Why (And How) We're Creating a "Deconstructed Resort" - Tanner Cummings, Thin Spaces Hotel Company

Josiah: How did you get started in hospitality? And let's go back as far as you want to, to set up the framework for what you're doing today.

Tanner: Yeah, the origin would go all the way through my upbringing. I grew up in ministry. Father worked in ministry for my whole life growing up, and got a lot of opportunities to serve people in different places and different capacities. And there were instances that I felt like I did the most benign thing And later that person, you know, it was like serving a drink or getting them on a boat for the lake and a life jacket. And then later they came to me saying how impactful that was. And that was so surprising to me. I was just really impacted. And that has really like carried on. And really what that led to was just really having a value of serving, because there's a lot of joy that can come out of serving people, especially when they don't expect it. If their expectations are a certain level, if you give them something they're not ready for, and it's something that is good, Usually, people are really excited about that. And that's something I've learned now, engaged and married, and we've got kids, and my wife, Melissa, is a PA, and she's served a ton. And so that's been a real big core for us in our marriage is hospitality. But we had no idea that it would lead us here. And we really in 2019, right before the pandemic launched an e-commerce business just as a side hustle. We were like decorating friends weddings and we're like, oh, we were this was my wife. This was her total creation. She goes, I can't find the things I need to decorate, not in my mind's eye. So we started sourcing stuff, no clue what we were doing. We probably did everything wrong. And now we know we did everything wrong, looking back. It's still running and it's still doing just fine. But that really cut our teeth on courage and confidence of creating a pitch and talking to investors. And even though we didn't do any of that the first time, but four thin spaces We did. And we were in a group, like an incubator, kind of like Shark Tank, and we had to pitch. And I was like, hey, can I pitch this? It's not e-com, but are you okay with that? And they were like, go for it. And right before that, a good friend actually was listening to me or looking at the pitch and was like, you know what? Why don't I invest? And so he did. And that really set us. We were like, well, now it's not wishes and dreams. It's let's go find some land. And 15 days, this 48 acre piece of land was on the market and it had no photos. I don't even think the agent had seen the land because 15 days, that's not long for such a large piece of land. And my wife was like, I need to go see this because I think there's a waterfall. And there's a 50 foot waterfall, it's Padgett Falls, and it's amazing. And that's what's building, what we're building Cypress around.

Josiah: What's the meaning behind the name Thin Spaces?

Tanner: Yeah, Thin Spaces is, I actually got the.. that's kind of a funny thing. I thought it was Thin Spaces and I was wrong. It's an Irish Celtic lore. Kevin Koch has a book called, I think it's A Thin Place, which is, his description is the veil between earth and otherworldly is thinned in this space. location. I've always been struck by that. I've heard that occasionally growing up in ministry, talking about just, you know, you go and pray in this place, but it's on a mountaintop or right at sunrise over a lake. I've had those experiences. I know so many people have, and I think that's what we want to represent, is helping people We're building places where people get right on nose on the glass between heaven and earth, where they can just feel it, touch it, sense it. And that's why we call it thin spaces.

Josiah: I love it. So you heard this growing up, you read about it, this concept, right? Does a place come to mind where you experienced this yourself and just felt that this was really special?

Tanner: One place is a Young Life camp called Saranac, and it's on Saranac Lake, upstate New York. And I was a boat driver, and there was a ton of early mornings on the water, like it or not. But the peace and the stillness was just unreal. And that's one place in particular, and the other is in Buena Vista, Colorado, just in the mid-range, looking at the sunrise in the Rockies. It's unbelievable. And I really have always loved those hard fought moments. You go on a hike in the Rockies, and you're an East Coast person, you're gonna be breathing hard and heavy. And it was worth it. I'm like huffing and puffing, but I got to the top and I was like, oh, this is amazing. And I really want I kind of want to short circuit that distance and get more people to those moments if I can. And that's, I think, what we're building part of our thesis on at Thin Spaces.

Josiah: I want to go back to, you talk about finding this piece of land, but I appreciate the backstory and the explanation to that because I imagine a lot of our listeners are going to resonate with that feeling. I think what's exciting to me is I felt that feeling. It's not just like in Sedona or someplace. It's really, I felt that around the world, across the country. My wife just got back from a trip to Tennessee. And I think felt that I felt it, you know, in the mountains of Colorado, I've, I felt it, you know, here, you know, by my home and San Francisco can over the ocean. And there's, so it's interesting because it's not like a type of nature, but it does seem that nature is a common thread here. And so I want to go back to your story about finding this piece of land and what it what drew you to it?

Tanner: Yeah, well, since we don't have background in hospitality or real estate development. We, as entrepreneurs, it's more caution to wind. We do have a plan. We do have things in place, but we really understood from the word go how one, expensive, dramatic land would be to build on. Even from a guess, we just knew if you've got steep land, it's not going to be cheap. Everything's going to be expensive. And we kind of just said, Is that worth it? Do we need more flat, close parked, you know, RVs? There's plenty of those. And I think those are great. But that's not what drives our heart. That's not what we wanted to do. And we just wanted dramatic. And these falls, because there's not many. I think there's more in the Rockies. The Appalachians are kind of slow and small. But yeah, it proves that right on your in your backyard, in the back door, not far from your home, there is space where you can go and meditate, where you can go be at peace. Our world is not often a place of peace, and we have to work really hard to make places or find places like that. And I think there's those of us that want to make those spaces in the world for people because we know that's what people need. They may not always want it, but we definitely know we all need it.

Josiah: So let me ask you this, because something I've been thinking a lot about that feels hard to figure out is, to this point you mentioned, sometimes people need something and they don't yet know that they want it. I think Henry Ford famously said, if you ask people what they wanted, it would be a faster horse or a buggy or something like that. They wouldn't know that there's this whole new thing out there. And it's interesting to me because you have a technology background. You've built software at a variety of different places. And you've talked before about interviewing people who could be prospective guests. So it's a classic sort of startup mentality. I want to talk to people who could become customers. But my question for you is, how do you balance that with, it seems like your vision for providing hospitality and this concept also is coming from your own story and your experiences. Right. And how have you approached the development of this brand and this property, specifically balancing those two aspects, if that makes sense?

Tanner: Yeah, I've heard that there are some old guard, and I mean that positively, of the hospitality world that could pay for J.D. Power and Associates to do these epic researches. And I wish I could, but I can't. Not right now. Some of that is is totally intuition. I think right now we just know we've taken the time through our e-commerce to dial in and understand customers. But at the same time, our personal life is steeped with relationships in a lot of different capacities. Between my wife and I, we've done 30 to 40 years of different types of mentoring and discipleship of different people, from middle school kids to obviously always people younger than ourselves. But we've done it together. We've done it separately. I've done men's groups. She's done women's groups. We've volunteered at a homeless shelter to watch the kids so the mom's had a break for the first time ever. I think all of that, the literal decades we've kind of combined just knowing how to serve people really is a lot of intuition and we've learned over time are, I think it's mostly passive at this point, unfortunate to say, it does take time to know how to care for people. Because sometimes we do stuff and it's, we realize that's not what they wanted. Even if it was well intended, you're maybe sometimes shocked. Like, I can't believe they didn't like what I did. That's okay. But it's important for us to learn how to dial that in, especially from a context of hospitality and a business perspective. That's critical. But we learned it from more of a relational lifestyle perspective. Not that we were planning to leverage that for building anything, but that is heavily what we've come to operate with from building Cypress.

Josiah: I do appreciate you, though, explaining that because I think it's for me, it inspires me to think about, OK, I care about hospitality, but I do really care. And so like, what do my evenings and weekends look like? Right. And how do I spend time for the people around me? Right. Outside of work. And I think you and your wife have done that. You have created out of that. It's not like you're serving so that you can crush it in business, but I think you can't give something you don't have. And so I guess what I'm taking away from hearing you is the sense of you have to live the life kind of holistically. But I wonder if we could talk a little bit more about Cypress. So Cypress fascinates me because I think you've described it as a deconstructed resort. What do you mean by that?

Tanner: Yeah, we we kind of see it in two two main parts from like a build perspective and amenity perspective, if you will. So the deconstruction is taking these more. They are amazing. We my wife and I have stayed at some and we've been in awe at some of the big name resorts, and they were so delightful. But they're huge. And we have land, but we cannot go out and be like, hey, let's raise $250 million for a 500 unit thing. That is not where we are. And so it's almost thinking creatively. And because of all this technology, everything from softwares, and I guess this is an ancient term now, but internet of things, all the integration of hardware and software and operations, blending that together, I think is equipped the potential for this. And what we mean by deconstructed is we've kind of spliced out the amenities. So yes, you have your main living space, and we've made it considerably larger. Our first units will be approximately 850 square feet for one guest, and it's a king bed. And If you know, once you're in a king bed, you can't go back. So we definitely check that off the list. But in terms of the deconstruction, it's a library, but it's small. Two to 400 square feet, two nice chairs, an observatory. My kids had never been out in nature. Well, okay, they have, but we're living in Atlanta right now. It's a city. You don't see the SARS nearly as much as you see it out in the sticks. And I grew up in the sticks. So for me to have my kids look at the sky and go, And it just made me realize like everything Disney and other great companies have tapped into and that wonder, that's exactly what we're trying to pull out. So like an observatory, see if we can get it higher and just a basic telescope. Maybe you don't even look, but if we can put a boatload of windows and just make a space for you to just wonder in the stars for just like 10 minutes. if that's all you can muster in the chaos of your life on a weekend. But we want to give everybody the space to be able to do that. And we want to pepper that in different places. That's kind of the idea is like, can we take the values and the amenities that big resorts have and break it out into the little pieces that clearly people like the whole, tiny house or RV traveling the country or the world. It's fun. It is kind of cool. Little single serving everything. Fun stuff.

Josiah: It's fascinating to hear that because I have no background in design. But when I see something beautiful, it inspires you, right? And so as I've started talking to more people, I've been really interested to hear how concepts are created. And there's a lot of beautiful concepts that do focus, it feels like a little bit more inwardly on the building, I think what you've just described feels like a really fresh take where you're actually getting people, at least for a moment, to look out and to experience that wonder. But it feels like it's not just kind of like this one-off amenity. If we go back to earlier in our conversation, wanting to connect people with nature, these thin spaces or places where you're just really close to that. And then it sounds like even from a design perspective, that becomes something you prioritize because you can't do it all. There's going to be trade-offs.

Tanner: yeah it's really in a world where we have games being designed using the same addictive hooks that casinos use our children even ourselves shoot I have to confess like I've got tossed away scrolling on Instagram or something and I'm like why am I doing this I want to build a space that without screaming or telling you, like, this is what you have to do to get to nature, to be undistracted. I want to make every single opportunity, almost flip all those mechanisms that casinos and games use to get people hooked in. And what's the antithesis of each and every one of those? And that's what my core drive is. Can I find the opposite, the inverse? What gets you able to be at rest or have a moment for a pause. Because that's for many of us, I would guess. I think a lot of us, that's uncomfortable. And I think we need to go back to the place where that is comfortable because what that brings out of us that I think is in all of us is some incredible potency and really like the more full you. And so I want to make sure that people come and they go into the world away from Cyprus and away from thin spaces and really impact the world more naturally, less of a fight, more of like you're crushing it from a free-flowing space. And sometimes that takes effort and sometimes it doesn't, but I think we want to help people be in a space that they can learn how they are supposed to do that, what makes them juiced up and fired up.

Josiah: I feel like there's so many threads we could pull on here, but I guess just from a practical building perspective, if I understand correctly, you decided not to take a modular approach, which I see happen somewhat frequently in some of these concepts. Is that right? You took a different approach to creating this?

Tanner: Yeah, we actually started, again, Entrepreneur at Risk. I say bye-bye to that 10K deposit, which was okay. It got us great connections to other people and other things, like all good stuff. And it's a beautiful prefabricated structure. But we realized when we priced it where we are in North Georgia and a general contract quote, we were like, wait a minute, I think we can build like quadruple what this thing, and then wait, we have to pull it in on a crane, and that crane is a huge machine, and we're gonna have to knock down all the 150-year-old trees? No thank you. In fact, I'm gonna be there when we build the first units, because I know that there's a good chance a guy in a bulldozer is gonna look at that tree and be like, oh, that's gonna save me five days moving around that. And I'm gonna have to say like, I will pay you an extra five days to move around it. I wanna be right there to write the check. I know that can happen and I don't want it to happen. So yeah, it's important.

Josiah: Yeah, it's important, but it also, I think what I'm hearing there is the sacrifices and the trade-offs, right? So you have to look at kind of the whole picture of where you're at. And you mentioned though, kind of building in North Georgia, and you live in a city, you're in Atlanta, but as part of your career, you worked for a time at a technology company, Calendly, which I'm sure if anybody's booked a meeting with me, they are well aware of, or many others. One of the biggest success stories in the Southeast And for me, I grew up and live in San Francisco, so being in and around a lot of technology, Calendly was always a really interesting story because I think it's this massive global technology success story. You're part of building that. I'm curious from that experience or experiences that you've had since then, What have you learned about creating in unexpected places that gives potentially like a fresh perspective? I'm curious, either in the tech world or in the hospitality world, because I think that's where you start to get a diversity of interesting things happening when you're not necessarily building in all the same places that everyone else is.

Tanner: Yeah, it was so fun. Like culture, people, all of it. Unreal. And yes, it was, I don't even think I realized it till after. how I was like, Oh my gosh, that is insanely unique. And some of it I think is taupe had the fortune of being outside of the echo chamber. And I think there is some benefit to that, like having phenomenal talent, draw straight to you, like you don't even have to Well, I don't know this, but I'm guessing it's a lot easier to find people who want to move and they're an electrical engineer, or a quantum physicist, or any level of need for engineering, be hardware or software, I think forces, especially a founder, to think more creatively. And it's a little more gritty, almost like the beginnings of the West Coast, like building out of the garage. And I know this. I know Tope was like doing it out of his apartment or condo. I can't remember where he was before he moved into the Atlanta Tech Village. He was just grinding away, building it with just a few people with no office. And I think that's You know, my wife and I do our e-commerce out of our house. My garage doesn't fit cars anymore. Well, I can get one car in now, but it has nothing but boxes and inventory for e-com. And it's like, you work with what you have. And now, same thing with us in hospitality. It's, we're working with what we have and it'd be nice to have the things that sound amazing, but I do think it's forced me to think, what do I have? of my skills and my background, and how can I leverage that? And it's honestly, by finding something, even a little thing, has gotten me even more excited. This is the thing that's made me so much more confident. I don't think I know how to serve and care for people. I know I do. Now, I may not know the ops and all the details of doing that right and wrong, and I know I'll make mistakes. I know we will make mistakes. But I don't think that's what defines success or failure of any company. I think it's how quick can you take the failure pivot, learn from it, and then readjust. And I think if there's anything I've learned in my corporate life, I have learned how many mistakes I can make. I've made a lot of mistakes, and I've learned very well how to accept them and move from them.

Josiah: That's how we move forward, right? That's how we learn. That's how we grow, right? It's by just being out there. But it's great to hear that because I don't know, I just feel that sometimes it's overrated working in these hubs. Every industry has this place where you're supposed to be or you're supposed to be in this part of the country or the world or this type of location. And I'm fascinated by people building stuff outside of that because my uncles live in the heart of Silicon Valley and they moved there 40 years ago. And you can see where it was scrappy and there's the garages and stuff like that. And then when I was early in my career in technology, it feels a little more comfortable and just cushy and it feels like you lose that kind of scrappy mentality. And so I think that's one dimension, but I think there's the other dimension of starting from scratch. very different. I don't hear other people doing them. And there's a certain amount of not knowing everything that can be a blessing in disguise as long as you, because you also, we all make mistakes too, and we're in that environment. So as you said, it's making the mistakes, learning from them and growing from them. But I think one thing that you've talked about before is, you know, you and your wife have invested a lot in personal development and professional coaching and stuff like that. I'm curious the role that that has played. And can you speak a little bit to kind of why you have made those investments and how you're now a founder and a builder that you are maybe as a result of some of those investments?

Tanner: Oh, yeah. I mean, the first time we paid for an e-commerce coaching, it was like a huge, it was like the biggest dollar amount we've spent on any single thing yet. And it was a long conversation between the two of us. The metaphor is I'm the balloon and she is the string. Her metaphor, by the way, not mine. I think the only way a balloon is fun is if it has a string, because otherwise I'm in the stratosphere and popped. So I need to be grounded. Yeah. Every time we spent more money, I'm not advocating for blowing money out the door, but definitely take the risk. Start to learn. If you have to pay for coaching, do it. can't find people. There are a lot of people, especially in the entrepreneur world. I don't think there's an entrepreneur that doesn't respect people putting skin in the game and saying, I'm out here alone and maybe a little scared, and I don't know what I'm doing. I need help. Guess what, that's what all of us has done. And I'm so early in this. There are so many people who have done this better than me. And that's all I'm doing. I'm reaching out, I'm getting help, I'm saying, hey, I don't know what I'm doing. I think, here's my plan, what do you think? Tell, you know, the classic pitch thing I've heard, like, I need someone to tell me my baby's ugly, and then we can dial it in before I really pitch it so it looks so much better. There is so much value It's almost, I almost cannot quantify how much coaching from either paid or relational connections has been. And I probably will always have everything from personal accountability to leadership accountability. to, I've heard people that have a mentor and all they do, the co-founders are friends and they wanted to stay friends. So they literally paid a guy that they've all known to just come in quarterly and relationally check, not the business. He was checking, are you guys relating to each other well? That's all he did for him. Fly in, talk to him for like a day, hang out, maybe even a lunch, I don't know. But that's what they did and they still do it. and they're still friends and things haven't blown up. And I think that's my learned lesson is even if a coaching relationship or some type of mentoring is not what you want, that's okay. Let it go by. But now you know. You've learned a little more of what kind of coaching you want and the kind of coaching you don't want. Now, if you go through like 12 coaches, then maybe I say, maybe you need to look introspectively, because there's something, there's some common thing. But for us, it's been invaluable. And I cannot stress that enough that it's so important to have accountability from an individual level, and then also from, hey, you getting the things done, you said you'd do this, and this time, are you going to do it?

Josiah: I love it, man. Well, you've coached me and all of us listening to this. And so I appreciate you taking the time to run through this, run through your story. Where would you point people who want to learn more about you and your work, some of the exciting projects that you're working on? Where would you have people learn more about that?

Tanner: Yeah, we've just started posting stuff on Instagram. So we have cypressresort, and then I'm @tannerbliss on Instagram, starting to share more stuff. And then we have our landing page, which is really, we're just kind of getting the email set up, and we'll update people as it goes along. But it's cypressresort.com. And from there, we'll most likely build a more full page, have more story, have more content. But yeah, we'll be very active on Instagram, at least from a content perspective, and then eventually doing the booking through our website.