Make way for Chrome Hearts in the hospitality business.
The Los Angeles luxury house, known for its edgy leather goods and accessories, reportedly purchased the Surfrider Hotel in Malibu last month for $37.5 million. That’s a whopping $1.8 million per room in one of the state’s priciest hotel deals ever, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
“The DNA of Chrome Hearts will be added,” co-owner Laurie Lynn Stark told the newspaper of the plans for the property. “I have to figure out the formula.”
What’s less clear is whether the Surfrider would take on the Chrome Hearts name, or if it would continue under its existing badge.
Apparently, this isn’t Chrome Hearts’ first foray into hotel investing. Stark, who is married to Chrome Hearts co-founder Richard Stark, confirmed to the Journal that the company has also invested in other boutique hotels and residences around the world. However, she declined to provide additional details or say to what extend Chrome Hearts was infused into those properties.
Last month, the company paid $40 million for the building that houses its Waikiki flagship store on Kalakaua Avenue.
Luxury’s Love of a Good Hotel
The activity is very much beginning to look like the same real estate playbook of French luxury conglomerate Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which has not only made a big go at owning its own retail real estate—particularly along Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills—but is also in the hospitality business. LVMH also owns Bvlgari Hotel & Resorts, Cheval Blanc and Belmond.
The crossover between luxury retail and hospitality makes sense for brands looking to pop up everywhere their high-net-worth consumer base might be.
Locally, contemporary brand James Perse, which has its headquarters in Downey, is another example of a fashion business also dabbling in hospitality.
The designer of the same name, who is the son of Maxfield founder Tommy Perse, not only sells men’s and women’s apparel, but also a James Perse-branded line of furniture. The latter offers a bridge into the two private James Perse residences in Mexico that are available for reservations. Both estates are, of course, designed by the label with its furnishings.
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