The Modern Hotelier #190: How Sage Hospitality Thinks About New Investments | with Dean Stambules
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David Millili: Welcome to another episode of The Modern Hotelier Hospitality's Most Engaged Podcast. I'm David Millili. 
Steve Carran: I'm Steve Carran. Steve, who are we interviewing today? David. Today we have on Dean Stambules from Sage Investments.
Dean Stambules: Good afternoon.
Steve Carran: Thanks for sitting down with us, Dean. How are we doing today?
Dean Stambules: Thanks for having me.
Steve Carran: So Dean, I'd love to hear a little bit more about your backstory. How did you get into hospitality? 
Dean Stambules: So I went to a small liberal arts school in Ohio, Denison University. I started in general commercial appraisal work, funny enough. I didn't realize it at the time, but my entire life was a hotel tour.
My parents met at the Pierre Hotel in New York City. My mom was sous chef, father was night manager at the time. So it seems like this business, there's always a, a story like that. Um, all roads, lead homes. So, um, I got my first hotel assignment, um, working as an appraiser and loved the puzzle pieces of the different levers you can pull to unlock value and really the fact it's an operating business on top of real estate just really spoke to me in the value proposition. So, made it a mission to get into the hospitality sector after that. 
David Millili: That's great. Well, Steve and I, we love Sage Properties. Thank, tell us what's new with Sage and what's going on. 
Dean Stambules: So Sage, we have a really robust platform. We have 125 hotels, and restaurants on our management today, 70 hotels across the country in 19 states, including the District of Columbia.
We invest, acquire, develop, and third party manage so we can really ebb and flow with. Where the cycle is and, uh, determine where we wanna play on the risk side of things, um, we've been very focused this year on continue to grow our independent platform. Um, we've signed up, new partners in some key strategic geographic areas.
The Coachman Hotel in Lake Tahoe, the circa 39 in Miami Beach, which is our first entry point into South Florida. Kind of big, moment for us. As well as, curio collection, the Hotel La Jolla, in La Jolla, California. Um, we also had a big deal recently with, uh, the state of Colorado. Uh, we transitioned the Stanley Hotel up in Estes Park, uh, which you may know from Stephen King's shining novel so that's been a really exciting property and continuing to grow that independent platform with sage. So, uh, we're up to 2021 independent hotels now. 
Steve Carran: That's great. Congratulations. Estes Park is one of my favorite places to get away out of Fort Collins. Yes. And I was so happy to hear that Stanley was now part of your portfolio. Very excited. Congratulations. 
Dean Stambules: And with the Sundance news, it's really exciting. 
Steve Carran: Yeah. Beautiful, beautiful property. So, you know, I'm really excited to hear your talk coming up that's talking about what goes into closing a deal. Sure. When this air, you already have given that talk, but can you talk a little bit more about what you'll be speaking on?
Dean Stambules: Sure. You know, one one of the things I, do love about our platform is we don't have a dedicated fund, which can be a double-edged sword, but it really allows us to marry the right ownership partner, uh, with the deal. And so, about two years or a year and a half ago, we acquired the One Ocean Hotel and Resort in Jacksonville Beach, um, Atlantic Beach, Florida, right outside of Jacksonville, it's a three acre site, high barrier market. it was an under invested Ashford asset that we had identified, um, a high growth market as well. Um, and so during the marketing process, we tried to identify local investors and owner partners. We were successful in that and we're embarking on a significant renovation and repositioning that will relaunch next summer.
So, excited to talk to everyone today just about the different components, you know, all the nuances that go into the underwriting, um, identifying the different levers and value creation. And because we have so many, tools within our kit at Sage. Looking at where we can find high alpha deals that we can separate from just market growth and really differentiate.
So, this will have a SAGE restaurant concept as part of the renovation and Sage Studios leading our design efforts. being able to kind of control the experience, start to finish, um, is really one of the things I'm passionate about and really. Find enjoyable about working for the SAGE platform.
David Millili: That's great. So Dean, please let people know how they can either get in touch with you, find out more about Sage. 
Dean Stambules: Sure. So you can find us, sagehospitality.com my email, deanstambules@sagehospitalitygroup. Don't ever hesitate to reach out if there's any sort of help or guide we can give.
David Millili: That's great. Well, that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier Hospitality's Most Engaged podcast. We are here in Chicago at the ILC CONfab. Thank you.