André Balazs

Considering his ownership of some of the world’s most renowned hotels—Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, Chiltern Firehouse in London, and The Standard in New York, among others—it’s somewhat surprising that André Balazs wasn’t always in the hotel business. The Boston-born Cornell and Columbia graduate actually began his career in biotech, co-founding a company called Biomatrix with his father in the late 1980s. It was a huge financial success, but Balazs felt as though his work life was infringing on his personal life, and wanted to find a way to reconcile the two. What better way to do that than running a hotel? After establishing The Mercer Hotel in SoHo, Balazs built out a fleet of idiosyncratic, abundantly stylish, and much beloved hotels. On this week’s episode of "Table for Two," the hotelier joins host Bruce Bozzi to discuss his design philosophy, the most challenging aspect of his job, and his close relationship with Andy Warhol.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.