You don't know what you have you you You don't reveal who you really are and what you really made out of until a circumstance presents itself. It doesn't change those circumstances. It reveals who you wore already are. But it didn't come out yet. Uh, and nobody saw it. So I'm in Miami and my friend was telling me it's really difficult to get an uber. It was a crazy weekend, Memorial Day weekend, and apparently it was taking forty five minutes. And you never believe that someone says it to you. And then you're like, my phone's gonna get it better. I'm gonna go on lift in my can you want it? You try? Some of those just want it? You try and like sitting next to them, like what I have some majestic different entry, red velvet rope and stanchion. I'm on the list of uber, like what, I'm sitting next to you, How am I going to get it better? But sometimes it just like works out. So was sitting at the restaurant and lonely hold says nine minutes. Then somehow then it goes up to thirteen minutes. And then somehow you're like thirty five minutes and you're going in the wrong direction and you realize they're sitting in traffic. So the drivers communicating with me. He's saying like, I'm really sorry, I'm held up in traffic right now, and like he's communicating with me. So I started this messaging back. I'm like, no problem, I can't wait to see you. And then in the notes, I'm just like I missed you, I said to my girlfriend. I'm like to an uber driver, I'm like, I just I honestly I can't wait to see I'm seeing you in a few minutes. I'm trying to like entice the guy to like drive drive faster and get excited, like what, It's just funny in the notes, like everyone's always so serious about like just okay, thank you in traffic right now. So I started buttering him up. I think it worked. He got there quicker. My friend is dying. I was like, why not just like to the to the luber Its guy, when you get like a message and you get to communicate with them, be like yeah, x O x so see you in a minute. I think I can't wait to see you. Is a really good one, because you really there's nobody you want to see more than the uber driver can't wait to see you only four minutes. I'm seeing you in three minutes, Uber driver. But you also have their name. You can make it super personal because also they cancel on you too, so if you if you're nice to them in the meantime, they might not cancel like a lot of times, they leave you hanging, or they'll tell you please cancel this ride. I'm like, oh my god, did I say something. I'm so sorry. No, I don't care if your dropic, it's okay, it's fine. I love you. Please come. I know I didn't mean what I said. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. Back then I was I was angry, I was frustrated. I was I was going to rush to get home. Everything I said I take it back, and I did not mean it. I think we should. You know. I need to work on my communication. I feel like I could do better. I can do better. I'm just like, you know, I'm an aggressive person, and I just I'm unfiltered. I'm unedited. I just say what's on my mind, and I just I need to work on myself. I'm really sorry. I'm really excited you're coming. I can't wait to see you, and I'm not great by text. We're on the phone to be different. When I see you, it's gonna be great, I promise. I know you don't think it's gonna be worth it, but when you get here, it's gonna be absolutely word that I promise to the audience. What is your uber experience? Ian Schragert might be one of my favorite guests that we've had on the show. He's an entrepreneur, He's a legend. People that I know who are so successful in the nightclub, lifestyle, design, entertainment space call him an icon. I mean, he's just incredible. He's famous not only for creating what we now know as the boutique hotel experience, but he was also the co owner and co founder of arguably the most famous nightclub in history, Studio fifty four. We talked today about leveraging innovation, some concrete tips for events, and always looking forward to the next best thing. I loved talking with Ian, even calling him my business soul mate, So I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did. Ian even asked me if he could use one of my ideas for a new nightclub of his. Uh, it's just interesting to hear a guy from Brooklyn who just sounds like any guy from the streets. Be the literal fashion design travel UH impresario. He's fascinating, fascinating. He touches so many different parts of the things that we do, from the oversized chairs to those long community tables, to you using all white, to that boutique hotel, to everything that happened in Miami. I mean, I can't say enough all the hotels that were experiential in New York City, where the lobbies were major and the rooms were small, but you were part of an experience. All of that is attributed to Ian S. Traeger. So he is infinitely influential. So I want to get a sense of there is a lot in the press about you, which is not always not all the people that I interview on here who are moguls had that much about them, But there has been a lot written about you. But I want to understand, um, your family, what was your family like, what was your family dynamic? And um, the relationship to success in your family, what was that like. I was born in the Bronx, raised in Brooklyn, so I have all the UH credentials of a gun slinger from the city. Uh. Had a loving family, had a sister and a brother. Uh. We're a close family, middle class Uh came growing up in Brooklyn was a great thing for me. Uh. It made me hungry, uh and made me very ambitious. My brother went on to be a doctor. It's very good cardiologist down in Florida. My sister passed unfortunately, Uh, and both my mother and papa died relatively early as well. So I've been on my own since I was nineteen. Interesting, that seems to be a thread. People sort of latchkey kids, people having an independence early. What was success in your household were you? Were you driven by passion or by money? At a brother who's a doctor. You're a Jewish man in Brooklyn and you're from a middle class family, So what were goals in your household? Never about money, He's never been about money. It's always about success, a statue or excellence, achieving the ideal. It was never about money. I don't think it's it's ever really about money for any any uh aspiring entrepreneur. Tolis about just um showing people, you know, achieving the ideal. Upsetting the Scottish quo doing something that hasn't been done before. It was always about that. That's okay. So I don't know if you'd find it interesting that you're right. I mean you wouldn't because you said it, but the people at home would find it interesting to know that of the people on here who are icons, billionaires, moguls, they're motivated by success and goals and you know, passion and drive, but that's not money. And and and different TV shows and different cultural aspects now really and and a lot of music show money, money, money, and you're supposed to go for money, and if you're looking at it that way, you might be on the wrong road. So that's a great lesson. I mean, most people on here, without bells and whistles, without any sort of gimmicks, believe in old school hard work. So it doesn't matter if it's nineteen fifty one. You can't give up as much as you have to give up to vote yourself and dedicate yourself and be reloke about it. For the money, it's just not enough. Uh. There has to be something else striving you. That has to be something that keeps pushing you forward, that keeps allowing you to pick yourself up and dust yourself off when you fall in and continue on. You can't get that for money. It's just not enough. Well, it's fascinating because that's that's I've never heard anyone say it that way. It is so true. I've heard people say that a true entrepreneur is thinking about it, reading at twenty four hours a day. I haven't heard that. But I'm writing another book and I decided to change the title to business is personal because something that you are moved by and that you think about all the time, that is just like part of you, for better or for worse. It's not always good as you're probably described to us. But it is personal, don't you think one? And I've never heard it the phrase like that before, But it's it's intimate. Personal. Yes, it goes right down to your bone marrow, God tell personal. It is exactly perfect part of your d n A. So you true entrepreneurs, whether within a corporate structure or just mavericks, it's in your d n A you will know. So did you have a childhood icon? Well, I don't know how to have an adult icon. You know, I'm a role model for me has been uh Walt Disney and Steve Jobs. Uh, you know, I have some of my friends from this give you a fifty four Days that I also have been inspired by that tessed with. Uh, but I think uh buying large it's Steve Jobs and uh, well Dizney, it's been the main inspirations for me. Well, that makes sense. And I think you've delivered in a way that they would both have said. You know, you've executed division. Did people around you think you had quote unquote style when you were a kid? Did you have swag? Did you have style just in what you ward had did? Was it different? No? They didn't think I didn't have it. Uh. You know I might have had the swag. I might have had to dash personally, but no, I I you know, you you don't know what you have. You you you don't reveal who you really are and what you really made out of until a circumstance presents itself. It doesn't change those circumstances. It reveals who you wore already are. But it didn't come out yet. Uh, and nobody saw it. So when was what was that defining defining moment? When did you And you probably had many reveals, but when was the first real reveal when Steve and I, uh when uh, you know, we were in New York in the midst seventies, uh, and we were looking around for something to do. Uh and when I saw lines outside of a nightclub, people waiting to get in and taking all this abuse uh to get in, that was the spot and knew how to be there. I remember saying to Steve that, uh, we have to do this, we have to get into this business. Real good friends from school uh and um so we we were partners with two other people who happened to have had a very successful nightclub in New York at the time, which one it was an ay club, it was a gay club. It was when the gay uh population was beginning to emerge. A lot of the creative and talented people in the city were gay. And if you went to a straight nightclub, it was really very contrived. You know. For me, it was you know, meet meeting somebody of the opposite sex or the same sex, pick up places, all that kind of stuff. I never felt comfortable. But when you went to a gay club, it was like a tribal rite. It was much revelry, so much hot, sweaty dams and anything was possible, and so you know that that was always the part that I gravitated to. So we had these you know, when we were gonna be doing three or four of these nine clubs little one, and I was going to be supplying, uh, the the legal services because I was a lawyer at the time, practicing lawyer. Uh and uh. When the partnership broke up, we had done the first nightclub but which was in Boston. Uh, and I had gone there to help get it open. Uh and uh you know when the club was that in Boston. I'm fascinated by these stories lands down Street, Okay because I know it because I spent some time in Boston. Okayta bark Okay, got it? Know it fabulous? Okay, So you've done a club in Boston. I had seen him in the last week or two putting it together with short one cash right Chester. We gotta go get it. We're waiting for the mirror boar to come from here, you know, in producing it and making it happen. And when I saw that, I said to Steve, Steve, I could do this. I saw how they did it. I could do it. So the partnership broke up, and you know then we uh, Steve and I went in and did it. Wow, So you were It's like being a producer in many ways, right, you were the you were the producer. But you have a legal background is absolutely huge. So, um, what does taste? What is good taste? What is bad taste? To you? You know? A definition to me of good taste is uh, simplicity, okay, ultimate, just asian you know. But it's it's a gift. Uh. You know, I don't know where it comes from. Some people have it, some people don't. Some people see things other people don't see. Uh. Some people just have that natural response. And you're kind of lucky. When your taste is something that other people respond to, it resonates with them. But you never really know. I think anybody creative that's would happen. I think creative people do things that they themselves like, period, and even all of a sudden magic happens, and there are other people out there that also like it. But you don't know. Well. Also, um question, So taste and style are different, right? So do you have good style? Very simple style? Uh? You know? Uh? Normal? Uh used to call me non fashionable, not unfashionable, non fashionable about I've had various uniforms. Uh, to my life, It doesn't you know, mean very much to me. Yes, and you know, but it's funny you're describing something utilitarian, which also has become sort of in quote unquote style. So what about people who you know, when when when we see people that wear these crazy fashion outfits and they're from famous designers, and it looks like you're almost mocking us because it's like that is ridiculous. But when people have the security and the confidence to pull something off that kind of can make us think that it's good taste? Does that make any sense? A sen sense? That street street fashion is what I call that with these people put these unlikely combinations together that no one who thinks inside the box would ever do. But they just happen to put it together in away and pulls it off and makes it work. Uh. And that because they have that kind of touch alchemy, is a good for a hotel club for you? Um? So where do you get your inspiration? And well, where's the line of inspiration and copying? Like, where does it annoy you that everybody has copied your entire design aesthetic? Do you love it? You're not getting paid for it? We we younger twenty year olds go to hotels, they've probably don't even know who you are. I mean, respectfully, they go to public those know who you are, but they might not. I'm not one of those people that considers flattery or copying flattery. I think that because it's so personal to me. Yes, it's my children. Yes, you can't take my idea right, There's nothing I can do about it. That's the way it is Spechtel in America. Uh, you know something as successful, people are gonna jump on it as fast as possible, but it's nothing you can do about that. So I've learned through the years to kind of not be looking over my shoulder and just keep my eye on what I'm doing and forget about that, because you know, just drive you crazy. Okay, So that's amazing because I always say, be Michael Phelps, be looking at that wall. If you're looking at them, you're gonna slow down. I mean maybe in swimming they actually do a look. But you know what I'm saying. I'm saying, if you're looking at what everyone else is doing, you're not moving, so you're you're at the next thing while they're copying the last thing. It's the only thing you could possibly do. So where you get your inspiration if you decide years ago when I first walked into the Delano and the scale was just so ballsy and just like bold, and you know, now it's okay to do everything like that, but then it was just like disruptive. So where does that all come from? The first idea? You know, first of all, it comes from within, It comes from what you know. You're the idea. You have it all thoughts with an idea and something that you want to say, something that you want to do. Uh. You know I used to go down to Miami with my parents and I'd be in a lobby of a hotel. Uh the air conditioning is freezing. Uh. And uh women would be there, uh in fur copes. Uh in the middle of Miami. Uh. You know, so and very on eight and and and very ostentatious and and so you know, you know, my idea was, uh, you know, I want to go back to what old Florida was. If all these um hotels in the fifties and sixties were you know, too bright and too light. I wanted to make the lobby of the Llano dock. Uh. And I wanted to make it, uh seem like you were entering into another world, almost like it was like from old Florida plantation. So you get these kind of ideas. I had been to Key West, I had been to southern Florida, and there I saw the charm of old Florida. I didn't see the Miami beach uh Louis, the Fooie style, the fountain blue and all those kind of things. No, I don't want to do anything like that. Uh if if all the hotels in told Pitch at that time, we're being painted these past out colors. I don't know how to be white. You know. It was just counterposing everything we were doing again what everybody else was doing. Because product distinction is the name of the game. Boom, want something that stands out from what everybody else is doing. Boom. I was talking to the chairman today of Peacock and Um he's high up Comcast, and he was saying from mentors which come in different places, he not only figures out what to do, but what but looking at other people around him or what not to do. And it's interesting because I see I have a similarity to you. I don't like to have what anyone else has. I don't like to do what anyone else does. It actually, like irritates me in a very personal way. And I'm seeing that you're very much like that. It's not just that you'll have an idea and go for it. It must absolutely separate itself from the back. Oh you. The whole point is to stand out from the crowd. Yeah, the whole point to do something outside the box. If you want to have something that can become a you know, runaway success. If you just want to fit in and you just want to have something that that does well because the market is good. But when you do something unique and distinctive, Uh, it doesn't matter about the bakeries of the economy. It doesn't matter about the market because you have something nobody else has. Exactly. Anne is describing something that I've talked about before. Often partners try to tell you this is a very big thing, so we should be doing it this way. And when I was poor and had my idea, it didn't matter what anybody was doing. I just felt it inside. Later, I only got into trouble when I would listen to what a retailer wanted to do, and then I would go by what they wanted to do, whenever you were doing what you feel inside that you really should be doing. It's liberating, it's honest, and it's just the only like thread that you can adhere too. So I I completely agree. And it's the only thing. It's comfortable. It's weird, and it feels like a sellout, weird, diluted version of some other garbage, and then you definitely late because you're behind that other thing. So I I completely agree. But you're also talking about when you talk about women in FIRS in Miami lobby and you see that the way you want something to be, you're talking about solutions. You're thinking of something that you think is a problem, even if it's a superficial problem. You're thinking it's something that could just be made better, a better way for people to experience a lobby, something so basic and culture changes. Every can change it. And you have to you have to know where people are and you have to kind of make a leap of faith and thinking they don't know they want it yet, they don't know they need this yet, but I feel it because I can read the signs. I can connect that, and so you do something and lead them to something that you think they're going to get to that they don't even know yet exactly. Yes, that's what I was going to say. If you're a good entrepreneur, you're telling them what they want, not to be rude like they don't know they wanted. Did you overshoot the mark like in your life? Do you? Did you feel like what I mean, it's even successful a long time? But did you have any idea that you would be this sort of icon in the world, literally laying down the groundworks for other people's style? I had no, Well, thank you, but I had no idea. I just kept doing what I like to do and love to do, and I try to do it better and worked harder than everybody else had it. Uh, and I still love it. I still do it because I love it. We don't know where things are going to take us, you know. I've often thought that, you know, with the ideas that I've contributed to the hotel industry, um, you know, and now there are thousands and thousands of versions of them, maybe I could have been a much much bigger company. Yeah, I know, maybe I could have been, uh, the the new Marriott. I don't mean to sound pretentious, but I'm just presumptuous. I'm just saying that I could have been much bigger because everyone's taking those ideas and then make big companies out of it. So it's not a regret, it's it's maybe a differ road I could have traveled on. But I'm happy to wrote I took because I never cared about being the biggest. They only care about being the best. Uh and uh So we all have these uh kind of thoughts, But I'm happy with the way. You know, I've led my life. Well, you're describing what a lot of people say is it wasn't like you knew what the big picture was. You were aware of some goal of goals. Obviously you had dreams, but you put one foot in front of the other, and every single thing you did you did to the best of your ability. It doesn't sound like you ever thought any job was beneath you. You've probably cleaned the toilet bowls and the nightclub. I mean, I bet you've done every single job. Yeah, exactly, I'm the same. I'm I'm I'm the same. There's nothing I don't do, it's just who it's Yeah, and also, you know, I just turned fifth d When you get older, you decide the road like so, yeah, you absolutely could have been the Steve Jobs whatever that means in like style hospitality. I mean there would have been a price, and it's a different road. You know. We we evaluate now what's too much? Where's balance? How do we find it? So I think that's another conversation that once you become successful, but still like Norma like me, have that desire and bug how to control yourself? How to I bet you have to control your ideas? Yes, I have an idea a second. You know what Step Job being incredibly creative, incredibly innovative, Uh, you know, brilliant, maybe a genius. Uh, you know, thinking about Walt Disney and thinking about in a way although Steve Jobs with Flamboyant Walt Disney was in a lot more different areas, wasn't only in one area. I mean you did a lot of things. Uh, But so steep Jobs chose um uh the guy I forget the name. Now we're running to come from Tim right, okay? Uh? And Apple is doing absolutely great, making the most valuable company in the world and all and when when Steve Jobs died, I thought it was over for Apple because they're just not going to be able to innovate the way Steve Jobs do Now. I wonder that Tim Cook was able to exploit and leverage the Apple Echo system that Steve Jobs create, which is where they're making a huge money. I wondered whether or not Steve Jobs chose him Cook for that reason. You need any more innovations. We need someone to make and leverage what we've already done. Because if he did, if that was something, and probably it was, then he's even smarter than I thought he was right, and he might have taken Steve could have been a hindrance taking everyone on a thousand wild goose chases versus somebody going horizontal. That's always a choice. Are you going deeper and horizontal? You're going vertical? All these things. The roads, it's roads on the highway, and you could get you you know, you don't know where to get off, where to get on. You're you're just taking a trip. Do you sweat the small stuff? Because I never know what small detail is responsible for putting something over the top. Everything is a matter of life and death. Everything. Do you live in the weeds? You have to do some sort of like installation of weeds because I get it. I always. I sweat all the small stuff, and like you, if someone does one small thing that's wrong, that's so obvious, I freak out, like roaches in Manhattan? How many other small things? Just what am I missing? Now? It's it's it's maddening. It's the mind of an entrepreneur. Ignorance and be bliss now. And you can never, never be taken out of that approach. Never. It's like, I don't know anybody that doesn't sweat the small stuff. I mean, because which one of the things reaches out and visually touches somebody and make them react to this? You just can't know. So everything is important. Everything is a matter of life and death. Well, you know what, you know, I found I didn't have balance in the earlier part of my life. I made a lot of sacrifices for the success. You know, that was what made me happy, and I really worked over time. Uh. You know now when you get a little older, uh, and uh, I do have the balance, you know. And I think that comes with wisdom. When the reflexes get a little slower perhaps, but the the the methical capacity and the wisdom increases. So I kind of know, you get an idea of what the universe is and what the options are, so the decisions are easier for me now. But I think the secret, the secret to life is to balance. I mean the people from India, they have the right idea. You know, you have to have everything. You have to have the business, you have to have the good family. You have to love your person, you're living with your kids, yet that hobby, Y have have that friends. If you don't have all of that, then you're not I don't think you truly truly happy like I am. Now you're truly happy. Now do you mind? If I asked the old you are okay? You're seventy fathers. So you went to jail for how long? Thirteen months? Was there any silver lining to jail? Was there is do you have? Did you get street credit in a different way in business? Was there any upside to this experience? I think before I thought that maybe all the rules don't apply to me, that I could cut corners, uh, and I could do whatever I needed to do for success, And I think, uh, we're going to jail. One. It gave me a year of rest to gave me an opportunity to reflect. Uh. And during that interlude, in my case, it was forced, forced interlude. I decided to go into the hotel business. Like a lot of people during the war, uh, when they went through the war interlude, that when they came out and they just started to change their life and go down on a different paths and to drive something. Whether it was Bill Paley, whether it was that all happened during the war. Uh. And so to that extent was good. The funny thing about it is Steve and I were the only one in there that were guilty. Nobody else did. Of course. Well that's actually interesting because I'm not comparing jail to the pandemic, but I'm saying, in times of very aberration, total aberration. I've been saying since the beginning of the pandemic, that there will be seeds that will be planted and trees that will flourish as a result of this time, because it's reflective, it's disruptive, it's it's it's it's resetting, it's all these things that you know, people are bottled up, and afterwards, if you're prepared, or if you're at least your eyes are open, that things will flourish as a result. So what do you think about that? With the pandemic that the same thing happened to me during the pandemic, that happened to me in the first get to what I had in my life. I was able to step back and re evaluate what I was doing and think about it and recalibrate myself what I wanted to do. And it's such an invaluable, once in a lifetime opportunity. It's like playing a sport and saying it's a duelthough you have an opportunity to redo what you were doing and rethink it. It's as absolutely invaluable. And and that's what I used the pandemic for. And I found it incredibly valuable to me enlightening because you're also focused in the travel space, which went dormant, but now it's going to come alive like nothing else. So to be able to plan, and you know what, in your business, it's so competitive to be able to get ahead and do what you did before. Sometimes we all just need to take a time out, but we don't ever get it. That's exactly right, and I thought it was an invaluable time. And even with my family, you'd be able to spend more quality time with them with just the wonderful, wonderful thing. And so for me, the pandemic was a very positive thing. Well same, but it was very valuable I understand. I think there are a lot of people that feel guilty to have thrived and survived, but at least there are tools that you can give to other people to do the same. I find that people are stunned. Dear people who get stunned and complain and get paralyzed there in the worst position. You've got to just pick do something, do something. I always say, like you could cook a basil parsley or cilantro, pick one and make the rest of the recipe go around. And I'm sure in your designs you don't always know exactly what you're doing. You just pick something and then that's the way you go. Now, yep, you know what it is. You're gonna control your environment where you're gonna let your environment control you. And I think the people that were pessimistic about it was letting the environment control their destiny. And I don't think that's something anybody should ever do. That's well, no matter what it is, that's well said. That's very place of Yes, that's well said. So talking about personal relationships, who's the peacock? I always say, there's only one peacock in a relationship. So who's the peacock in your relationship? What do you mean peacock? The one is blooming? Who's the other one is a little more reserved and not the first one to like make conversation or just there's one peacock who is bright feathers and the other one is a little more unassuming and understand. Funny. Uh, it's so funny because when I went and did the deal with Marryott, know h, everybody thought that were so unlikely. I was selling out and I was doing it for the money, not at all, not at all. And the deal would Bill married the great suit in the red tie. I was deal with a black T shirt. You know, he wanted to have a press compence. He would be a black too T shirt. I would wear a red tie. I'm not doing that right. The point was that that even though on the surface he didn't look like me and was ostentibly totally different from me, inside we had the same values, same relentsicist, same pursuit of excellence, same hard nosed everything. With my wife. Uh, we're both restrained people. Uh. And uh, you know, both strong in our own ways, both sensitive and our own ways. I think, uh, you know, you know what else I've I've found is that you can't go through a whole life with one person when you're sacrificing to the whole entire lot. You can do it for a little while, but after a while it's going to great on And so we really do have the same pursuit in life. I think I add a little spice uh and uh and combustibility to her and completes her as a person, and she brings uh some stability and even this to my personality and so grounding Betther, it's it just works very well. Well. It's funny because that's one of the components that I find fascinating. Through doing this podcast, I've spoken to very successful people in successful relationships. Interestingly enough, most people have been in multiple decade relationships, so I haven't, so I often ask so I'm just curious, what you know, pearls of wisdom you might have. Well, that didn't happen to me. In my marriage. It's been easy, you know, we had I don't know, I feel lucky. Yeah, I was married once before, but you know, I just you know, you get lucky when you actually wind up with someone that you do compliment and you do fit together and it works very well. Uh So it hasn't been worked and it hasn't been a commitment in our relationship has grown, you know, we've been for the past year and the pandemic. I was hearing a lot of things from husbands and wife they wanted to kill each other, not us. Our relationship got stronger. Wow, I can't explain why. And for that I feel very lucky. Well now, but maybe it maybe it is like business in a sense, not in a in a calculated way, but where what you put into it you get out of it. It has to be that there has to be right and it's a little bit of the luck of the draw. What I've seen great parents have troubled kids, and I've seen terrible parents have great kids. It's a little bit of luck of the draw. Interesting. So that's interesting. And also sometimes it's if you've seen successful relationships in your childhood, so you know what that is. It's a touchdoone. That's been a challenge for me because I hadn't seen that. Just things like that all contribute to the recipe. So I've been to Studio fifty four twice. One in the original like the late original iteration, and one you guys had some sort of like reunion party that was amazing. So I mean, I don't know if it's you, but it seems real the second time. What And I know so many people a guy Paul Conliff I used to work for. He was the head bartender at that like pit, and and you know, and Andy Cohen talks about it, and you know, it's so iconic that for anyone listening, Studio is it It is definitely the most famous nightclub in history in the world. I don't know, isn't it. I hope it is. I think it is. I I don't know. All I know is that that. Uh. You know, there've been a couple of seminal events in my life. Woodstock was one, Studio was one. Uh you know, it's almost fifty years later when people are still talking about Studio and they're talking more about it than Woodstock. Yes, yes, oh yes, So for anyone listening, it was the most iconic nightclub with an energy and an electricity and an alchemy, as to use your word. So from your perspective, what was that like, Like what was that feel like, you know, we've lost ownership of it a little bit. By the way, just reverting back to one thing that happened before, when I described my relationship with my wife now normal, when when when we good friends back when? Back you know before she was also restrained and quiet her own way, but she expressed herself through her very very flamboyant and provocative fashion. But she was a very reserved person. She subsequently has evolved from that. But but it's just funny about I recently did a documentary and the guy that I did it with, Matt Turnoa, very smart guy, and he didn't think that Studio fifty four could be recreated now and I don't agree. Uh. He thought there were things like that technology and iPhones that the privacy and all. To me, those are just distractions. And we see clubs like Studio fifties four now and Ibisa uh and in East Berlin where there is a mayhem, a wildness, anything can happen. Anything you do is okay as long as it's not illegal and you don't hurt anybody. But to me, what happened was like it's that when people got in there, got in the club, it was one of the few times where you've experienced an absolute freedom. You could do anything, you felt protected, you didn't care if you were next door celebrity, you didn't care what you did. And that feeling of freedom, it's not often experienced, and I think that was at the basis of it, because otherwise I can't come up with another explanation. No, it's amazing because I remember that I shouldn't be saying this because I have a daughter. But at fourteen, I went I was going tonight called the thirteen and Saratoga Springs, New York, the Rafters upstate. And then at fourteen, my mother told me how to like use a fake idea and just act like I belonged to how Eve the doorman at the Palladium. And I walked up that ramp and in that Michael Todd room, that private room, and I was. I was. I had a very crazy childhood, so I was like an adult by that time already is where does that sounds? Taken the train into the city and as a city at five o'clock in the morning. I know it sounds crazy, parents and I agree, but there was an electricity and you just felt like you were absolutely alive. So I don't recommend it for children, but I still do remember it and I know exactly what you're talking about. The alchemy. Yeah, it's a it's a genes say qua, and I guess you will be able to create it now at post pandemic, because people are going to want that feeling well, and because where that comes from is in the diversity of the people. It's the diversity that creates that energy. So it's the diversity of people that kind of come together that Well, you just gave the greatest explanation for the snobbery with a man with a with the rope, which no one really understands. That hasn't been distilled down. You're talking about someone creating making a movie inside for that night, like you're casting a movie and curating a world. So that should be that should be the description for why people aren't getting in. We're you know, we're casting an evening. It's it's just you're not you're inviting people to be home for a private dinner and you want to sit somebody talkative next to somebody talkative like it. That kind of discretion in the public arena is not politically correct, and they think it's a late but it wasn't. You have nothing to do with wealth and had nothing to do with stature or anything. It had to be. We just wanted to make sure that we had a good party inside. And yah, its so spontaneous that you make they're they're deciding what they want their club to be. That so I get why it's a problem, but I've never I'm pretty smart, I understand marketing. I've never really thought of it. I love that what was your favorite project and your least favorite project? You know, it's like asking somebody, what's your favorite kid? I I you know, I um, you know. I liked them all the same. That's fine, Okay, the most successful, most and least successful. Let's do that. Someone natural Hits where I opened up the doors and they were hit. A sum I had to work at. UH studio was a natural hit pladium we had to work at because it was so big and and frankly, thank god, they've all been successful. But you know, I think it's someone natural hits. They took off on their own UH and some I had to work at Morgan's. My personal tell is a natural hit Studio was a natural hit palladium. We had to work at Royalton. We had to work at because it was very new, socializing the lobby as a new kind of gathering place. People didn't quite understand where did they. Yeah, you gotta we gotta work at it. User habits. You've changed socialization in hospitality, So those are you're creating user habits. Um who owns the intellectual property for Studio fifty four h MGM in Las Vegas? They paid you guys for it. No, you guys made a mistake. When I was in my forced interlude, I didn't want nothing to do with studio. It almost it became like a Frankenstein monster. It almost killed Stephen I. We didn't want anything to do, so we let the trade markets fire. Oh guys, guys, that's like the stuff we talked about in the beginning. How you never know how something's gonna end up. That's crazy. That's a crazy situation, you know what I mean. Are always looking for the next project and the next thing, and that what excites me. And I got it, father got working on so it. Uh. It maybe a money thing, but yeah, but you never thought about getting back and business them with it, or buying the IP back or anything because I've thought about that with the skinny Broll cocktails. It's the only I p that I don't own, and they haven't really done much with it, so I've thought it's thinking about it now. Good, Okay, that's why you thought it was interesting that I asked, Yeah, it's never gonna be the same, so it's not going to the same recipe with that you in it. They don't know what to do with it. So I like it. Wow, let me know, I can't wait to watch with the popcorn exciting um okay, the um, the rose and the thorn of your career, not your family, not having kids, like the high point and the low point. Well, I think yuh, probably right around studio. I think the rose was, you know, having this incredible success thrust the part Steve and I we didn't know what to expect. Uh. And I'll never forget. On the first page that studio opened, I had left round two in the morning. I always left to where always he've always left too late. Uh, And I got a phone call from him of bof six in the morning, who are on the front page of the New York Post with a photograph of Share on it and in a straw hat and overall James, and so we realized we did it. You know, we did it, and it was just uh, I guess the first time falling in love or whatever it is that I always remember that. It seemed like an inconsequential event. But I always remember that. And I think the the thorn was h you know, having an all blow up in our face and and getting indulgent and uh and almost being destroyed by it. Uh So your rose and thorn are the same. Your rose and thorn are the same. How fascinating is that that doesn't happen that often? No, you know, because uh, it made me incredibly incredibly ambitious to show people. Uh after we you know, we we regained a freedom that studio before it wasn't a fluke, and we're going to show you amazing. Do you believe it? College is not for everybody? But what do you think about college? Which your stance on college? No, I think it's uh uh Look, I went to college. A lot of people I know, very very very successful people like Alfri Lein and uh, Barry Diller and David Geppen, they didn't go to college. Uh So, But I think you never a certain one way or the other. But I think it is a good socialization process. I think it's just like a finishing school. I think it's a better idea to do it. But I there's no hard and fast rule. It's whatever works for everybody. I agree. Okay, last question is what do you what do you want? Now? I want to try and build a big company. Uh. You know, I didn't. I didn't really care about that. Uh you know, but I got my my appetite went by working with Area, so now I wanted to. Uh. I think public is the future of the hotel business. That's the most important idea I ever had, you know, making luxury uh and making it available to everyone and anyone who wants it rather than just to rich people. It's just a very important idea, especially today. So it's democratizing style like Martha originally did with entertainment, instead of bumbing it down, making it more sophisticated, but making it accessible to people. I think that's just a very important, you know, idea, and I would love to be able to contribute that. And having been to that hotel in New York, it isn't that utilitarian, so your personal style is really infused into that one. In my opinion. It's just so funny my taste, you know. But again the idea, it's downtown, so we used modest finishes, you know, we didn't want to use model and things. So it's it's it's it's really putting together this body things. I'm sure you do that with your passion to put together this body things and hope at the end of the day that when it all comes together. But I think it's interesting that it's I asked in the beginning about your personal style, and that it reflects your personal style. What is your house like? What's your house design like? Minimalists? But what minimally simple? You know, very simple, reduced down, nothing superfluous, nothing ornadoor decorative, but very uh simple. I don't think you'd come in, uh and and say my house as minimalist, because it's not a dog just the way of wife. I dress simple. God where simple, and our house is simple. And it's harder to do simple then it is to do complex. Okay, by the way, So giving people three tips for home and entertaining that they mind when I because I used to produce events and I always said lighting and sound and my number one thing is always busting tables. It drives me crazy when I see crumpled napkins and cigarettes and astrays and drinks that are don makes me sick. What are your home tips for style and entertaining? Like three tenants that people can live by? Well, I agree with you on lighting because that's an ethereal thing. It creates magic. I also think on floral and flowers, it's ethereal thing. You know, elevate the place and you know, if you do it right, you kind of defied gravity. It kind of floats above where the earth is. And I think graciousness, uh, showing a real attentiveness that you guess, uh you know, uh, the kings and the queens is very important. That translates to people. I love that and you're whatever that is. It could be a barbecue. That's amazing you were. I think I have to play favorites. This might have been my favorite guest. I I wanted you from the beginning. I was worried you wouldn't come on cause you wouldn't know who I was. And I asked, Norma, I said, if you know, I want to come on, but you want to pay you something else for the party thing? You know, I always felt that everyone obsesses over the food for a party. You can't have bad food. But food doesn't make a party, right, it's a socializing king. If you have, if you have great food, to make it a little bit better. But it's not the food, it's the experience to calm. Yes, I agree. The energy, good energy, that's unbelievable. Well, I'm thrilled and it was lovely to meet you, and I can't wait to hear what you're doing next. You know you're very busy and you have an incredible story. So it's gonna help a lot of people and inspire a lot of people. So thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Boy, you have a lot of energy. And I may just use that alchemy for the name of a nightclub. Please do. It's a great name. It's what you're saying. Yeah, use it, go for it, enjoy it, have a great day. Thanks. First order of business is I know that something that not Sometimes I know that I speak loudly and passionately. Sometimes it's too loud for you, and I'm sorry. I've been trying to control it. But on the Ian Trager podcast, I don't think it's going to have happened because I was so excited. I really wanted to have him on, and wow, did he not disappoint. He was incredible, just so interesting, so innovative. But just if you don't know, Ian Traeger has changed the way that we socialize, that we entertain, that we travel, the way we what hotels we want to go to. He really created that Miami white um minimalist decorn the rooms, but the lobby being this ethereal amazing experience and he played with scale, massive chairs, big communal tables. I mean, Ian Traeger has changed the way that we live. But Ian and Steve Ruvel, who referred to they created Studio fifty four, which is undeniably the most famous nightclub in history in the world. So that was speaking to a legend and an icon that was like literally major, Please rate, review and subscribe, And I really appreciate you listening today. UM, have a wonderful day. Just B is hosted an executive produced by me Bethany Frankel. Just B as a production of be Real Productions and I Heart Radio. Our managing producer is Fiona Smith and our producer is Stephanie Stender. Our EP is Morgan Levoy. To catch more moments from the show. Follow us on Instagram at just be with Bethany