Liz Lambert: From Manhattan DA to Hotelier

Liz Lambert owns the Hotel San Jose and the Hotel Saint Cecilia in Austin, Texas, as well as a high-concept trailer park hotel in Marfa called El Cosmico. We sat down last summer for a long interview at the Saint Cecilia in connection with our Tablet10 series — here’s the whole conversation.

How did you get into the hotel business?

I used to be a lawyer, and I moved back to Texas and took a job at the Attorney General’s office. I moved to this neighborhood down on South Congress. And the San Jose was down there, but it was a thirty-bucks-a-night kind of flophouse. I think I was just looking for something else to do.

I had the idea to take this run-down crack hotel, in a part of town that wasn’t really gentrified then, and that people would come. I kept practicing law for the first year, and then I stopped and started working the front desk at the San Jose.

What was the idea behind the St. Cecilia?

This property was just so incredible. There were a couple of little bungalows. And the property was so beautiful, with the trees and the old house.

We had an interesting dilemma at the San Jose, where we run at ninety, ninety-five per cent. You would basically keep raising the rates to lower occupancy a little bit. But I just felt like if we continued to raise rates, we would be losing our core customer.

You’d price your whole fan base out.

And then it’d be filled with rich people from Houston or Dallas. So we had a little bit of a good dilemma there. And so I wanted a higher-price product or room.

It was an opportunity to do a smaller place. The only way you can make fourteen rooms work is if the rooms are expensive. Small hotels, most of them are higher-end, because to have the infrastructure to run the place, it costs a lot.

I think my first image when I saw this place was — I feel like I’ve seen this picture, but I haven’t been able to find it since — but it’s Mick Jagger in front of a Victorian mansion with a Bentley in the driveway.

Inside the sleeve of some Stones album.

Beggars Banquet or Exile on Main Street or something like that. The other image I had going in was like this place was owned by your rich gay uncle, somebody who’d traveled a lot.

Do you enjoy the creation or the running of the place?

I enjoy the creation. I had to learn how to run a place properly, because when I began I had no idea what I was doing. I couldn’t read financials. I used to say I would never hire somebody with a lot of hotel experience, but I don’t feel that way anymore.

I had to learn the business, and in learning it learned that I needed a lot more support. People that were good at financial stuff, more people that were good at management. It’s really hard to find good managers. And over the last few years I’ve finally put a team in place that allows me to do nothing more than be creative. Creative in the programming and concept and kind of the culture of the place.

There’s stuff that we don’t offer in there too. Some people, especially in the hotel industry, would approach that as you’ve got to give people what they want. But my opinion has always been that we’re not that place. We’re going to show people, introduce people to what they want.

Are there any hotels out there that inspire you?

I love the Chateau Marmont. I think the Chateau does a remarkable job of feeling like it’s been there forever, and having a certain level of comfort, but not precious at all, and really lived-in. And the gardens. Its beautiful. California weather doesn’t hurt.

In New York we’ve been staying at the Bowery. I think Goode McPherson do a really great job with the details. Insane, the fixtures, the shower and the sinks. I like the Maritime too. I’m really curious about the Jane.

I love the Ace. I like Alex, I love what they do, and I like the Palm Springs hotel a lot. And I think that probably Alex and I will spend the next decade copying each other. I mean, being inspired by each other. No, I mean it, I am inspired by those guys. When we decided to do this place, and put turntables in every room, vinyl, the whole bit, I opened up the New York Times — a month before we opened here — and it’s the new Ace in New York, and there’s turntables in every room.