Beverly Hills Coup : City Approves First Hotel in Years; Hong Kong-Based Group to Run It
A new luxury hotel in Beverly Hills?
Hard to believe, given the bitter, unsuccessful fight to build an elegant, 7- to 16-story Four Seasons across the street from the venerable Beverly Wilshire, but plans for the Belvedere--a $100-million hotel with 200 guest accommodations--will be announced Monday at a press luncheon, and construction is expected to begin this fall, with completion in 1990.
Not only that, but the Hong Kong-based Peninsula Group, which has never before managed a hotel in North America, signed up as the Belvedere’s operator.
Don’t Want to Be Large Chain
The Peninsula Group, which operates four hotels in Asia, including the 60-year-old Hong Kong Peninsula, is “looking at other projects in the Far East and the U.S.,” said Patricia Costello, regional sales manager, “but we don’t want to be a large chain like Hilton or Hyatt.”
The agreement to manage the Belvedere wasn’t struck until last December, and that contributed to a delay in construction, said L. W. (Pete) Kempf, executive vice president and general manager of Probity International Corp., the developer.
It was in January, 1986, that the Beverly Hills City Council gave the Belvedere the go-ahead, with approval by the city’s architectural commission and completion of financing. Both were subsequently secured and a conditional use permit was issued.
This major hurdle, 2 years after a referendum defeated the Four Seasons’ plan and a year after the Belvedere’s initial proposal was rejected by the city’s Planning Commission, didn’t come easy.
Made Concessions
“We held 20 to 30 meetings with neighborhood groups,” Kempf said, “and as a result, we turned the front from Durant (Drive) to Santa Monica (Boulevard) and made several other concessions, like reducing the number of rooms from 257 to 200 (including 16 private villas) and changing the ballroom for several hundred to a meeting room for 65.
“It would be foolish to say that everybody loves us, but we have good rapport, generally, with the city and our neighbors.”
Besides having fewer rooms than the Four Seasons proposal, plans for the Belvedere comply with the city’s 45-foot or 3-story height limit, because the bottom of the four floors is considered a basement, Kempf explained.
The Belvedere’s plans, which still require approval of the city Building and Safety Department, call for parking for 310 cars, a gourmet restaurant, roof garden and more than $1 million in landscaping.
The hotel’s 2.2-acre property, now the site of a medical building built for Charles Cord, son of the auto magnate, is just southwest of Santa Monica and Wilshire boulevards, about half a block and across the street from Merv Griffin’s Beverly Hilton, which Kempf does not view as competition.
“It’s a convention hotel, which is
specifically not the market we are after,” he said. “We are small and intimate.” And more expensive. Belvedere rates will be $240-$2,400. The Hilton’s range is from $145-$500 a night.
Knowing Local Market
The Hilton has 593 rooms. By comparison, the 10-story Beverly Wilshire, before ongoing renovations, had 453.
The Four Seasons had planned to build 350. Toronto-based Four Seasons is now operating a 287-room hotel, which opened almost exactly a year ago, just outside Beverly Hills.
Of several new luxury hotels proposed for Beverly Hills during the past decade, the Belvedere is the closest to being realized, though it is Probity’s first hotel project.
Kempf attributes Probity’s success to patience and knowing the local market. For its own portfolio, the firm has already developed Pierre Deux and Galerie Michael, two Rodeo Drive retail buildings and Brentwood Financial Plaza, housing its West Los Angeles headquarters.
Kempf, an attorney, joined Probity principals nine years ago after heading Alcoa Properties, which developed much of Century City. Principals of Probity are brothers Bo and Robert Zarnegin, who started assembling the land in 1977 when they were studying business and real estate at USC.
Family-Owned Business
They named the hotel after a summer home near their childhood residence in Switzerland. Led by their father--R.S. Zarnegin, now living in Monaco--the family left Iran 25 years ago, settling 5 years later in New York. They moved to Beverly Hills in 1969.
Probity was drawn to The Peninsula Group, an arm of The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels Ltd., because it is also a family-owned business, Kempf said.
Costello, the sales manager, described the owners, the Kadoories, as one of the foremost families in the world, but low profile. The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels Ltd. not only develops and manages hotels, restaurants, catering and related service operations but also owns The Peak Tramways Co. and has substantial real estate interests and food manufacturing/distributing operations in Hong Kong.
“The chairman is Michael Kadoorie, son of Sir Lawrence, and Sir Lawrence has a brother. They are both in their 80s,” Costello said.
Kempf said with a smile, “They are the original tai pans. “
