San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Manager of hotels sees company’s future, and it’s in unique properties
Charles Leddy’s Presidian Hotels and Resorts has quickly become a major player on the San Antonio-area hotel scene.
But Leddy, the 44-year-old CEO of Presidian, has a grander vision for the collection of 10 chain hotels he manages, which include brands like Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn Express and Hyatt Place.
He’s eyeing several hotels in downtown San Antonio he’d like to buy, renovate, then manage. He’s in the process of raising as much as $100 million to bankroll the deals that would be his first in the heart of the city. And he’s looking at other areas of Texas for possible boutique hotel acquisitions or to build hotels from the ground up.
Leddy said he expects to finalize his first purchase by the end of the year.
He relishes the idea of putting his stamp on Presidian properties that will be unique.
“There’s not a lot of imagination that comes into opening a more standard hotel property,” he said. “Maybe you get to pick the finishes, but at the end of the day it needs to look like that brand.”
On the other hand, Leddy said, creating a boutique hotel is a creative process.
“There is so much joy in coming up with a vision,” he said, with the ultimate aim of fusing great architecture, food and service into a unique experience for guests.
Presidian now manages and Leddy has a controlling interest in two boutique-type hotels in addition to the 10 chain properties.
The first breaks a self-imposed rule that all his hotels should be in Texas so he can maximize time with his wife, Kelly, and their two children, Drake, 5, and Anderson, 3.
The Springs Resort & Spa in the Colorado community of Pagosa Springs came into the Presidian fold in 2018 because of Leddy’s fond memories of family vacations there. His family took yearly trips to the hotel starting when he was a young boy. It’s a tradition he continues today.
The Springs is certified in Guinness World Records for containing the world’s deepest geothermal hot spring. The spring feeds 25 of the resort’s hot therapeutic mineral pools and a mineral water lap pool.
The second hotel, the Estancia del Norte across from North Star Mall, opened last month. It was one of the toniest hotels in San Antonio when it opened in 1978 as La Mansion del Norte.
In recent years, however, it had lost its luster, as well as its name. The Doubletree by Hilton San Antonio Airport became just one of the city’s many chain hotels.
The Estancia del Norte is affiliated with Hilton’s Tapestry
Collection, but it is not a chain hotel in the traditional sense. Hilton gives Tapestry Collection owners wide latitude in the design and management of their establishment because it wants each property to be unique.
Leddy said he hopes the hotel will become a fixture in the community — not just a place for overnight guests.
Presidian dates to 2000, when it was founded by Leddy’s father, Drake, a lawyer, accountant and real estate developer.
The younger Leddy has gone his own way in building a career. With degrees in business administration and accounting, his résumé includes work as an investment banking analyst at Stephens Inc. in Arkansas, a consultant at McKinsey & Co. in Seattle and the head of two units at Starbucks Corp. charged with coming up with new products and concepts.
He joined Presidian in 2013 after his father developed health issues. He became CEO in 2016, at which point he reorganized the company, starting from scratch without any hotel properties. It now employs 500 workers.
Leddy spoke recently to the Express-News about his company and vision for the future. The following transcript is edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: Your newest hotel is the Estancia del Norte, a remake of the old DoubleTree airport hotel. It is a fancy boutique hotel in an area filled with cookie-cutter chain hotels, including one you operate, the Hilton San Antonio Airport. Why did you decide to acquire it?
A: It’s a property that I’ve always loved. I grew up in San Antonio. I’ve known that property my whole life. And I always felt it had a lot of potential because of its Spanish-style architecture and grand courtyard. Just beautifully built. No. 2, a lot of people told me I couldn’t do it. And that was the motivation. Because I believed we could. The hotel is in the airport market that’s tired — no one wants to spend time at the airport, everybody wants to be downtown or at the Rim — and the property is old. They said it was just too much work to renovate it. But I saw this beauti