I recently sat down with Sam Nazarian, the man who already built one hospitality empire and is now building a second one with the opposite playbook. Over two decades, Sam grew sbe into more than 100 hotels and 150 restaurants, defining an era of nightlife-driven luxury. The SLS Beverly Hills was voted the number one hotel in the world, and Sam sold Hyde and Katsuya for nearly $1 billion before the full platform was sold to Accor in a deal that closed in November 2020 at a 32x forward valuation multiple.
Sam's story starts with his family fleeing Iran during the 1979 revolution and rebuilding in Los Angeles. He cut his teeth underwriting apartment deals for his family's capital in his early twenties, apprenticing under legendary investor Dean Adler, before a chance investment in the Viceroy Santa Monica pulled him into hospitality. By 26, he'd convinced design icon Philippe Starck to sign a 15-year contract without a single asset to show him, then built SLS Beverly Hills from the ground up with Chef José Andrés at the culinary helm.
Today, Sam is doing it all over again, just pointed in the opposite direction. Instead of nightlife, he's betting on longevity. The Estate, his new luxury wellness hotel brand built with Tony Robbins and Marc Anthony, and HQ, a lifestyle brand built on an exclusive ten-year distribution deal with Wyndham, are both rooted in a conviction Sam holds personally: that proactive health practices save lives. He's lived it firsthand, where a routine scan at one of his own partner clinics caught a 7.5mm brain aneurysm before it ruptured, a discovery that reshaped how he thinks about luxury altogether.
