s talk about that. Where are you going with this?
Tim Ensmann
Blue Ridge, Georgia. So Okay. The pine tree was kind of that’s kind of where the inception of the idea came from. We had a cabin in Blue Ridge.
It’s the tree house. It’s still, like, one of the top performers on Airbnb. Crushed it. Very modern, you know, nude cabin design.
And we were like, man, this would be awesome if we had 10 of these either around a lake or with mountain views so you could have, like, the you know, you have almost like the Soho House vibe where you have the, you know, the wellness amenities and then the group, group areas to go cook out and have events and all that stuff, and we found two perfect properties. So we’re basically taking the playbook from Pine Tree, and we are running it back in Blue Ridge. And, we’re so excited. I mean, I think that’s one of the thing you know, I got into investing because I wanted to share experiences with friends and family, and, like, it’s amazing that we get to invest in areas that do exactly that.
It’s a benefit. And, like, these are places you’re really proud of to bring bring your friends, bring your family, like, host investors, all of that at these properties. I mean, everyone who’s toured it’s been like, wow. These are bigger than we expected.
You know, it’s on the tenth hole of a golf course, which is pretty neat.
Drivable, so super close to Atlanta. Very easy to get to. A ton of just really good authentic, like, places to, you know, enjoy your time. Right?
It’s just it’s, like, all the things you need to have a good time there. And, and, yeah, it’ll be very pine tree esque. So we already have videos go or, you know, having some some posts going viral and stuff, which is awesome. It’s with some of the groups that are coming in.
You know, there’s couples retreats and weddings and all that stuff, and people are just so excited about it, and we haven’t even opened doors yet, really. So so, yeah, that’s what that’s what we’re working on.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s amazing. I wanna do a quick fire, alright, and just sort of go through things that come to mind in a in a very short statement. There’s no right or wrong. Just say what what what you’re thinking. Cool. One hotel metric operators pay too much attention to.
Tim Ensmann
I think yeah. I think it’s I think it’s occupancy and ADR, and I think it should just be total room revenue. Like, that’s how we think about it.
Sebastien Leitner
One amenity that is overrated.
Tim Ensmann
Hot tub.
Sebastien Leitner
K. One thing that you would never standardize across your hotels.
Tim Ensmann
Never standardize.
Sebastien Leitner
And you could disagree with that statement. You would wanna standardize. Right?
Tim Ensmann
Yeah. I I don’t know what I what we wouldn’t standardize. I think we would wanna standardize, like, really being thoughtful about like, talk to give me the perfect weekend from your guests. Like, they come up.
What is what are the things that they are doing so we can curate that for them? Because I think that’s kinda the next phase of hospitality where it’s like, hey. You’re busy all week. I know as soon as I come up here, I’m checking in.
I have a check-in, you know, dinner. There’s a chef on-site or we do, you know, a winery or you come back and you have an event. Like, I think really thinking through that is, like, v three. And I think once we once we get, you know, these Blue Ridge properties up, that’s kind of, like, the the line of thinking that I think we’ll have each of the hotels work through is just programmed, like, very curated type of experience that doesn’t need to be forced on people but can just be given to them.
Like, hey. Here here here’s what we’ve found other guests have had a an amazing time doing to let people enjoy more of the experience instead of overthink, you know, what they should be doing.
Sebastien Leitner
K. Brand, location, or experience, which creates the strongest competitive advantage? Brand, location, experience.
Tim Ensmann
If you don’t have the experience, the brand is gonna die out. Like, people need trust from the experience. I think the experience is what’s gonna drive the brand.
Sebastien Leitner
Can you build your next hotel without an OTA?
100%. 100%. Okay.
Interesting. Is there any amenity that you think will disappear from a guest room in due course?
In, like, in the actual rooms? In the actual rooms. Yes.
Tim Ensmann
I I think it’s really about what’s happening outside of the rooms.
Sebastien Leitner
Okay.
Interesting. You came from vacation rental, short term rentals. Right? Like, sort of your origin. You’re now expanding into experience, outdoor destination experience, hospitality, larger properties that cater to both individual travelers, but group travelers as well. Are you leaving short term rentals behind, or is it still part of your story, or is it part of your expansion plan? Just curious.
Tim Ensmann
Yeah. I think short term rentals have a place in everything.
Personally, just return on time invested, it doesn’t make sense. Right? Like, to go do another short term rental that makes even a $250,000 a year is not gonna be worth the time, focus, or energy than to go do another hotel that’s doing, you know, multiple million dollars of top line revenue a year, and you have teams to support you to go execute on the thing that we know is working. So I don’t look at it as like a, oh, it’s a bad investment vehicle. I look at it as, from a time perspective, why would you spend time on something smaller that’s gonna be, you know, similar amount of work when you could go spend time on things that are a little bit larger and then give you some time back to go do the things that you you you got into in the first place. So, yeah, it’s not a dig on short term rentals. I think it’s just more of a personal alignment on where time should be allocated.
Sebastien Leitner
Airbnb is doing something similar. They’re embracing hospitality, hotels. Right?
Not saying they’re letting go of short term rentals, but they’re certainly onboarding more hotels. Do you think it’s for the same reasons?
Tim Ensmann
Likely not. I think their their reason is is likely because of some of the pushback with SDR regulations, and hotels have been around for centuries. Like, hotel hotels are not going anywhere, and hotels were built for transient or, you know, medium term type stay people. That’s that’s how hotels were created.
Like, don’t build a hotel like, hey. Someone’s gonna live here twelve months out of the year. And because of that, there’s a lot there’s no pushback for hotels or, you know, you don’t see major cities, you know, pushing back on that, whereas Airbnbs were built as single fam they were built as residences for people. I think there’s a huge opportunity to build more curated custom cabins and STRs and all of that.
But I think the reason our Airbnb is going into that is, I mean, to just, you know, diversify inventory, mitigate risk from regulation, and go after, you know, things like hotels where people are. I think it it’s back and forth where people were very heavy short term rental and and pro short term rental as an experience perspective because you had all this space and you had some really cool unique amenities. Now it’s kind of flipping back where people are moving towards hotels because of the standardization and just the consistency and the, you know, the quality. So, I think it’ll go back back and forth.
Right? There’s balance to everything, but I think Airbnb is is is more doing it to mitigate risk than having, you know, massive eyes on becoming a hotel OTA, although it makes makes sense.
Sebastien Leitner
Before we wrap up, I’ve I’ve got a couple more questions for you. One is to do with just financing because I really appreciate, I mean, we’re sort of closing to loop to my opening question, which was, you know, what keeps you up at night, and you pick the, you know, financing as one of the areas that you feel, you know, you’re at a disadvantage at times.
For anyone listening to the program that is about to, you know, look into financing, potentially opening a property, wants to renovate, or is thinking of becoming an owner operator, what’s the best practice around, you know, obtaining financing to run a hospitality business that has worked for you?
Tim Ensmann
Yeah. And I’ll I’ll say too to be clear, you can do it. It’s possible. We did it. There’s ways to do it. There’s ways to do it well, and it’s a win for everyone.
My my case, I guess, is it’s it’s way too hard to do it to what you’re trying to accomplish. Like, it there’s just it’s so misaligned. It’s like trying to finance a single family home with a business. It’s just like the lenders don’t understand.
That’s our point. So to do it easier, you’re more than welcome to just hit me up. You can share my contact info after. I’m more than happy to talk to anyone about this.
But I think you you can’t be overoptimistic in the deal. Like, you have to line up line up exactly what needs to get done to go execute that project, and then go execute as if you have the deal in hand prior to getting under contract. Because a lot of times it’ll happen with lenders or people that you don’t have that relationship with or predetermined underwriting or relationship, you know, they fall out, and now you’re really scrambling. And now that’s where you get into terms that aren’t favorable for you, terms that aren’t favorable for your investors, terms that aren’t favorable for the seller, the whole nine.
So I would look at it like, hey. We know just like anything else, we know that construction is gonna be a huge area. We’ll interview and and, you know, work on contracts with your GCs. We know that design and branding like, map out those key components of the deal and then start to vet lenders.
I mean, literally go into Claude or ChatGPT. Give me, you know, 10 lenders in Southern California that lend to hospitality assets like this. Kind of start working through that. Start the conversations today.
Start with the challenges or or the the the what you’re trying to solve for today. So everything around financing. Right? Have your investors line up.
Tell people about what you’re doing. Tell about you know, talk to them about your strategy, your process from an investor and a a lender standpoint. And I think from there, it’s about doing your diligence and getting real term, you know, term sheets, LOIs, like, today on what the realistic timeline is. And then also, like I said, timelines.
If you have an SBA lender that’s like, oh, yeah, you’re closing in three months, we’ll get that done, they’re lying to you. They’re not gonna do that. So just walk away and have a conversation because what happens is is, you know, they fall out and and your your deal is is stuck there. So prepare for it.
Do it.
Run what you need to do before you have a deal in hand or before financing is a need. And then from there, you’ll start to find the right partners to help you get done what you need to get done versus do do not go get a deal under contract and say, oh, I’m gonna figure out financing. Like, you’re too late. It’s too late.
That’s very, well well said.
Georgia is underway. Opening when?
End of this year. Yeah. We’ll be we’ll be live. So we’ve been under construction and and SBA loans, so that was fun. But we’ve been at it for the past year, so we’ll we’ll be done here within the next couple months.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s fantastic.
Opening date will be January 1, or you you
Tim Ensmann
Yeah.
So we’ll have, like, a soft launch November, and we have it’s the LJ Resort, and it’s Willow Falls Resort in in, Blue Ridge, Georgia. So they’ll be awesome. Yeah. So we’ll have a soft launch end of fall, so, like, November, and then we’ll have a a hard launch April of next year. We’ll have, you know, events and influencers and giveaways and and the whole nine, and we’ll we’ll have a big bang.
Sebastien Leitner
Is there a place on earth somewhere you travel to? Because, you know, travel got you into this business, you know, your love for travel. Is there a place on earth where you would like to open a property at some point? And that’s my final question.
Tim Ensmann
Yeah. A vision board, I’d say this came into light. I never I never thought about going outside of The United States because Of restrictions and all of that, but I did hear about some crazy financing terms in Switzerland and some friends that I have in Switzerland. And I think having a boutique hotel, villa, something like I mean, it could be 10 units. I don’t care. I think in Switzerland would be really cool. It’d be really neat.
Sebastien Leitner
Ski in, ski out, or it doesn’t matter?
Tim Ensmann
If if we if we could afford that. Yeah.
Sebastien Leitner
You know?
Tim Ensmann
That’s true.
But yeah. No. I I think I think Switzerland would be really cool to go do something like this with our flavor on it. And, yeah, I’m I have a natural love for skiing. I love skiing. That’s why I bought my first place in Park City, and we have some ties to Switzerland. So I think that’d be pretty cool.
Sebastien Leitner
Well, it is roughly ninety days until most resorts open, so let’s hope that we’ll have a good snow season. Yeah. Tim, it’s a pleasure having you on the program. Thank you so much for joining today, and good luck with the opening, which is happening very soon.
Tim Ensmann
Yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much, Sebastian. Thanks for having me on. Alright.
Sebastien Leitner
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