Battle Lines Drawn Between Top Hotels : Four Seasons, in Building Stage, Plans to Challenge Ritz-Carlton

For the past few months, Klaus D. Tenter has been a spy.

Tenter doesn’t have a code name. But the general manager of the soon-to-open Four Seasons Hotel next to Fashion Island does have a mission--to case the competing Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel and find out what makes the place tick.

“Sure, you could call me a spy,” Tenter said in an interview at the temporary Newport Center offices of the lavish hotel that is scheduled to open June 1. “It’s a good thing that the maitre d’ at the Ritz-Carlton doesn’t know who I am,” he added.

Tenter, former general manager of Toronto’s famous Inn on the Park, makes light of his repeated trips over to the Ritz-Carlton--where he tests the menu, observes the decor and occasionally slips his business card to extra-attentive employees.

But Tenter is gearing up for an Orange County retail competition that is destined to rival Disneyland vs. Knott’s Berry Farm or South Coast Plaza vs. Fashion Island.

The $100-million Ritz-Carlton vs. the $70-million Four Seasons is shaping up to be the battle of white-gloved opulence vs. subtle elegance.

These two five-star hotels are symptomatic of a hotel renaissance that is forever changing the face of Orange County lodging. A 1985 annual survey by Institutional Investor rated six Four Seasons hotels among the world’s top 50 lodgings. And Ritz-Carlton has traditionally been recognized as one of the classiest hotel chains anywhere.

At the same time, Regent, which some say is perhaps the finest hotel chain of all, is negotiating for a future South Coast Plaza site.

Consider, less than two years ago, Orange County did not have what industry consultants consider a world class hotel. Less than eight months from now, it will have two, and possibly a third on the way. Analysts say that is remarkable progress, and some compare it to the luxury hotel boom that swept San Francisco in the 1970s.

“We see this as an important steppingstone into the Southern California market,” said John Johnston, vice president of development for Four Seasons. The Canadian hotel chain’s next objective is to land a hotel site in West Los Angeles. Announcement of such a hotel could come within a matter of months, Johnston said.

Hotel officials and industry consultants generally agree that the Four Seasons and Ritz-Carlton will not always be competing for the same customers. The Ritz-Carlton primarily attracts high-budget business conferences--of three to four days in length--that equally mix business and pleasure. The Four Seasons is expected to appeal mostly to visiting businessmen in the John Wayne Airport area who are in town for just a day or two and more concerned with privacy than pomp.

But virtually no one thinks the Toronto-based Four Seasons chain, which has 18 hotels worldwide--and two more on the way in Texas--will have an easy time of it here. In Southern California, Four Seasons is mostly an unknown commodity.

“They’ll have their work cut out for them,” said David Brudney, a Palos Verdes-based hotel consultant. The only California hotel that Four Seasons operates, the Four Seasons Clift in San Francisco, is struggling, Brudney said. Last year’s occupancy rate at the five-star hotel ran 63%--about the same occupancy rate that Four Seasons executives project for their first year in Newport Beach. Comparatively, the Ritz-Carlton finished its first full year with 75% occupancy--a rate that analysts contend is remarkable for a new hotel.

Initially, Brudney said, the Four Seasons will steal business from nearby hotels, including the Newport Beach and Irvine Marriotts, Irvine Hilton, Meridien, and Westin South Coast Plaza. But with considerably higher room rates at the Four Seasons, “unless they run one hell of an operation, the business will go right back to the other hotels,” Brudney predicted.

At least one industry consultant, however, projects big things for the Newport Beach Four Seasons. “They’ll be the top-end hotel in their area,” said David Kinkaid, consultant at Laventhol & Howath’s Costa Mesa office, in reference to the rapidly expanding airport area luxury hotel network. “It will fit in quite well with the tenants around Fashion Island,” he added.

Although Four Seasons has signed a 30-year contract to operate the hotel, it is owned by the Irvine Co. Donald Bren, chairman and majority owner of the Irvine Co., took a liking to Four Seasons after staying at a number of the chain’s hotels. Now, he has decided to bring one to his own backyard.

The Four Seasons chain is recognized for quiet elegance. Unlike the Ritz-Carlton, where white-gloved doormen help guests out of their cars, and where men must wear jackets in the dining room after 6 p.m., the Four Seasons will play down the ostentatious. “The white glove treatment is a little overdone, almost stuffy” Tenter observed. “Remember, this is Southern California.”

But Ritz-Carlton executives disagree with that assessment. “If we are stuffy, that must be what people in Orange County want. I prefer to call it comfortable elegance.”

Of course, the Four Seasons will have its own version of elegance, such as 24-hour room service--a feature that Four Seasons is said to have originated in the United States. Guests will find televisions and telephones in the bathrooms. And no need to stop for that shoeshine at the airport--just leave the wing tips outside the room overnight and they’ll be hand shined, at no charge, before morning.

The Four Season’s lobby, however, will be small--so small, in fact, that it won’t even seat a dozen people. And the hotel will have but one pool and one retail shop. The intentional aura of smallness is one designed to make the executive feel, literally, at home.

Part of that feeling, of course, hinges on the architect. And it is, perhaps, ironic, that the stately--but contemporary--Four Seasons and sprawling--yet refined--Ritz-Carlton were both designed by the same Newport Beach architect--Wimberly, Whisenand, Allison, Tong & Goo Architects Ltd.

Room rates will be comparable at the two hotels. Single room rates at the Four Seasons will begin at $135, compared to the $150 single rate at the Ritz-Carlton. The Four Seasons’ two bedroom suites will cost $250 per night.

Sometime in March or April, the Four Seasons will begin mass interviews to hire a staff of nearly 325--which averages slightly more than one employee per room. Tenter said that that factor will rate more important than past experience.

It is past experience that leads Tenter to concede that it could be five years before the Four Seasons operates in the black. But in its early struggles to turn a profit, the hotel is clearly trying to differentiate itself from the Ritz-Carlton, as it books business as far in the future as 1988.

“We’ll continue to do everything very low key,” Tenter promises. “The discriminating traveler doesn’t like all the razzmatazz.”