Instead of taking the information and checking her closet, she put Teddy through the ringer. “Well, why do you think so? Is this how you deal with people’s personal belongings? Don’t you have a system?”
He got off the phone with her and told me the whole scenario. Shades of Lucinda Oskar flashed in my head. “Don’t worry about Mrs. Yates. Let’s just write a check to Mr. Fishbach and make this thing go away.”
“But I feel so guilty!” he said.
I cut him off before he went on a monologue. “It’s just a growing pain. These things are inevitable as we get busier and busier. Just find out exactly what Mr. Fishbach is missing and we’ll pay him.”
A couple of days later Teddy pulled me aside, ecstatic. “I got Mr. Fishbach’s clothes back! I knew that Mrs. Yates had it.”
“That’s great! Did she finally bring it down?”
“No, I just went in and took it.”
It was like time froze. “Hold on. Let me get this straight. So you went into her apartment with her?”
“No. You know that I’ve got really good relationships with a lot of people in the building, so I went to the doorman and asked for the key to Mrs. Yates’s apartment because I was convinced that she had the cleaning. So I went into her place while she wasn’t home. Sure enough, there were the clothes, still wrapped in plastic and everything.”
It always took a second to process what Teddy was saying, but this took me more than a second. He had just admitted to me that he was guilty of breaking and entering in the name of Abigail Michaels. Or, at the very least, guilty of entering.
The sick part of me was glad that that miserable woman was busted. But the smart, business part of me realized that Teddy had just robbed her house. I wanted to go back and work at a hotel and never have to deal with people ever again. “You can’t do that, Teddy,” I told him calmly. “It’s not worth it. This is going to be a huge problem. That was not the right thing to do.”
Teddy had created this huge liability for us. If Mrs. Yates noticed that the clothes were gone, we’d be gone from the building as well. People like that enjoy causing trouble, as I had witnessed over and over at the hotel. I knew that I had to confront the situation and call her, because it wasn’t going to go away.
“Hi,” I told Mrs. Yates, acting calm but inwardly rattled. “You know, we have a bit of an issue. We’ve been looking for these misplaced items of clothing, and it seems that my employee got a little overly ambitious. He was so happy to have solved the mystery of where they ended up. His enthusiasm got the best of him, and he went to your apartment and took the clothes back. I just want to make sure you know that nothing happened. Nothing got broken and everything’s okay.”
She wasn’t mean and she didn’t yell at me. Instead, Mrs. Yates just treated me like the biggest idiotic piece of crap imaginable. “Okay, okay, okay. Let me just understand this. You’re calling me to tell me that your employee broke into my apartment and went through my things?”
“No…”
“How is that incorrect?”
“He didn’t ‘go through your things.’ ” But the fact of the matter was, she wasn’t incorrect. The fact was, we had robbed her that day—but since the clothing didn’t belong to her in the first place, we didn’t really rob her. We’d unrobbed Mr. Fishbach.
Calmly—and evilly—she said, “I need to talk to somebody about this first, before I can even reply to you.” That was terrifying, because I knew that her “somebody” meant that she was going to talk to a lawyer.
The next day I got a call from property management. I had told them what Teddy had done, but assured them I was going to take care of it. “Well, it’s getting more complicated,” they said. “She claims that she had something around $15,000 in cash and she can’t find it now. She kept it stashed in her closet, like in a secret coat.”
Now I needed my own “somebody,” and that definitely meant a lawyer. It turned out that if you’re in possession of property that isn’t yours, you’re still culpable in the eyes of the law—and she had signed for the clothes.
Emboldened, I called her back. “Yeah,” I said, “you totally have me here. But let’s just be realistic. Look at what you did. I don’t know if you were doing it out of spite, or if it was oversight, or if you were feeling like you needed to teach us a lesson for making an honest mistake. Whatever the case was, you were holding on to things that didn’t belong to you—and you knew they didn’t belong to you. They had Mr. Fishbach’s name on them!”
She paused, letting what I had said sink in. “Well, what are you offering?”
“If you sign an agreement that you understand that you took possession of these clothes, and that this is the remedy for the mistake, then I am prepared to compensate you.”
“How much?”
“Two thousand dollars.”
“Twenty-five hundred,” she said.
“Done.” I lost some money. But, sadly, I had to lose Teddy as well. I was starting to wonder if Abbie and I would find anyone who would be as much in sync with us as we were with one another.
That’s when we reconnected with Daria.
Daria had been a concierge at the RIHGA since before it first opened. It was originally going to be launched by Scandinavian Airlines, but they lost money and so they sold it to the Japanese. It wasn’t like me at the InterContinental, where it was a chain. They were basically the only hotel run by Royal International Hotel Group Associates.
It was a beautiful building—the only all-suite property and the tallest hotel in New York. But nobody knew who they were. They would literally accost people on the street and ask them to come take a tour of the amenities. Then they got the idea to approach the celebrity market and become a go-to place for movie junkets. They had a whole floor dedicated with the right lighting for celebrities to come and do interviews for places like Entertainment Tonight. Even if the celebs were living in New York at the time, they still came to the RIHGA to film their interviews.
They then branched out from junkets into the music industry. Daria jokingly called the RIHGA the Has-Been Hotel, because of all the old-time stars who stayed there when they were performing in New York. Take the Bee Gees, for example. They all had to have fully stocked bars with very specific drink requirements, which is not that uncommon or even remotely unreasonable. What I found hilarious was the fact that Barry Gibb had to have a whole huge process to make sure that his hair was perfect each and every time. The hotel staff got so sick of renting full-length mirrors for him that they just bought some and kept them in the back for when he returned. The dehumidifiers in the room were a must as well. He couldn’t very well blow-dry his hair and then have it collapse before he even stepped out of the door.
Even though the RIHGA was a five-hundred-suite hotel, there were only thirteen rooms on each floor. It was a tall building, but it was still somewhat intimate. It wasn’t like at the InterContinental, with our huge lavish lobby. Their lobby was tiny. They had four club chairs in the lobby: two on one side, two on the other—and that was it. It added to that semi-secluded vibe that they were going for.
* * *
HOTEL LOBBIES
If you’re looking for a place to sit with your friend and chat, most people think of Starbucks, since they’re so omnipresent. But in big cities, hotels are just as common. The locals don’t even register that they’re there, or ever think of stepping foot inside. Why would you go to a hotel if you aren’t a tourist or there on business?
Hotel lobbies are designed to represent the establishment at its best. The seats are much better than at a Starbucks, the ambience more appealing, and there won’t be people hovering over you to finish your coffee so they can take your chair. You won’t be the only one “squatting,” either. Lobby lizards are a common issue with hotels, where not-so-fancy people come in off the street to read their paper and eat their Egg McMuffin. The hotels are loathe to shoo anyone out, for obvious reasons. Some hotels are even experimenting with having the lobby off the ground
floor just to discourage walk-ins. But if you carry yourself with class and don’t take up space, I guarantee that no one will bother you.
If you want a really quiet place, go to the floor where the conference rooms are. Oftentimes there’s a mini-lobby there. If they’re having corporate meetings at the time, they’ll set up catering tables with coffee, fruit, croissants, and things like that. Go ahead and help yourself. It won’t be missed.
* * *
Because they catered to a celebrity clientele, the RIHGA zealously protected their guests’ privacy. Over the years Daria had to fire a few people for speaking to the press about who was staying there and what their proclivities were. She almost had a heart attack when her mom called her to let her know that she was in Page Six—for hiring a beard-braider for Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. The hotel’s PR director had planted it herself to show that the concierge at the RIHGA will “do anything” to keep their guests happy.
I always went above and beyond with my clientele, but celebrities have the nerve to request things that even the most notorious guests would never dream of. It’s not so much that it’s crazy or obnoxious, but that it’s simply weird. When Prince came to stay at Daria’s hotel, all the furniture had to be moved out of his suite. Everything was replaced with his own things by his people—down to the candles, the lighting, and the pillows. When they were done, it was stunning. They staged it like a movie set for him—for the one night that he stayed there. Yet even though it was an outlandish request, it’s not like he was pitching a fit every five minutes over how long room service was taking him. He was particular, but he wasn’t mean.
Kathy Griffin was another case in point. Many celebrities who tour have their luggage FedExed independently of them. There might not be enough turnaround if they’re hopping from city to city on a daily basis. Daria would get Kathy’s luggage, take it upstairs, unpack it, and spritz the clothes with water so all the wrinkles got out. Then she would open an attached envelope. Inside the envelope were Polaroid pictures of Kathy posing in her different outfits. Daria matched up the pieces to the picture, down to the shoes, so Kathy would know what to wear with what. When Kathy left, she always made a huge spectacle of thanking the staff for how great they were, putting on a big show of gratitude—before jokingly palming them a one-dollar bill as a tip. But she made sure that they would all get invited to her concerts, too.
Surprisingly few celebrities carried themselves as difficult individuals. There’s rarely any need to, because their “people” are there to be difficult on their behalf. Despite claiming that she was still “Jenny from the block,” Jennifer Lopez’s people said the room could only have white flowers—okay, no big deal. But she once kept the massage therapist waiting for three hours while she got on the phone and had screaming arguments with her boyfriend at the time, P. Diddy. Every time he called, she’d chase her assistant and all the handlers out of the room. The poor masseuse had to stay there, hanging on, while J.Lo cried and screamed hysterically. This was somebody who worked hard, and who booked appointments one after the other because it was her livelihood. But everyone else had to subordinate their schedules because J.Lo was having personal drama.
But J.Lo was an exception. When Norman Schwarzkopf stayed at the hotel, for example, he found out that a dozen employees were in the Reserves. They worked as dishwashers and in maintenance, things like that. The general came down to the lobby and met with them all as a surprise, thanking them for their service to their country, and got the entire staff all emotional. U2 were similarly humble. When they stayed at the RIHGA, they told the paparazzi to wait for them across the street. That way, the other guests wouldn’t be disturbed and the entranceway wouldn’t be blocked. True to their word, they came down, crossed the street, and got their pictures taken and signed autographs. Wealth and fame don’t always lead to class—but they don’t necessarily have to lead away from it, either.
At one point the management changed at the RIHGA, and Daria decided to leave. She got hired by a company named Marquee Concierge, which was trying to do something similar to what Abigail Michaels was doing—but they were doing it all wrong.
They had three big investors and their business model was predicated on having clients pay $10,000 a year for 24/7 concierge service. They hired a big staff with exorbitant salaries, and took nice offices in the Empire State Building. The overhead was tremendous. Meanwhile, it took them four months and a fortune just to put together a brochure.
One of Daria’s clients followed her from the hotel. The other thirty or so Marquee clients were all free memberships, or given a “promotional rate” of 75 percent off. There were only two concierges and, because the service was 24/7, they both had to be on call at all times. Unfortunately for them, this was the same time that Marquee the nightclub opened up. Daria would get woken up at two in the morning, because some drunken partier was calling 411 looking for Marquee.
They had a core group of financiers who did spend money and traveled a lot. But those people weren’t enough to sustain the business—not when management was renting a house up in the Hamptons using the company’s money. Not when management was dropping thousands of dollars at nightclubs, entertaining clients with models and bottles.
They fired everybody, and the business shut down—and I got Daria to join our team and oversee our expanding operation.
16.
Circle in the Sand
The more Abigail Michaels expanded operations, the more calls we got from people who wanted to work with us on their projects. Andrew Miller made his fortune through a very popular infomercial product. “I have this resort in the Hamptons,” he told us, “and I want to have concierge service. Would you be interested?”
Abbie and I were always interested. We met with Andrew in a nice restaurant on Lexington and 46th Street. He was about forty years old, a short guy with a big mop of brown hair and a very intense demeanor. When he spoke, he leaned forward like he was whispering CIA secrets. His assistant was named Ilse and looked like a cliché of the hotel industry worker: She wore a little scarf and her hair was pulled back in a very tight ponytail. She had a leather book to take notes in, and she totally exuded a crush on Andrew. Even if there wasn’t any romantic inclination between them, you could just tell she was fantasizing about beating the crap out of him in bed.
The only resort that Andrew had, unfortunately, was a conceptual one. “Here’s the idea behind the resort,” he told us. “I have friends who are bazillionaires, and we have these gigantic, elaborate homes all over the world. No one is ever there and it costs a fortune to maintain a home like that. St. Martin’s, St. Bart’s, Aspen, Telluride, Vail, Nantucket. Everywhere you would expect.”
I knew exactly what he meant. There’s a lot of wear and tear on homes like that, especially when it’s an oceanfront property. The house gets eaten away, and yet the owners are only there once a year—if that. They have to hire a house manager (often with a six-figure salary) to live in the house for free to make sure that the salt doesn’t erode the façade. The house managers have to paint—or rather, hire painters—when needed. They have to make sure that the gardener shows up, make sure that the mail gets in, and really run the house as though it were an ongoing operation. With places like that, it’s not okay if the grass grows six feet tall until the owner gets there. The neighbors would flip. The owners wind up spending $40,000–$50,000 on a gardener for lawns that they don’t even see.
“A lot of people are starting to take advantage of the big boom in the market,” Andrew pointed out. “There are fifteen-, twenty-, thirty-million-dollar homes on the market, but they stay on the market for two or three years. These are marquee value homes. We’re talking about things built by famous architects. I know of a Lapidus that’s been on market for over two years. The house has a whole history and it’s just sitting there.”
“Eating away money,” I added.
“Exactly. They’re paying all of this upkeep, and nobody lives in it. So my idea is to go after the ve
ry high-end vacation market and find people that really don’t want to go stay in a hotel. Let’s basically duplicate their lifestyle, but in other locations. The Hamptons is an international destination for the rich and famous, and there are no hotels there.”
Andrew was right. There must be some zoning regulations that keep it from happening, because otherwise Hyatt would have built a beautiful beachside hotel in the Hamptons. There are a couple of bed-and-breakfasts and a few really disgusting motels—but that’s it. It’s part of the reason why the Hamptons is so cliquey. You’re not going to get invited to a party if you live in Queens. You get invited to a party because you were at another cocktail party the day before, at someone else’s house. The party circuit is this little incestuous buzzing around.
“I want to homogenize all of the houses,” Andrew continued, “so they have a certain congruent aesthetic. They’re all going to be outfitted in Frette linens and they’re going to have certain bath products, just like a hotel—except instead of a hotel, it’s going to be a twelve-bedroom home.”
“We expect to be able to charge a hundred thousand dollars and up per week,” Ilse chimed in.
It actually sounded like a good idea, or at least a feasible one. It would be just like when we rented the $300,000 yacht for Zinovy. It would also be a great way for Abigail Michaels to expand our operations, both in a new framework and in a new location. Abbie and I were downright giddy. To be fair, if a dog spa had approached us to have a concierge examine dog poop, we’d go get our gloves. But the Hamptons seemed a little more up our alley.
“Do you think you’ll be able to service these big estates?” Andrew asked us.
“Oh, of course!” I told him. “We’ll anticipate everything they need. There are vineyards in the Hamptons, and they’re going to want private tours. They’re going to want to go to all the hot nightclubs, like the Pink Elephant and Tsunami. And they definitely will want to eat at Nick & Toni’s.”
Concierge Confidential Page 20