When Sam Nazarian sold SBE’s hotel management business to Accor for $850 million in 2019, he wasn’t the customer anymore. As he waited out a noncompete in the hospitality space, Nazarian realized the business wasn’t what had changed; he had. “I built SLS for me,” he told an audience at The Real Deal’s New York City headquarters in early April. “Twenty years later, I wasn’t the same guy.”
At TRD’s latest Salon Series, Nazarian provided a sneak peak into who he is now —and the brand that represents him.
He partnered with entrepreneur and motivational speaker Tony Robbins to build The Estate, a new hospitality firm, around luxury, longevity and functional medicine. It works with Robbins’ diagnostic firm Fountain Life, which learns its guests’ biomarkers and health history. Then it makes their wellness goals a part of the experience. He calls it yacht service: “It’s predictive,” he explained. “[On a yacht,] they know you’re coming. They know your likes and dislikes. We take it one step further.”
The inspiration was personal. After the 2019 sale, Nazarian began a wellness journey of his own, traveling to luxury resorts and undergoing diagnostic testing at Fountain Life. There, doctors discovered a brain aneurysm that required emergency surgery. “If I hadn’t done this testing, I wouldn’t be here,” he told the TRD subscribers in attendance.
The Estate is rolling out in 13 locations across the Caribbean, Middle East and U.S. — including a residential tower in Miami’s Edgewater — and aims to blend ultra-luxury with medical infrastructure.
It’s not all Nazarian’s doing. He’s also founded HQ, another lifestyle hotel brand, in partnership with Wyndham. That platform will have integrated food and beverage, in the style of Nazarian’s previous ventures, but target a new demographic — Hispanic and Latino travelers and Gen Z.
The challenge is that these younger travelers often default to Airbnb, Nazarian said: “That’s not good for the hotel industry.” Nazarian thinks HQ can win them back.
Nazarian, a longtime L.A. guy, is now doing it all from Miami. That doesn’t mean he’s soured on that market, though — The Estate has a health and wellness location in the works in Century City, one of L.A.’s real estate bright spots. Despite L.A.’s tough times lately, Nazarian still said he’d “bet big” on the market.
“Dubai, Miami, Nashville, all these markets have growth, but we look at L.A. as still [being] the heartbeat of entertainment,” he said.
Nazarian’s next chapter looks different than the last — Miami instead of L.A., healthy living instead of late nights. But he hoped it would mean more. “If you can save or change 10 or 20 or 30 lives,” he said, “that’s a meaningful legacy.”
TRD’s Salon Series features intimate conversations with industry leaders. It’s available exclusively to subscribers. Find out more online now.