CEOInterviews.AIHow Issy Sharp Built The Four Seasons and Transformed The Hospitality Industry Forever (Part 1)

D

David0:00

So this next interview was so great that we decided to cut it into two parts — our first two-parter ever for Big Shot. We're talking to a guy in his 90s, Izzy Sharp, the founder of the Four Seasons Hotel, who comes in with the energy of a young man. We could have sat with him for 10 hours. It was banger after banger in terms of lessons and anecdotes. The Four Seasons stands for luxury and class, but the first ever Four Seasons Hotel was actually in the red light district in Toronto — the wrong side of the tracks. He starts there, builds his thing, and it turns into a global empire. Not only does he create this wonderful brand, but he changed the business model of how hotels get built. Here's somebody who never thought he'd be in the hotel business — he's a builder who ends up building a motel for someone and does something very unconventional.

H

Harley1:21

That story is incredible, but what a game changer. Izzy is really a polymath — he pulls inside information and input across every single discipline, and then he creates and shapes this hotel, these buildings, this culture in a way that's incredibly inspiring. No matter what industry you're in, there is so much you can learn from this interview.

D

David1:50

It's incredible. It took him decades to be an overnight success — even the story of how long it took him to get from his first hotel to his second hotel, and the lessons he learned along the way. And like a lot of our other guests, one thing that comes out is his relationship to his family, in particular to his wife. He talks about her with incredible respect and care and appreciation. One of the secrets to the success of Izzy Sharp and Four Seasons is Rosie.

H

Harley2:17

This is a 70-year love story, partnership. They've been an incredible family. But best of all, the story of how he goes to meet his father-in-law who wasn't too sure about him at first, and what he does to win over his father — it's amazing.

D

David2:34

So we talk about love, culture, building, success, capitalism, business models. This is one of those episodes we could not package into one single episode, so we cut it into two. If you're going to make a two-parter for anyone, Izzy Sharp is the one you do it for.

H

Harley2:56

The other thing we have to acknowledge is he had some early investors in the Four Seasons business when things were just getting started.

D

David3:12

I can't even calculate the return on investment. It must be one of the greatest investments of all time. These people gave him ninety thousand dollars to invest in this tiny business that turned into a multi-billion dollar empire. The way he tells it — what that investment meant from a percentage perspective, from an equity perspective, and what that is today — there's nothing like it. He really had strong morals. He took care of them. They gave him what ended up being a very small amount, and he stuck with them for many decades because they believed in him. They became very wealthy off this one small investment.

H

Harley3:47

Ladies and gentlemen, you are going to hear about probably the greatest investment of all time that none of you have ever heard about, and we share it today with Izzy Sharp.

D

Drake4:03

Started from the bottom, now the whole team here. Started from the bottom, now we're here.

H

Harley4:18

Izzy, thank you for joining us. Big Shot is part documentary and part kibitzing in an old-school Jewish deli. David and I are proud Jewish entrepreneurs, inspired by the great Jewish entrepreneurs who came before us. In our view, you are one of the greatest, and we want to talk about your story. Let me throw out some numbers: Four Seasons has 45,000 employees, 124 locations in 47 countries, 23 years ranked by Fortune as one of the best companies to work for. Steve Jobs credits Four Seasons customer service as inspiration for the Apple Store. But we want to go way back — before that first 125-room hotel in 1961. What was childhood like for you growing up in the Sharp household? You've talked about your mother being the matriarch.

I

Isadore Sharp5:51

My mother was the matriarch — she ruled the house and directed what my dad should do. He was born in what is now known as Auschwitz, slated to be a rabbi, his life steeped in religious beliefs. She was brought over by her older brother to marry my father — arranged marriages were the norm. But she wouldn't have any part of it. She was 16, tall and beautiful. My dad persevered and finally won her over. To the end, it was a honeymoon — he had her on a pedestal. When she died, we were wheeling her down the corridor, and he looked at her and said to the doctor, 'Doctor, isn't she beautiful?' In his eyes, she never changed. Our life was a tough upbringing — struggling as most immigrants were, no language, no money, every penny was important. My parents brought us up to be self-sufficient. They never told us what to do, never asked where we were going. They trusted we would get by. We were never told what we should become.

D

David9:54

I read a great story about your dad. On his honeymoon he stayed home until nine o'clock before going to work — that's how hard he worked. He was making fifteen dollars an hour as a plasterer and decides to go off on his own. He gets his first contract and quotes based on faulty information. The project doesn't go well, but he honors the contract even though it means he'll lose money. He does that on principle. What kind of impact did that have on you?

I

Isadore Sharp10:33

The principles and values a Jew inherits aren't what parents tell you — it's how they are. It's like osmosis; you learn by example. Living up to your word, your bond, is important. You make a commitment, you live up to it even if it costs you money. It cost them for years — they were paying off the debt from that first project. My mother would not have it any other way. They struggled and finally paid it off, and then he slowly got into the building business. As a kid, I loved working on construction. It was like a challenge. Working with these tough immigrants — Polish, Italian, Jewish — they were so thankful to have a job. When you saw how they worked, what a lesson. You tried to live up to it. Growing up and working on construction during the summer was my life, and I really enjoyed that challenge.

H

Harley12:42

There's interesting research Dave and I picked up — to this day, there's not a single Four Seasons where the architectural drawings go forward without your approval. Did you care about architecture and design in those early years on construction sites, or was it more a job?

I

Isadore Sharp13:08

When I started the company, architecture was a big part of my expertise — that's what I studied. But I wasn't the designer. I knew that if you hired the best in their fields, you'd get something better than what you could do yourself. I critiqued rather than created, and my approach was from a functional point of view — function should direct design. I'd make decisions based on practicality. As a builder, I knew what was difficult to build and what wasn't. I could control costs by simplifying things. Most of the design that people show you, you accept — so you're already tweaking the edges. To this day, the same principle applies.

D

David14:34

Let me switch gears to talk about love. Harley and I are both married with children, families are extremely important to us. You've been married for over 70 years. Let's go back to 1952 — you're working construction, dating Rosalie, and her father forbids her from seeing you. He wants a doctor, a lawyer, not a guy schlepping construction. There's the famous joke: the first Jewish president, Mrs. Goldstein sitting next to the vice president at the inauguration. He says, 'Mrs. Goldstein, you must be so proud, your son is the first Jewish president.' She says, 'I am, but his brother's a doctor.' Her parents wanted her to marry a professional. She comes to see you, upset because her father threw her out. And you say, 'Come, we're going to go talk to your dad.' What did you say to him?

I

Isadore Sharp16:05

I don't remember exactly what I said, but it wasn't because I was in construction. It was that I was a bit of a player — taking out other girls, having a good time. When you're 20, 21, you're playing the field. One of his friends saw me with one of these questionable girls, and that's why he forbade her to see me again — 'This guy is not trustworthy.' So when she came to my construction job and told me her father had locked her out, I said, 'Let's go talk to him.' I don't know why — I'm only 20 years old — but my whole life has been that example. I never have feared talking or doing things. I've never had a fear of failure. It just doesn't pass through my mind that it might not work. I think it was that gene in your mind that says there's only one way to do it: go talk to him. It is the same thing. And as Rosie said, I stood there listening to him. It was a quiet, polite way — which has been my way of communicating. I find the right thing to say at the right time, in a polite, pleasant way. I must have mentioned to him that my heart is really with your daughter. You might have seen me out doing other things, but we're young and not ready to get married now. But I must have assured him that my true love was Rosalie.

D

David18:48

And you were a man of character. The fact that you'd dare to approach him takes guts.

I

Isadore Sharp18:52

He must have, from his upbringing and his challenges, it must have reminded him of himself — that he approached life that way and built his way up without compromise. Just the fact that I was prepared to talk to him — it's not what I said, it was the act of doing that. 'Okay, let's go talk to your dad.' In his mind, he probably wasn't even listening to what I said. It was more, 'This kid had the courage to come talk to me and show up like this.' He would have done the same thing.

D

David19:48

I think about what you said — you've never had a fear of failure. I wonder how much of that came from your upbringing, your parents instilling this sense of confidence. They provided an environment for you to be independent, but did they also provide a sort of swagger or confidence that you can do whatever you want to do?

I

Isadore Sharp20:13

It wouldn't be swagger — it would be trust in your beliefs. That was my mother and my father. They both struggled to get to where they were, and you saw that. I think you're born with a certain self-esteem that they encouraged. They didn't suppress your thoughts, so it built confidence and belief in yourself. My mother — she didn't have the language, but she was certain of her opinion.

D

David21:05

Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt.

I

Isadore Sharp21:07

Rosie was described as a woman of no self-doubt. She wasn't born here with all the etiquette, and she could be quite rude. But she had no malice — it wasn't like she was intending to be rude. That was her. She was going to speak her mind, and if you didn't like what she said, that's your problem. But it wasn't with malice. I remember my dad's brother — they were partners together, and he took advantage. He went off and made a lot of money but didn't take my father with him. She was always angry about that. I could often hear them yelling at each other — 'He's screwing you!' But at the end, my dad would say, 'Okay, okay, that's enough. He'll come for dinner tonight.' You said your piece, I told you what I thought, and now we move on. We're still friends.

D

David22:40

So you grow up with that principle.

I

Isadore Sharp22:44

You stand your ground. My whole life, I've never been intimidated, I've never shied away. I often wonder, how did I do that? With a little more maturity, I have no idea why I had the courage or the chutzpah to go up to the most important corporation in the world, ITT, and think I could make a deal with them. That's ridiculous. But in my mind, hey, it's a good idea, I think they might like to hear about it. My belief in my idea never wavered. I just had a conviction, and I couldn't understand why other people didn't see it. I think, as you both have done, you believed in what you were doing, and that gave you the perseverance to overcome the skeptics and the difficulties, because you could see the end — it's got to work, I will find a way to make this work.

D

David23:56

You certainly did. There have been so many situations like that.

I

Isadore Sharp24:02

For some reason, I've never felt out of place. Talking to royalty or business people who are way beyond my reach — but for whatever reason, I just felt I'm okay. Not trying to pretend and be anything other than what I am.

D

David24:26

Let's talk about that transition from construction to the hotel business. You were hired to build a motel — the story goes that Jack wanted you to build 14 rooms, and you said the location wasn't great, you needed good signage. Why don't I build you 28? I won't finish the other 14, it won't cost much more, but you'll have double the roof space for a sign. He said sure, business was good, and he finished the other 14. That was your introduction to the hotel business. Talk to us about that first project.

I

Isadore Sharp25:33

It was just a job — I'd built factories and houses for people. What he was doing just didn't make sense. It was in the middle of nowhere, in a residential area off the highway, and it looked like a house. I said, 'Jack, how are people going to get here?' He said, 'Don't tell me, I investigated, this will work.' I said, 'Don't you think it'd be better if it looked like a motel? Make it bigger, put a big sign on the roof so people five miles away will know there's something there.' He did, and shortly after opening, he called me — 'You got to finish these rooms, I'm filled every night.' That's when it hit me: if this little motel works here on a limited-access highway, wouldn't a motel downtown be better? That was the beginning of a five-year journey, working at night to convince people this might work. The answer I kept getting was, 'You know how to build, but you don't know what you're talking about.' I said, 'I know I'm not going to run the hotel, I'm just saying the idea of this.' It fell on deaf ears. But I believed it would work — I just couldn't understand why others couldn't see it. When the spark of an idea doesn't go out, it gives you the conviction. A week became a month, became a year, became two, three, four. If I had known it was going to take five years — I was still trying to put food on the table, struggling to make a living, and this was my nighttime job.

D

David28:03

Just to be clear, set the stage — during the day you're running your construction business, and at night you're tinkering on this hotel idea. So it wasn't a full-time thing. Was it predominantly because you weren't sure if it would work? Most people on nights and weekends are playing sports or going out, but your hobby was conceptualizing what would become the Four Seasons Motor Inn.

I

Isadore Sharp28:49

I wouldn't describe it as a hobby — I was trying to make a deal to make money. I was never even thinking I was going to run a hotel. To me, it was a real estate deal — I could build it and probably sell it. Real estate is a commodity; you build it and most likely you sell. So it was a business to try to make a little more money from what I was doing. Eventually, I was able to cobble together enough money by getting my sub-trades to defer their payments — let me build this, I'll pay you part of the contract, and after the building is up, I'll either sell it or make some money, and then I'll pay you more.

D

David29:58

So technically the first quasi-investors in the Four Seasons were your sub-trades — they wouldn't give you money but invested in terms of their work. That's incredible.

I

Isadore Sharp30:13

I had two partners who put in ninety thousand dollars each — Murray Kaufler and Eddie Creed, friends and business associates, my brother-in-law and his best friend. And then I had, over the years, badgered the person who lent me money to build houses — Cece Forsyth of Great West Life Insurance. I'd go down to bother him, and he knew about hotels. Over a few years, he kept giving me advice. And finally he said, 'Look, leave me alone, you're never going to get this done.' I said, 'But if I do get it done, will you...'

I went to someone and said, 'Give me a mortgage on this.' He said, 'I'll give you a 50 percent mortgage if you can get the other money.' So I came back and said, 'Look, I think I've got the other money.' He said, 'That's not money—I want equity.' I said, 'No, we've got $100,000.' He said, 'That's peanuts.' I said, 'But your mortgage is safe—building goes up, what do you care if it doesn't work? You get the building and you've only got 50 percent value.' He said, 'Okay.' That was the financing that got put together.

The remarkable part of it is the two investors each put up $90,000. They've never ever put up another cent, and we're partners for life. So if you think of what they earned, that must be the greatest return of any investment in history. With $90,000 each, they eventually became a 25 percent shareholder in Four Seasons.

D

Drake32:13

Oh my God—incredible. These are people that believed in you when no one else did.

I

Isadore Sharp32:20

Well, you know, they said, 'Look, what have we got to lose?'

D

Drake32:26

So $90,000 in those days presumably was a lot of money.

I

Isadore Sharp32:31

Yeah, but it was—it was about 90 percent debt.

D

Drake32:39

Right. So there was about 10 percent equity. But then you built this motor inn—this is the Four Seasons? No today, no—it's a Four Seasons Motor Inn on Jarvis Street, which is not Fifth Avenue. This is downtown Toronto but it's not a fancy area. If you talk about the wrong side of the tracks, this was so far off the wrong side because it was hookers' paradise. Jarvis Street was the red light district of Toronto—the first Four Seasons was basically in the red light district. Why did you end up naming it Four Seasons?

I

Isadore Sharp33:20

The first name was not Four Seasons. This was 1959 and we were building it, and the Thunderbird car was just coming out from Ford. That sounded like a fancy name, but we couldn't get it because somebody else had already called a motel Thunderbird. So we're having a conversation with my two partners, and Eddie Creed was talking about—he just came back from being a world traveler because his business was in retail. He was talking about a hotel he stayed in in Germany called 'Das Vier Jahreszeit.' I said, 'You know, that translates to the Four Seasons.' That was the market research—the name just hit me.

At the end of the day, a name is only what the product is. Google, Starbucks, Apple—they mean nothing until you connect it to the name. But I must admit that the name Four Seasons would ring better than Thunderbird.

H

Harley34:39

I'm not sure what would have had the same longevity in terms of maintaining this incredible, beautiful place with great hospitality and great care. Four Seasons is a little bit more accessible. Ladies and gentlemen, we're here today with Izzy Sharp from the Thunderbird—well, the Thunderbird actually, as a motor inn, Thunderbird's pretty good.

I

Isadore Sharp34:58

Yeah, that's right. So he spent five years building the Four Seasons Motor Inn.

D

David35:02

Why did it take five years? Is that just how long a hotel takes to build?

I

Isadore Sharp35:06

Because people didn't believe in me. They said, 'You don't know anything about it.' If I knew something about the hotel business, it's a risky business to begin with. There was one man that could finance major real estate projects for most people—Max Tannenbaum, who at that time was one of the wealthiest developers and was in the steel business in Canada. Larry's father—Larry was one of the youngest of many children—and he and my dad were friends and partners, they built an apartment building together. So I approached Max like everybody approached Max Tannenbaum, and he said, 'Look, take my word for it, kid. You don't know anything about this. I do, and you will beat your brains out. Don't touch it.'

Now when Max tells you not to do something, usually you don't do it, because he's a successful businessman. But to me it just didn't make sense that people couldn't see why—if this little motel on the highway works so well, why wouldn't it be more successful and convenient in a downtown location? And the reason I'm on Jarvis Street is because land was cheap. I could buy a lot of land inexpensively. And I knew people coming from out of town—they wouldn't know whether it's a red light district or not. They'll know if the building is worthwhile staying at. So it's all these things—you have ideas and you have the belief in them.

D

David36:54

What do you think were some of the key things that made that hotel successful, and were those things that became pillars for the Four Seasons later on?

I

Isadore Sharp37:11

Yeah. It's the research I was doing to try to understand the business. I traveled and spoke to a lot of people over those many years. As I'm doing it, I'm also thinking of what would be the right thing to build. And it was an article I read about a man—Elliot Fry, I think his name was—a furniture design builder. I called him and he said, 'Come down, I'll talk to you.' He lived in Houston. So I flew down and met with him. While we were talking, we were in a downtown hotel—it was like a courtyard, and right across from a bus station. If you went out of that courtyard, you were in the middle of a busy, noisy place that looked like a dump.

So that rang a bell with me. When I'm designing the hotel on Jarvis Street, I gave direction to the architects. I said, 'I want to build this like the old medieval cities, where you have walls and people live inside. There'll be a courtyard, but very few rooms will face the street. They will all face into the courtyard, and the courtyard will become a garden with a swimming pool—it'll be like an oasis.' So you had to get people to look at what you're building, give them a reason to go there. And that concept of creating aesthetically pleasing spaces using gardens as the atmosphere really became the style that got us going from thereafter.

So I think you learn things as you—over those five years you're gaining insight into what you think will work, not just a strip motel anywhere. You develop your ideas based upon a lot of conversations with other people.

D

David39:35

So those five years weren't wasted just knocking on doors. You were learning, you were building the ideas and the culture that you wanted to use. Then you decide at some point, okay, this motel model works really well. Did you know you were going to build hundreds of them? Did you know this was going to be a big thing, or did you say, 'Let me try a second one'? Was it still really about the business? Did you think you were onto something at this point, or was it more just, 'Let's try a second'? How big was the ambition?

I

Isadore Sharp40:10

No, it's going to build up. We were running it, it was successful, I enjoyed that aspect of it once we got started. And you were running the whole thing?

D

David40:17

Real estate, but I hired somebody.

I

Isadore Sharp40:22

Ah, okay. And then hiring—I didn't know anything about hiring people. Remember, I'm a two-man construction outfit, my dad and myself. So it was a new hotel that opened in Toronto—I think it might have been called the Westbury—and it was one of the new hotels. So I went and spoke to the general manager of that hotel and said, 'Look, I'm building something here. I'm not coming to see whether you'd like to join me, but do you know anybody I might speak to in the hotel business to hire as a general manager?' And he said, 'Yeah, I've got a friend who just came over from England and he's running this little place. You might talk to him.' So I did. And when I went in and met this man, his name was Ian Monroe. He was dressed in a very formal, almost like a morning suit—it was like going to a wedding or something.

So I talked to him about what I'm tending to do. 'Would you think you'd like to maybe run this hotel for us?' And he gave me his list of things he had done, and we had a nice, charming conversation. So I hired him. Now, I don't know how to interview people and how to hire people—I'm still your construction guy. I'm a construction guy, 25 years old.

D

David41:44

And he seemed like a nice guy.

I

Isadore Sharp41:46

Yeah, well-dressed, exactly. He made some jokes and talked about what he did before. And I said, 'Okay, but I have one condition: I never want to see you wear that suit in the hotel.'

D

Drake41:58

I'm thinking of a 25-year-old going for it.

I

Isadore Sharp42:02

I'm thinking of a place where we welcome people, feeling casual. And so we joined forces and became very good friends. And he taught me the hotel business. He was gregarious, he knew food and beverage, he was charming. And he understood—I said, 'Ian, I want to make sure that whoever comes in through that door, they're a guest. I don't want to judge people by what they wear and who they are. If they're willing to walk in and want a room, hey.' Unless you know the guy is a criminal or something. So he understood. I said, 'They are guests, and treat them as—we are the host.' So he understood me trying to articulate what Four Seasons has become. But he understood it because he was that kind of person—charming, able to...

So he hired the people with that basic principle: we treat everybody with respect, welcome them. And that became the beginning. So that DNA of Ian is the same—

D

Drake43:17

His name, Ian Monroe? So is it safe to say that the Ian Monroe sort of DNA—that Ian Monroe's thoughtfulness about hospitality, food and beverage, welcoming people in an incredibly kind way—is that the blueprint for hospitality? The golden rule? Or is that the blueprint?

I

Isadore Sharp43:37

That's what caused or became the golden rule, but just the principle of treating people as you would if you're having a guest to your home. You welcome them, you want to make sure they're having a good evening.

D

David43:52

So his expertise was food.

I

Isadore Sharp43:56

He really was a foodie. He looked like a foodie. Yeah. So that was the beginning, without being able to articulate what we wanted to become. Because remember, I was not thinking of going into the hotel business. This was really still a real estate deal. I would sell it. Luckily—unfortunately—it became very successful out of the gate. So I could pay back all the people I had promised, and it worked. And some of them didn't want the money back—they wanted to keep the equity. Well, they didn't have equity. When I said I'd pay them, it was on a handshake.

D

David44:45

The trades.

I

Isadore Sharp44:48

The trades, yeah. The trades who allowed me to take—I think I read twenty-five of their contracts and deferred payment. So that was just on a handshake. Talk about credibility. Afterwards—construction was very much like that. You wrote a contract, or you didn't even write a contract. You'd shake on it: 'Look, I'll do the job, it'll be X.' Your word is your bond. So it worked.

And then I got interested in this thing—we didn't have to sell it because it was generating some cash. So I looked at another opportunity, what was called the Inn on the Park. It was the same principle as the downtown hotel, but I thought we could do this on a grand scale—to make it truly like a resort. Because Four Seasons on Jarvis Street was like an oasis; the interior courtyard was like a resort—swimming pool, gardens. It wasn't big, but it was a charming atmosphere.

D

David45:58

Especially relative to the location. You walk through these doors and there's a whole different world.

I

Isadore Sharp46:04

Oh yeah. But the second one—your wife tells a funny story where you wanted to do this on a bigger scale, but you walked out to effectively a field in the middle of the suburbs. Nobody was building quality hotels in the suburbs at this point.

No. Well, again, I was thinking of it as a resort. This is on the outskirts of the city, but it's still 10, 15 minutes from downtown as a drive. But the atmosphere that you could create—because we had 20 acres of land, and on that you could really do something. And luckily, the company I hired to do the first one was called Peter Dickinson, who was Canada's foremost architect at that time. And we were friends—I don't know how I met him, but we were casual friends. So I couldn't pay him his fees. I said, 'Look, Peter, I just need you to draw the drawings to get a permit. I don't need specifications, I don't need your fancy follow-up—just a sketch and plans to get a building permit.' So he said, 'Okay, I'll do it for you.' And he put a kid in charge called Peter Webb, who was the young architect working in the office. And he designed this magnificent Four Seasons Motor Hotel.

So now I'm building the other one—I'm doing something grander—and hiring Texas... said again, his office comes and shows me some plans, and I say, 'This is not a resort. This is like towers you're building—at least it could be downtown Toronto. This is just three towers.' So I called Peter up and found out he's in the hospital. And I go visit him in the hospital. I say, 'Look, Peter, your office has done something—this is not what I'm talking about. I want something that's going to be spectacular, something that if it works we can make it much bigger, so we could add on.' He said, 'Leave it with me.' No, I didn't know then—nobody talked about cancer—but he had cancer, lying in the hospital.

So he sketched out and came back a few days later. He said, 'Come back.' He gives me a call and shows me this sketch on a big, legal-size yellow pad—a beautiful perspective drawing of what the Inn on the Park looked like when we built it. Exactly. He said, 'Look, this is not my idea. I'm taking a Frank Lloyd Wright concept and creating an angular building that if you say you want to add on to it, you can add on and it won't look like an addition.' So it was spectacular. I said, 'Peter, that's it.' So his sketch is what became the Inn on the Park. And he died shortly thereafter—before he even saw it, before I even got started.

D

David49:15

Wow.

I

Isadore Sharp49:17

So now his office is disbanding. And I called Peter Webb and said, 'Peter, you've got to finish this.' He said, 'How can I? It's your vision. I've got to find a job. The office is closed.' And I said, 'I have no money.' I say, 'Look, why don't you—you had two guys in the office—why don't you guys rent an office? I'll pay you on a weekly basis so you'll be able to pay the rent and do this job. So you'll do this building for me.'

D

David49:49

So you were the one client.

I

Isadore Sharp49:53

That's right. That's all they needed, because I would pay them. You can look for a job if you want to. So they did. So Peter and Boris Sarafa and Renee Minkus—three kids who worked in Peter Dickinson's office—rented a room above a store. Their drafting table was a door on trestles. They didn't have any money to buy equipment. They have become Webb, Sarafa, Minkus—one of the world's foremost architectural firms. No. Because after that, they did another job for me and then they opened their own firm.

H

Harley50:37

So the Peter Dickinson office transformed into Webb, Sarafa, Minkus—Canada's foremost architects. And partially what I think you saw with them—which I think is fairly... if you look at your story, your ability to spot talent is remarkable. But your ability to actually invest in talent that other people don't see—I think is really what makes the story so special. David and I think a lot about it in our own businesses: how to spot talent that frankly no one else sees, and then how to invest in them and give them all the tools they need to become world class at what they do. That seems to be a theme across everything you've done—whether it's with your wife, finding someone who is going to be the foundation for a relationship and a family, or your team at Four Seasons.

You now have your second hotel, and now you're beginning to think a little bit bigger about many more hotels. You take off to Japan, you look at a portfolio of hotels. At this point, now that the second hotel is built, are you ready to make the Four Seasons this great global phenomenon? Is that the time where you're like, 'Okay, this is way bigger than anything I could have ever imagined'?

I

Isadore Sharp51:58

No, no. Because at this point, we had two hotels, and I was still trying to make a living building apartments and houses. So the hotels were generating cash. They were very successful, which they needed to be—because otherwise there was nothing. There's no hotel. It was also done the same way as the first hotel—trades, all borrowed money. As I say, no equity was put in. These partners didn't put any more equity, and I didn't have any equity. So everything is borrowed.

Because I went to the bank and—the Four Seasons downtown was a gem. Everybody talked about it. It made you more important than you are, because everybody talked about the most successful little motor inn downtown. So when I went to the bank, who had lent us a little money on the first hotel—I go down to this fancy, huge office building and go into one of the major senior people of the Bank of Nova Scotia, Cliff Ash. And I'm there, and I walk into an office twice the size of this room. And he says, 'So what can I do for you?' I said, 'Well, I'd like to borrow some money because I've got this idea to build another hotel. This is what it's about.' He says, 'So how much do you need?'

And I'm choking because I don't know how to borrow money. I say, 'Well, six hundred thousand dollars'—just out of the blue. He said, 'Okay.' So I say, 'That's it?' He said, 'If that's what you need, okay.' I'm in shock. So with that borrowed money, and with my trades again—now they believe in me—we build the second hotel. And again, if it doesn't work, you're throwing the key. It was a phenomenal success because of Peter Dickinson's architecture—the design was so magnificent, it was dramatic. I mean, you could not want to go in. If you drove by, you'd say, 'We've got to go—we've got to see what that is.' And there was nothing else like it anywhere.

When I look at it now, like the photographs, I'd say, 'How in the world did I do that?' But then you tell an architect you need something that's going to bring people to you. It's like a magnet. Well, you guys have done the same—if you think, if you hire the right talent and give them the freedom to express what their talent is all about, they do things out of the box. So Peter Dickinson's design was a magnet. And Ian Monroe, managing as a host, did spectacular things in terms of the guest experience. But that was it—two hotels.

D

David55:24

But hold on—good business. You say at that point it was just about making money in these hotels, and you're still in the construction business. But I believe it was the third one—London, England, right? The third was London, England. I mean, that's a big jump. That's a moment. You've got one in downtown Toronto, you've won in the suburbs, and now you're thinking London, England. That seems like a fairly large jump in ambition and scale. Now you're a big shot.

I

Isadore Sharp55:55

Well, you know, after we built the Inn on the Park, now we're into a little money. So now I'm not struggling as much, and we could afford. And we'd never taken a vacation—Rosalie and I. We married in '55, and the hotel opened in '63. So for that length of time, the only vacation we ever took was five years after we were married—we went for a weekend in Niagara Falls. And remember, we're struggling. Rosie makes her own clothes, she's frugal with the little money that I'm earning, and she never complains. So now we've made a little money, and I said, 'Look, why don't we take a trip? We'll go to Europe, we'll really do it all out, but we'll still do it on a budget. So wherever we go, we'll stay one night in a good hotel—it's a really good experience—and the next night, the worst hotel. So we'll average out.'

D

David57:01

Was this a business trip or a vacation?

I

Isadore Sharp57:04

Vacation. This is just going. But you still want to experiment with different types of hotels? Well, yeah, but no—I wanted to make sure we could afford it. Budget reasons. We wanted to go to London and share the experience of visiting London. So while in London, we stayed at the Dorchester Hotel one night, and I'm blown away. If I thought what we did was special, I said we're in the minor leagues. This is class. The Dorchester Hotel in London—tuxedos, valet parking, white linen—we were in awe.

So then we did that going through London, Paris, Italy, and then Israel. We spent one night in each of these cities. In Paris, we spent one night at the George V. So it was a great experience of two kids traveling through Europe. Remember, we have never traveled—we've never been.

D

David58:07

And you're in your 20s at this point?

I

Isadore Sharp58:08

This is now—I'm 31 or 32. And Rosie never traveled—she never took a vacation as a kid growing up. So we come back and things are good again. And I happened to mention to a friend who was in the construction business—we were talking. I said, 'I had this great experience, just stayed in a hotel that I just can't get out of my mind—the Dorchester Hotel.' So he said, 'My company owns that hotel.' I said, 'Really?' He said, 'Yeah, the McAlpines, they own that hotel.' I said, 'Will you tell your people if they ever want to build a nicer hotel, I can do it for them'—like a joke. A little while later he comes back to me. He said, 'Were you serious about wanting to build a hotel in London?' I said, 'Well, sure, why not?' So he said, 'My people would like to talk to you. They have a project they've been trying to get off the ground.'

That became the beginning of another five-year journey of negotiating to get the London hotel—make it a Four Seasons, or at that time, the Inn on the Park. And that experience—getting that hotel, building that hotel—caused me to think, 'I'm going to change my career direction. I'm still going to build, but I'm going to focus my attention on building hotels.' So London became the prototype and the catalyst that changed me to try to become a hotelier. And it all happened because I made a random remark to a friend of mine that I can build something better than the Dorchester Hotel. And a particular friend came back to me and said, 'Go do it.'

So that hotel, in its first year, was voted the best hotel in Europe. So we did build a better hotel than the Dorchester. And that was called the Four Seasons—at that time it was called the Inn on the Park. Being in the park—you had that from Toronto?

D

David1:00:28

The Toronto one.

I

Isadore Sharp1:00:29

Yeah, well, because that was the name. That was—everybody talked about the Inn on the Park. And that experience was probably one of the most enlightening, enjoyable experiences in my life.

D

David1:00:45

Is that the moment where you're like, 'I made it'?

I

Isadore Sharp1:00:49

I've never ever thought that. That doesn't seem to come in my way of thinking. It's just that I enjoyed it—enjoyed the people and the challenge. Because like everything else, it was a huge gamble.

D

David1:01:04

That seems to be the common answer amongst a lot of our guests. We had one on as well who said the exact same thing. We asked him, 'When did you really think you made it?' And he's like, 'I still don't think I've made it.'

I

Isadore Sharp1:01:18

Yeah, well, it doesn't come into my way of thinking. But the experience there was just a growing-up experience of dealing with people who were next to royalty—these are European socialites and history in the making. The McAlpine family, one of the largest industrialists in Europe. So my meeting these people and being welcomed and treated politely was really a great learning experience.

D

Drake1:02:01

And let's face it—you're a Jew going to see the McAlpines, who I'm assuming are old money. And this is not—I mean, we're talking in the '60s.

I

Isadore Sharp1:02:10

No, the '70s.

D

Drake1:02:14

And Izzy is a Jewish name, right? Everybody knows who you are.

I

Isadore Sharp1:02:21

You know, you're introduced. And I've never gone by my name Isadore, because that's the way you grow up—people call you Izzy. My aunt used to call me Isadore because her son was also called Izzy, so that was her way of differentiating. So that really was the catalyst. And from that point forward, I focused on trying to build more hotels.

N

Narrator1:02:54

Sharp episode. Stay tuned for part two.