What It Was Like to Work With Ace Hotels Co-Founder Alex Calderwood

Last week we published a 60,000 word account of the early days and evolution of the boutique hotel industry in the United States, the Complete Oral History of Boutique Hotels.   The story featured interviews with over two dozen key players, and took us from fledgling brands in San Francisco and New York in the early 1980s to the biggest brands in hospitality in the modern era. We'll be running a series of related stories over the coming weeks. When Kelly Sawdon and Ryan Bukstein first began working with Alex Calderwood, the late co-founder of Ace Hotels, they were interns at his non-traditional marketing and events firm, called Neverstop, in the 1990s. And since then, however, both Sawdon and Bukstein, both of whom continue to work for Ace Hotel Group, have had a front-row seat to see how Calderwood and his co-founders, Wade Weigel and Doug Herrick, grew what started as a tiny hotel in Seattle to a global hotel company. Calderwood died unexpectedly in 2013, but his influence continues to live on as the company continues to grow. Skift spoke to Sawdon and Bukstein as part of our Complete Oral History of Boutique Hotels, and