The Hybrid Hospitality Podcast will examine the trends that are transforming hospitality and explore what the future of the industry might look like.
In this episode, Rosie chats to Damon Lawrence, the co-founder and creative director of Homage Hospitality, a new kind of hospitality company that is making waves in the industry.
Scroll down to read the transcript of this podcast episode…
Introduction: You are listening to The Hybrid Hospitality Podcast.
If you’re interested in the trends that are transforming hospitality and want to explore what the future of the industry might look like, then you’re in the right place. This podcast is brought to you by Stay the Night, a creative marketing agency, working with hospitality businesses around the world who are changing the way people stay, work and play.
In this episode, I’ll be speaking with Damon Lawrence, the co-founder and creative director of Homage Hospitality, a new kind of hospitality company that is making waves in the industry.
Headquartered in Oakland, California, the brand has exciting plans in the pipeline for sites across the US that will pay homage to black culture.
In this episode, we learn about the vision behind the company, discuss the inequities that exist around accessing capital and hear about Damon’s inspiring journey from working the front desk to owning the building.
First of all, I’ve followed your journey for a little while so I’d like to talk about your overall vision with Homage. So, you’re setting out to establish ‘a new kind of hospitality’. Can you tell me what that means for you and how it differs from other hospitality brands?
Yeah, definitely. I appreciate you asking that question. I think when I first realised I wanted to start Homage… it’s spurred for me realising that there wasn’t enough representation of people that look like myself in the industry. That was number one… and I’m working in this cool boutique hotel in DC – a Thompson property at the time. And I’m like, ‘man this would be so much cooler if there was a black infusion of culture that was driving the heartbeat and the life of that property’. I started to realise specifically during Obama’s inauguration… we had a party that we were hosting at the property and it was a who’s who of all Hollywood celebrities. The majority of the bigger names in the room were black. It was most of the cultural icons that you could think of which were in the room. I thought, ‘okay, we have the first black president, we have all these icons in this room but then the building, the actual property in which this is being housed has no affiliation with anyone that looks like me’. So that’s where I saw there was an opportunity to create something that’s different. Through the process, I realised the reason why it doesn’t exist is because there’s a whole list of other challenges that come along with that. Access to capital, getting millions of dollars to do these types of projects is just a challenge in our community in general. It’s not just in hospitality, but it’s in tech and in other realms, other businesses.
So, I was starting to realise that and then realising that when you’re creating a business that’s supposed to be for everyone but everyone’s not included in how it’s designed, how it’s created then, are you really creating a space that’s inclusive? So my aim is to have one of the most diverse companies, especially hotel companies in the world. I really want every different ethnic background represented and I want it to look like the United Colors of Bennetton. I do. I think that that’s the new kind of hospitality because when you look at other hotel groups, it just doesn’t look that diverse.
You’re right. The further up you go, the more white and male it gets like, let’s be honest.
So I’ve listened into a few of your Clubhouse chats. Let the record show for people listening to this, that this is a normal thing to do! It still sounds weird to be listening in to your conversation and we’ve never met. You spoke about this kind of inequity – so can you tell me some of the barriers that you have faced when trying to access capital?
I think by most people who are starting a hotel brand, even for the first time, either they come from wealth – so they can rely on their parents wealth or generational wealth – or they’re surrounded by wealth. That’s just not the case for us and that’s just not the case for our community, by and large. It’s hard because even in my family – a traditional middle-class black family – I don’t know if I know many people in my family or even in my network who are accredited investors or who would qualify under that requirement to be an accredited investor. So there’s a whole learning curve that comes along with that in our community. We’re required still to go to those same white males and get them to understand our vision – why it’s important, why we have the plight that we have. I think sometimes privilege gets in the way of truly understanding why this is so important. I think access to capital is by far the biggest challenge that we’ve had to face.
I think the reality is what we’ve seen is people are able to do far less with a lot more right now. That’s not just in hospitality. I mean, WeWork – that company is allowed to burn through capital and is not really focused on a true business model that earns money. I would argue, I’ve never seen someone black be put in that position. I think it’s not just limited to hospitality. We can’t be naive to think that it is. I mean, it’s in every facet… ironically, and I don’t know how big of a basketball fan you are…
…Let me just throw out some random stuff. I think it’s interesting when you look at the composition of the NBA and you think of who the superstars are and racially, who is the larger demographic that make up those superstars, then you look at the coaches that exist in the league, right? You see which coaches are set up for success and then you look at the ownership and the league and the higher you go up, it gets smaller and smaller.
I think hospitality has the same issue. If you were to grade each hotel based off of this diversity, they all would pass with flying colours, but that is not the true story. The true story is where are you seeing the diversity. Are you seeing it in management? Are you seeing it in housekeeping and line staff and in the back of the house, where are you seeing it? Are you seeing it in management? I think that’s the bigger issue that we talk about all the time and I think one day soon, hopefully we’ll just have an opportunity to showcase that we could do it. We could do it with less and we can do it better.
For me personally, it’d be nice to get to a place – similar to what you say – where it is not ‘you’re a black founder, you’re a female founder’. Instead, it will just be you are a founder and you’re great at what you do and that’s why we’re backing you.
On the blog on your site, you talk about the fact that those capital conversations have gotten easier recently. Why do you think that is?
Well, the events that happened this last summer changed the way that people perceive our business and why they thought it was relevant. We used to get asked questions all the time about ‘why do you need a black branded hotel?’ Or ‘is it only for black people?’ It’s crazy whenever I get asked that question – and I get asked it a lot – because I don’t think that other groups are asked that. I don’t think you ever ask… there’s Irish pubs all over the world and no one assumed you have to be Irish to walk into an Irish pub. I think you can celebrate culture without it being exclusive. I think you could celebrate culture with it being very inclusive. There’s a hotel in Japan Town in San Francisco called Hotel Kabuki. I’m pretty sure that everyone that works there and everyone that stays there is not Japanese. So it’s just interesting, the questions that are asked and why they’re asked and the way that they are. I am black. I love my culture. I love my heritage. I love everything about it and I want to celebrate that. I think we can do it in a way that doesn’t alienate people, but really it brings us all together closer.
100%. So your career in hospitality goes way back but when did you know you wanted to be a hotel owner? When did you look and say I want to own this?
Oh that moment, that story I was telling you about when we had that party at that property that I worked at in DC, it was the inauguration day. That day I worked 22 hours straight. I got there early in the morning at five because it was going to be a busy day and I ended up not leaving until three o’clock the next morning. I remember just being there in the lobby, it was just crazy. I mean, it was like Sheryl Crow’s over here and Kid Rock was over here and Leonardo DiCaprio is over there and Spike Lee just walked in. It was just wild. Everybody in the property was a celebrity of some sort. I remember tapping my manager and I said, ‘this is what I want to do’. I figured it out. This is it. This is what I’m gonna do. I’m going to figure out what the best route forward is and how I can do it. So it was literally that day.
In terms of figuring that out – because for example I’m from a working class town in the Northeast of England and when I started getting into reading about real estate, I had no clue about these things. People from similar places to where I am from don’t see that as a viable career – how important do you think the education is around those things?
Education is huge. I mean, it’s one thing even to work in a hotel, it’s an entirely different thing to buy one and then two, to fully operate one. I think there’s some crossover between working in operations and then actually being the owner of an operating asset. But definitely in talking about the purchase of one, there’s such a huge learning curve and you wouldn’t know where to start. I’ve been on this journey for five years and I’m just now at a comfortable place where I feel like I’ve cracked the code and understand how these things are done. So it took that long. It took from 2016 officially. I was really wanting to do it even prior to that, but from 2016 to now really just to learn how this all works and how it happens.
That process is so valuable. I hope that by me going through it, I could pass on that knowledge to other people so that whoever’s behind me, it just doesn’t take them as long. I think that’s where the shame is… as I’m going through this process to realise I’m cracking so many barriers and I’m doing it first as a trailblazer. I think that that’s a scary thought. In one sentence, I don’t like that. I don’t want to be the only… I want other people to feel empowered by what I’m doing and to feel like they can and that this is a career path that they can choose. But sometimes we don’t know it. I even myself, for example, I fell into hospitality where I was looking for a job and it seemed cool.
I was on Craigslist looking for a job as matter of fact. The description was cool and it was one of the 15 jobs I applied for that day and they called me back and suddenly I’ve found myself a whole new career path that I had never thought about ever. So, I think there’s a lot of people that if they were exposed to how cool the hospitality industry could be… would enter into it at a lot younger age. I think that’s where I’m really excited to do some things on the educational side both in the high school, middle school, elementary school level and the collegiate level.
Yeah, for sure. To go back to the beginning of that journey for you as a hotelier – your first project, The Moor in New Orleans. In the tagline, you called it a house hotel. Can you explain the concept behind that?
So I had this thought about this brand, this was back in… I think it was like 2010 really, when Airbnb first started. My thought was Airbnb is really cool, but it would be so much cooler if you had a branded version of that. Where you can go from city to city and the experience is going to be the same. You don’t know what you’re going to expect. So managing a hospitality business, but using the Airbnb platform. I had that idea in 2010 and had the name. When we were looking at property, we were living in Oakland and at the time, Oakland’s real estate prices were just skyrocketing. Every time that we were trying to find a property, some cash buyer would come and get it right up from under us or we were one of the offers up against a billionaire.
If I’m the owner, I’d go with the billionaire too because you’re certainly going to get your money. It’s going to be all cash. So we just kept losing out on a bunch of different properties and I had an investor that said, you know what, maybe you should look in a different market because Oakland is just so expensive right now. It’s going to be such a challenge, find another market, do something small, do something that’s going to get your branding, your name out there. When we started to look at New Orleans – and I have to credit my mom for it – but she really pushed New Orleans because of the year-round leisure travel. When you talk about black history and heritage, most of our story comes through New Orleans. It comes through the South in general, but it comes to New Orleans – music, you know, that’s the birthplace of jazz and that’s also the birthplace of R&B and blue and hip hop is a derivative of that. So all those things is this deep linear connection for all of us that goes through New Orleans. It made sense.
We found a small four-room property, and we said, look, we’re going to put our all into it. This will be our first property and this will help us get our name out there… and that’s exactly what it did. It allowed for us to get that brand recognition for us to have something to point to and say, this is what we represent. This is who we are. We owned that for two years, we opened it up in July 2018 and then had an opportunity to exit that property at a really good deal in late 2019. We huddled up, we made that property happen with capital, both from my family and investor capital.
At the end of 2019, I’m looking at this project that is still performing really well, but it almost limited us. The fact that it was four rooms, didn’t have food and beverage, it kind of pigeonholed us into ‘this is what we do’. We make these small bed and breakfast type properties… then it was harder for us to go out and raise capital. So I thought, man, this is it… it did what it needed to do on the PR front and pushed us forward. But then it almost created a glass ceiling as people weren’t taking us seriously, as far as true hospitality. So it’s late 2019… we huddle up as a family and we decided, you know what? I think we should sell it and then go find something – even if there’s 12 rooms – but has food and beverage, we can have a bar, something like that. It will propel us to be more of what we are, where we’re trying to go. So we sold it, we had got a good deal on the property and we were looking to recapitalise another building, little did we know that this virus, the whole time was lurking… So it actually worked out perfectly because we sold it probably at the best possible time, at the height of the market before everything. Especially as a hospitality business, exiting at that time was divine.
So that was a blessing in disguise, but that property really was the catalyst for so much that we’ve done it. It pushed us really to new heights. We won two awards, won a Gold Key award from their property. It really got us the notoriety and attention that we needed.
From that whole experience – both selling your first property and the last year of COVID-19 – what are the kinds of lessons and insights that you’ve learned that you’ll take forward to new projects?
That’s a really good question. I think making sure that the way that we structure deals is doing it with the full team. What we had to do with that property – just because of where we were in the life cycle of our business – is we had to do most of it ourselves. I had to paint walls and put on door knobs etc… I think I’m excited to enter to this next phase where I have a full team that does all of that. I’ve got a construction team and architect and we built these relationships over the last two years. I think I’m really excited about that.
This last year was just the time to build relationships, both with people that can write checks… so we build those capital relationships. Unfortunately a lot of people were looking for work and so we spend time building personal relationships with people that love the hotel industry or find themselves on the outside, looking in. We spend time figuring out ways in which we can employ more people over the next couple of years and bring some of this great talent that actually is out there in the market looking to get back into the hospitality industry. How can we bring those people in? But I think this year has taught me the most just about patience. I feel like I have so many sports references but I feel like a quarterback just waiting and surveying…
It’s going over my head but people listening will get that, I’m sure! Can you tell me about the projects you have in the pipeline or the markets that you’re looking to enter?
Thank you for asking that question. I’m super excited. I’m actually sitting in the office of our Oakland property. We will close on the purchase of this property – we actually already own it, but in the redevelopment and restructuring of this del – that will close on March 31st.
We just signed a deal for a project in Albany, Georgia that I’m super excited about. We have some really good partnerships that we’re working on and a great development team there. We’re looking at a project in Baltimore, we’re looking at a project in Memphis. So those are the markets that are really exciting to me right now, but I have some bucket lists that I would love to enter into. We looked at a property in Napa and I think Napa is a very interesting market for our brand. It wouldn’t be the first one that jumps out to you because Napa is just not very cultural, but I think it’s an opportunity to bring more culture to the region. I would love to do something in my hometown and go back to LA and in Washington DC near our university. I think really capitalising on what we can do domestically. Over the next couple of years, as things start to subside with COVID, really looking at what internationally, projects look like too.
So you spoke about with The Moor that it limited you in terms of F&B. So will these new sites, are you planning to have them open as neighbourhood hubs?
Full service, with food and beverage. Some with the rooftop bar… the Oakland project we’re working with some really cool partners on the food and beverage front. Albany will be the same. I think the coolest thing about where we are right now is we’ve been able to solidify some really good relationships with people. So I think the chefs that we’ll be working with and the partnerships that we’ll do on a food and beverage side will be really cool.
When you’re entering a new market, what extent do you integrate the brand into the neighbourhood so it reflects the neighbourhood? To what extent do you bring something totally fresh?
That’s a really good question and really the Genesis for how well we do and why I love being the leader of my company is that it’s a question that I could answer right off the bat. I think each and every community is different. Each city has different needs and you don’t really understand that until you spend some time there and you start to actually talk to the people and understand what they need. I’ll give you a quick example of what I mean by that – the Oakland project is very interesting because Oakland is going through a housing crisis. So you had the pandemic on top of a pandemic quite frankly because we have one of the largest homeless populations in the country and it’s really a sad thing to see. So what I’m doing in Oakland is, I’m not collecting a fee from this property.
All of my profits, my personal profits will be going into a non-profit organisation to actually deal with the housing crisis directly. In Albany, homelessness is not an issue but there’s different issues. I’ve talked to a bunch of people in Albany which I believe is – still to this day – a very segregated city. The challenge there is how can I make everyone feel comfortable in one space? How can I bring both sides together? Because you go into certain restaurants and it’s very white. You go to other restaurants and it’s very black and those two worlds don’t usually collide so it’s going to be a unique challenge. How can I make a property that honours everyone and doesn’t alienate anyone? It doesn’t make anyone feel uncomfortable. I think the way we’re going to have to do that is through the way we program, through the way we hire, through the food and beverage. I think if there’s anything that brings people together, food is going to bring you together. A good drink is going to bring you together and it’s going to be a unique challenge. I think typically what we would’ve done is build an incentive fee into our management structure. What I worked out is instead of doing that, I’m actually an equity partner on the deal, right? So an exchange and then any overages on a year by year budget goes back to the employees. The reason why I wanted to do that is that hotel is going to mean so much for that city, it’s going to mean so much for the downtown area and having employees that have a sense of pride in the place that they work is just going to be so important.
It’s going to be so important to tell that story, right? If I’m telling you that hiring is going to be an important factor, I’m going to have to hire a very diverse group of people. I want them all to be excited about the place that they work. That story, that word of mouth to transfer out from there so that everyone feels comfortable coming into the space. So to answer that question real direct, it is different in every single city. How do you weave yourself in? I can’t do it from my office here in Oakland. I have to actually have boots on the ground and spend some time in each market, talk to people, interview people and really ask them what they want and then supply a product that fits that.
So you’ve got a busy couple of years ahead with all those new markets then?
I do. The beauty in some of these markets is my team is either from there or have some extensive background in that market. That’s the cool thing about the current markets that we have. I lived in Baltimore for a long time. I’ve lived in Oakland for the last five years. I understand Oakland. One of my team members is actually from Albany so that helps. One of my team members is from Memphis. So, we’ve spent time in these markets. These are markets that I’m already familiar with and we pretty much understand the needs of each one individually.
I like what you said about making a space that’s inclusive and accessible to everyone. I think it can benefits to have a space where you can get different groups and different people from different backgrounds. Hospitality can be about that as well – not solely about like-minded people in one space.
What’s interesting about that is that – and I was reminded in one of those Clubhouse rooms that you mentioned – because I talk about it all the time. There are things that are low hanging fruit in hotels that you wouldn’t think about – one of them is the lotion in the room. If you don’t have someone like me ordering the lotion, you’re going to miss the mark because most hotels… I will you to ask any black friend that you have… ask them if they use hotel lotion…
I’ve actually had this conversation with someone and there’s this thing around, well, why do we have to buy a special lotion? No you don’t, you just buy that lotion…
For me, it works for everybody. It works for me. It works for everybody. That’s the low hanging fruit, but it wouldn’t even come into your mind if you’re not thinking about all these other people or you don’t have the same issues.
There needs to be more diversity at the table. I think even the beauty is, I love working with women. They see the things that I don’t see that I wouldn’t pay attention to… You know, you need that. You need those different perspectives in this, it’s so important. If you’re really trying to create a space that’s inclusive of everyone, you need everyone included in the process.
It’s also about actually looking at it as – and I think I put something on LinkedIn about this – what it needs to not be is involving someone in the process so you can tick that box. Instead, it’s actually that you are bringing this person in as they bring value to the table – whether that’s panels, whether it’s a decision making position – it adds to the conversation. It’s not something to do just to tick a box.
It’ss very important. It is not just diversity. It is also the inclusion. It’s diversity and inclusion. That’s the reason why DNI is so closely connected because yeah, I could add some diversity. I could check off the box, but they are included in the process. They actually have a seat at the table or are they just the one taking notes on the side? I think that that’s extremely important.
On your website, you have a sounds page with a link to a Spotify playlist – which I’ve been enjoying by the way prior to this interview. How much does music play a part in your concepts and how can it play a part in a hotel story?
You’re asking the best questions. Music is such an important role in my life because I grew up with a mother who was a musician. She’s a musical artist. Even to this day, she just had a song that plays on a documentary just recently. I remember spending time with her in the studio and being around musicians all the time, that’s just what everyday life was growing up. Being so close to music… music is such an important aspect of my life. I often play around and I could live my life through song. There’s a song there for everything. I have a whole communication, like R2D2, I’m just reciting lyrics. You know what I’m saying? Even our values, our company values, most of them except for one are lyrics to songs.
One of my favourite ones is Spaceships, don’t come equipped with rear view mirrors by Andre 3000. That one is just a reminder that if you’re headed in a certain direction, you can’t look back. I think about that even with the company who have gone through different co-founders, gone through different partners, different investors, whatever is in the past. You just can’t look back. You have to continue to look forward, especially if you’re going to be the rocket ship that you want to be as a company. Music is super important. I think it also defines space. When we first started, we actually conducted a bunch of interviews and we wanted to interview black men about what they need and desire out of a space.
So we call it a men in space, right? We’re going to interview people with different backgrounds – a barber, a clothing designer, a creative. One of the most interesting interviews we had was with the DJ. Understanding the intricacies around music and how the challenges that come with music and how you have to make decisions at a quick instant to keep the party going… I think that the power of music in bringing people together is amazing. It’s amazing what it can do to your life, what it can do for you as a person and how through history, it has been the one thing that really actually unified people.
I think curating a playlist is cool, but can you create a playlist for a hotel all day? From the morning to the night and all the different emotions that you feel throughout that day. The music that you’re playing at eight o’clock in the morning versus what you’re playing at 8:00 PM. It moves you differently and keeps you moving through the day. Music is super important.
It’s one of those things that I really notice – maybe because we work in hospitality. If I go to a place and I’m sat there for a long time and they play the same song twice, I get upset about that! I think, why have none of my friends noticed? So it’s nice to have someone on the same wave length to that. So… Kendrick or called Jay-Z then?
That’s tough, man. I will say that that’s hard. I will say Kendrick but that’s hard… I think I love Jay Z and where he is now, the stuff he’s about. I think it was just super impactful, especially for me or where I’m at in my life. I think Kendrick as a musical artist is just one of the most talented of our generation.
Leading on from that, on the front page of your site you have an extract that talks about legacy. So, what do you want your legacy to be? It’s quite a big question.
It is a big question. I think really just as we talked before about… being a trailblazer. I want to empower a bunch of other people to do what I’m doing and do it better. I think the legacy that I want to leave behind is that there were four or five people that I mentor that went on to do bigger and better things than I did.
That’s amazing. I think there’s a part in your blog too, where you talk about when the reservations are coming in for The Moor and you kind of realised, okay, this is working. There’s a bit where you write, ‘I knew it would’.
I really smiled reading that because when we started to Stay the Night, no one knew what we were doing. We were going to be a location, independent agency, our families didn’t get it. It’s having that vision and following it through on blind faith, I guess sometimes.
It’s been a really tough year for everyone in the industry. For people either getting started in hospitality or for who have these ideas but feel like giving up now, what would your advice be to them?
That’s an interesting question. It’s tough. I think when you’re doing something for five years, six years – and I haven’t worked a job in this entire time – and so you only get paid when you have a deal. I didn’t get one [a deal] until I drove for Lyft and Uber for a couple years and did everything that I possibly could just to continue to push forward. I think the beauty in having a company and calling it homage is you’re always thinking about history. You’re always thinking about, what can I pay homage to, what history can I pay homage to? So it makes me like a historian and I geek out on realising the patterns that human society just naturally continues to follow. Even as we deal with this pandemic, we forget that a hundred years ago, we also dealt with a pandemic.
Almost at a very similar time in turn of the century, strategically similar to COVID-19… I think that that was 1918, right? It took us about the same amount of time to get through it. But you know, what it ended up transitioning into was the roaring twenties, right? Where everybody was partying and looking for a reason, an excuse to be out and about… the hotel prohibition era, Harlem Renaissance… all these things just boomed from that period. All the way up until the Great Depression. I think that we’re in line for another roaring twenties so I’m excited about the future. I think if anything, this is the time that you build for what’s ahead, right? When things are quiet, when things are at their lowest point, this is when you’re putting the foundation down to build what’s going to be the next best thing. I’m seeing people start to do that. I encourage more people to use this time – and it’s going to be tough – but it was never going to be easy.
I’m definitely ready for a roaring twenties. After being locked down for a year, I’m up for that!
Well, thanks for joining me today. I’m so excited to see what you create and to see what’s in store for Homage in the coming years.
Thank you so much for asking. I have to say that you have asked some of the best questions I have ever been asked so I really appreciate that.
For those listening who want to find out more about Homage Hospitality, you can visit their website here.
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