How We Turned Our Hotel Into A Community Hotspot - Margaret Lefton, Yours Truly Hotel

Josiah: How can you turn your hotel into a community hub that drives business both from locals and people visiting your city? Stick around to find out the specific details of how one of the best in the business does this. Margaret Lefton began her career working on the creative teams of companies such as Victoria's Secret and Tory Burch and then used her expertise in psychology to facilitate retreats for C-level executives and remote workers around the world. But after doing that for a while, she was ready for a change.

Margaret: So, I came down to D.C. when I was 23 and ended up with my first hospitality job with a group called Richard Sandoval Hospitality. It turned out to be a great fit. There was something just so cool about getting involved in the hospitality industry initially. Coming from the fashion industry, it was like everyone's so friendly and warm and we all just want to make each other happy and have a great time and also get stuff done. And it was just really fantastic.

Josiah: Fast forward to today where Margaret is the creative director at Yours Truly, a boutique lifestyle hotel in Washington, D.C.' 's DuPont Circle that's dedicated to art and uplifting the local creative community. In this episode, we're going to learn all about what it takes to do this practically, including why community matters, what yours truly does differently than other hospitality brands, how to get creative, cool people to spend time at your property, the role of owners and investors in shaping all of this, and on a personal level, how to arrange your daily schedule to support community building. But we're going to start out with design. Being a community hotspot means designing a space, a physical environment that is conducive for conversation and connection. And to kick us off today, here's Margaret explaining what this means.

Margaret: So this has actually been one of my most interesting, I want to say like growth edges coming into the hotel space. So I have worked in so many roles where it's sort of a membership based situation or some kind of consistent community. And so initially when I started at the hotel, it was kind of jarring to me where I'm like, Oh, like it's obviously incredibly transient. People are coming and going and that's sort of the nature of it. And so the container is just this physical building. What does it mean to have this more deconstructed container where people maybe feel attached or loyalty to it as they're coming and going versus it being. with a clubhouse, maybe you're showing up every day. If it's in DC and you maybe come to DC for work, how do we become a place that feels like the place you belong when you show up in DC or you feel like a good click with? And there's so many different ways to approach that, right? And what does that mean? So in the case of yours, truly, I think the design team, Simone Deery, who did the redesign in 2020 when we opened up, Such an incredible job where the entire concept from day one was we want to be a living room, right? Like we don't call it the lobby. The word lobby is never used at yours truly. It is the living room or you're heading over to the front desk area. So it's like language alone, right? So we'll start with that, like forming a community, the language that we use matters. Second, the design matters, right? So, and I love walking into different hotels and seeing so many different kinds of ways. And like, it stretches my brain every time I'm like, Oh my God, I never thought of that. Or, you know, this is so interesting and so different. I think it's the Mayflower in DC that has these sort of huge columns and high ceilings. And that's a completely different emotional experience when I walk in the door. You walk into yours truly, there's couches like big comfy velvet couches everywhere. There's these huge comfy velvet chairs. The lighting is warm. There's like some warm light music playing. The whole front is natural light coming from these windows. And I just feel like everything about and disco balls everywhere. So everything about the space to me feels like Oh, I'm home. So in D.C., you know, I live in this lovely house in this neighborhood called Adams Morgan that I love. And when I go from here to work, it kind of just feels like it's like a second living room from my own house because I work I mean, I work in that living room every day. Right.

Josiah: Do you think there's something compelling about that design approach? today because before we were talking around Ace Hotel and it's cool. I love the Ace, but I feel like a lot of other brands are trying to be the Ace and they're not the Ace. And it just ends up being really sad and bad. You've taken a very different approach. It sounds like there's elements of the guest experience I think you're trying to still resonate with, but it sounds like a different design approach, a different approach overall. Is there something, I guess, like just pulling on this thread of design and Is there something you feel like kind of we crave in the culture right now that makes the way that you've designed your property and the way you run your business to resonate with what people are feeling right now?

Margaret: I mean, it's such a cliche, but so real that right now, what are the major buzzwords? I've been involved in the experiences and community space for a while, but the last like three years, three and a half years, it's just coming out of the pandemic. That's all people want right now. So right now it's like major industry buzzwords of like, we want community, you know, all these hotels. I have friends in the creative industry who keep laughing because they'll have hotels reach out to them constantly with these pitches of like, we're going to be the local community place like that. Everyone. And it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like everyone wants to be that right now. You know, free people is pivoting to have all experiential stuff in the FP movement series. And so I think there is kind of this craving for we all were stuck in the house and now we want to be out of the house with friends, but still have. I think everyone's also still building out of being, you know, in just their house for years. And so there's like a comfort in being around somewhere that just feels comfortable and emotionally safe in the world after it being so not. And yeah, I don't know. I think for me, it's kind of been consistent where my first job with Tory Burch, that was their approach too. Like they specifically designed their stores to feel like you're walking into someone's living room and you happen to be shopping, right? There's also velvet couches, colored floor rug material. It did not go minimalist, right? It was very like, we want you to feel at home. And I think probably that's just an MO that just resonates for me in my view of hospitality and how I like to make people happy.

Josiah: Let me ask you this. You've been working at this a while. You've been building community for a while. You're not just jumping on the bandwagon here. I'm curious, what would you say you do differently? You say everybody's talking about community. Everybody's trying to do something with community. Where do you feel like you have a different take or you disagree or you kind of found this different path versus others that are pursuing this general direction?

Margaret: It's hard to say because I don't want to put myself on a pedestal or high horse of anything. I think everyone's taking different approaches and I'm constantly learning from other people too. I think the one mistake that I've seen and I've worked with these companies and it was extremely disappointing to me was when you put it as a buzzword, what you're really saying if you get down to the business brass tacks is that there's money behind it, right? There's like an ROI on community. And so I've seen a lot of people and some tech companies I worked for and otherwise that kind of had this front facing MO of like, we care so deeply about community and people. And then when you actually are working behind the scenes, it's like they literally could not care less. It's really just about communities driving money right now. And that's where all the money in the industry is going. So like, we want community because we want to make more money. And when that's ultimately the energy behind it, it falls apart. I've seen it time and time again. It will fall apart. It won't work. It's just a bad way to go into it. It's when there's genuine care for the people in the community and actually loving bringing people together, which I always have. That's in my personal life, too. That's in my professional life. So I think intention is a big part of it.

Josiah: Makes a lot of sense. I want to get into the details of that, but I think just to your notion of how is it different behind the scenes, is your ownership or investors in the property, do they do things any differently that enable some of this, would you say?

Margaret: I think the ownership of this, like what's been great about working at this property and it has been, so all of this is new for me. This was my first hotel. So learning what ownership, management, franchise, all that means, I was like, what is happening? So that has been a learning process. And I think what they do great actually is they have given me full creative reigns. Like of any job I've ever worked, and I've had so many incredible jobs that have given me a lot of creative freedom, but of any of them, this is the most where they're just like, you're the expert, do what you see fit. My work comes from such a deep place of care and passion for what I do. It gives me a lot of freedom to like get things going. And a lot of my work and my personal approach to how I've specifically addressed this hotel's community, which again was a different strategy, because I'm going through this, it's a transient place, what does that mean? I kind of saw it as someone who was a creative in DC myself and had never really had a place for us to gather. I was like, cool, we're going to make this the creative living room for DC. Like, I want to walk in the door on a Monday morning and run into my photographer friend, Birch, and my videographer friend, Maya, and everyone's co-working there. And like, yes, there's, it's this transient place, but you also know all like the cool creative people are taking their meetings there and grabbing a coffee there and hanging out. And that's kind of been my way of creating community there. And it's, it's been very fun.

Josiah: I think a lot of hotels aspire to be a local hotspot, but you go in a lot of them and the lobby's dead or the living room, whatever they're calling it, there's not those people there. What do you do practically to get people to be excited about visiting, both creative people, just people from the community? I'm curious how you get to that state.

Margaret: Oh, it's so fun. I like to think of it as like my fairy godmother role where I get to just sort of like jump in and sprinkle. So, I mean, I have a very specific approach. That's how I build community because I love genuinely talking to people and learning about people. And, you know, this is a rare instance where you're asking me all the questions. Typically, it would be the exact reverse. And Also, there's the advantage of I already lived in DC and I'm a creative here, right? So I definitely already have community and so I'm kind of bringing my community in. But that said, it's been a lot of like, I love developing one-on-one relationships with people and understanding who they are so that I can then figure out where to weave them into the community. So basically, anyone I meet, I'm like, great, let me take you to coffee at the hotel, right? So there's a reason that I do that. It's very purposeful. you're coming into the space. So many of the creatives were like, holy crap, this opened in 2020. I didn't even know this was here. Never set foot in here. This is so incredible. So it's like exposure, getting them into the space. They also all end up taking pictures and putting out on their Instagram story, grabbing them coffee. So we get a chance to sit down and like, you know, that's easy. It's on the hotel. I can grab it from, we have a bagel shop called Call Your Mother. That's super well known in DC and like, Amazing.

Josiah: I'm interested in the little details. So like it might be a small piece, but but in terms of like being on the hotel, so like for folks listening, maybe it's encouraging your staff to do things like this and giving them a little budget where it's like you're going to just expend stuff. It sounds like you get into the details.

Margaret: I don't know how much hotels are willing to do that, but that's my perspective. I'm like, give them give a little bit of ability. We have we have like coupon cards, which is what I use that we hand out. You know, it's like $15. Call your mother, hand those out to employees and encourage them to bring their their friends, their coworkers in the door to like host meetings. And they've given me, again, so much freedom to do so. And so it's created such a great environment where I can just meet people out at a class that I went to, a workshop, a networking event, they're a videographer, they're running a creative director of a different restaurant, whatever, and just be like, let's grab coffee and I'll host. So throwing my hospitality out, bringing them in, and then honestly, sitting with them usually for like, sometimes it depends on the person, sometimes 30 minutes, sometimes two hours, we'll just sit there and talk about life. And I just have my schedule cleared for whichever direction that goes and really getting to know them. And the fun part about the hotel is we have all of this event space, right? Like we have tons, I think we have like 12,000 square feet of event space. And most of that obviously is used for business groups, corporate, et cetera. But there's so much time that those spaces are sitting empty on like weekday nights or weekends because we're not having a business typically. And then and so I have been given permission to just donate those spaces. And so it's both getting to know a creative and offering them space like, hey, you want to host a workshop? Great. Take the room. It's going to be sitting empty anyways. And you're bringing more people into the hotel. And so that's been the approach we've been taking for the last seven months. And I mean, it's very like zero to a hundred on people. The first day, which I think was about a month ago, that I walked in the door and three separate creatives I knew were in the living room and they were all sitting separately. And I was like, oh my God, Andrew, you're here. Maya, Hawkeye, what's going on? And then we all ended up sitting together and I was like, this was my dream.

Josiah: I want to just underscore a couple of points that I'm hearing here because I really don't want people to miss this. There's a few things you mentioned that are critical that I see as different from other folks I talk to. One is a simple thing as clearing your schedule. You mentioned kind of having buffer time, and this takes some planning.

Margaret: Oh, I don't believe in a 30-minute meeting.

Josiah: But this takes some planning, right? But I think a lot of people are running meeting to meeting, and you don't have time to create these magical moments that you're creating in your hotel. So I think that's really important. I think leading with generosity, you're out there kind of providing a space.

Margaret: Generosity and curiosity, I would say. I always say lead with curiosity.

Josiah: Right. And then kind of finally, you're out there in the community. It sounds like you're participating in events across town. You're very out there. You're out there engaging people. You're inviting them back. You're, you know, where it makes sense. You're offering space. And I think this is where you kind of create something different and special is by acting differently. I don't mean to cut you off, but I think it's no, you're right.

Margaret: I think, you know, anyone who's known me for years, it was kind of a joke when I was younger that I was like the social chair of my friend group. It's that's 100 percent how I interact in my personal life as I do in my professional life. It's you seem really cool. Come home and like, let me buy you make you a drink, buy you a drink, whatever it is, like, let's hang out and get to know each other and be friends.

Josiah: I love it. Talk to me a little bit about how you think about building the suite of programming that you have. Because my understanding is you're highlighting local entrepreneurs, artists, creatives. How do you do that?

Margaret: So there's two halves to it. Like half is definitely some people will come to me. Like I have had moments where people just show up in my inbox and are like, I have this idea. And I'm like, great, let's run with it. So one of those would be we had like a fashion show at the hotel that was like really cool. And like, I, you know, I wasn't sure what to expect because we just gave her the space and her name's Tygerian Lace. And she put together this incredible full suite, very professional fashion show that was like, and the hotel was flooded with like people from the fashion industry, which was new for us. And so some stuff lands in my lap. And then the other half is more, it's that weaving part of my brain. So it's like, oh, you know, I met this artist who identifies as a mystic and intuitive painter, and she likes painting and reaction to music. And then she knows this woman who is a violinist. Cool. What if we brought them together and the violinist plays and then she's painting, and then, oh, I also met this florist who I thought was really cool and had coffee with. I wonder if I could get her to donate some flowers, which is, you know, so that was, like, one program we put together. Some of it's just getting creative. Like, um, an Irish step-dancing group reached out to us, and we're like, oh, can you put some flyers at your desk for us? We're, like, doing this performance. And I was like, what if instead of that, you guys showed up and did a, like, Irish step-dancing flash mob? And they were like, sure. It's kind of like I've really approached it from what's kind of the weirdest, most creative, bizarre idea that we can come up with that seems a little out of the box and then just do it. I mean, it's also the brand's personality, like yours truly is very cheeky, irreverent, like creative, but rebellious. And so it's just sort of embodying that through the programming.