Ensemble Hospitality searches for midweek group

LONG BEACH, California — While Ensemble Hospitality says there is strength for hospitality on the coast of California, the company is still on the hunt for group business to return, especially during the week.

Managing Director Conrad Garner has been with Long Beach, California-based owner-operator Ensemble for 20 years. Ensemble Hospitality is a division of Ensemble Investments, which has other commercial real estate verticals in multifamily and life science. The company had its start in hotels in the 1980s, trying to get a Santa Monica, California, hotel ready in time for the LA Olympics in 1984, and refocused on hotels again in the early 2000s, around the time Garner joined.

Currently, Ensemble has 14 hotels in 12 markets, with a 15th hotel under construction. The portfolio, which is a mix of full-service hotels and resorts and select-service hotels, is primarily located in California and Arizona but it also has properties in New Jersey and Philadelphia.

While group business has rebounded for hotels in the past years, most of that growth has been in the top 25 markets. Because Ensemble’s portfolio is mainly in secondary or tertiary markets in leisure destinations, Garner said that demand has been lagging for the company, especially during the week.

“We’re still searching for that group business to come back,” he said. “We’re not at Main and Main in most of our markets. We’re not in downtown LA or Boston or New York City. We’re in secondary or tertiary, more destination markets, and those are trailing the major MSAs coming back.”

Garner said he’s focused on bringing that demand back, specifically at wine country properties in Northern California.

We still see strength on the coast... If you can bring people to the water, that still holds value.

Conrad Garner

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“We expected to be able to attract the Bay Area groups mid-week. It’s still there, but it’s just not there to what we thought it would be. It’s not as deep as what we think it should be,” he said. “Hopefully, it comes back… We’re trailing some of the major MSAs. We are seeing it come back, but it’s one of our areas of focus because that can help us a lot on our midweek business.”

While much of Ensemble’s portfolio is focused on the coast of California, Garner said that’s not a bad thing, especially with its La Bahia Hotel and Spa in Santa Cruz on the way (it’s expected to open this summer). 

“We still see strength on the coast,” he said. “Santa Cruz is still a really strong market, and La Bahia is going to open aggressively, being the new luxury product there. If you can bring people to the water, that still holds value.”

The La Bahia Hotel and Spa in Santa Cruz, California is expected to open this summer.

Luxury-leisure ADR ceiling

Garner said many of Ensemble’s properties have seen the luxury leisure market pull back substantially from the sky-high ADRs of the post-COVID market, especially in Northern California’s wine country, Carmel Valley and Sedona, Arizona. While RevPAR has been flat so far in those properties in 2025, with costs still going up, Garner said they are starting to see improvements and still believe in the overall strategy.

“We still think we have the right business plan. It just may take a little longer to get there,” he said. “We do need these groups to start traveling. We have a lot of meeting space, and we would love to see people start to fill those back up midweek.”

Garder said Ensemble’s properties in Sedona, specifically, hit an ADR ceiling post-COVID and then didn’t just plateau but went down.

“Our RevPAR is down 7% in 24 months, which is better, though, than our comp set in the luxury market,” he said. “We’re doing a little better. We’re still managing to get some occupancy and hold rates the best we can. But it’s come back down, and it’s going to be a little bit slower climb back up.”

Ensemble is breaking ground this summer on The Waylen in Philadelphia, an adaptive reuse of a historic naval receiving station.

Ensemble’s growth plans

Because Ensemble is an owner, developer and operator (Garner said the company operates nine of its properties while five of its select-service properties are still in third-party management), it has a longer hold time for its investments.

“We will sell for sure, but mostly, we’re interested in building for the long term,” he said. “All 14 of those hotels that we own right now have been in the last 20 years.” 

Ensemble has continued to acquire properties. It added the Vintner’s Resort and Spa in Santa Rosa, California in 2023, acquired the Best Western Plus Arroyo Roble Hotel & Creekside Villas in 2019 and the Las Posadas of Sedona in Arizona in 2021. The company also opened the Hilton Garden Inn, Camden Waterfront Philadelphia in the summer of 2020.  

“We bring in equity to execute it between institutional partners or high net-worth individuals, but we’re the owners,” Garner said. “We don’t have a setup where we’re a minority owner in any of our hotels.” 

In terms of growth, 2025 is going to be a busy year for Ensemble, with the opening of La Bahia and the Vintner’s hotel being repositioned. The company is also planning to break ground this summer on The Waylen in Philadelphia, an adaptive reuse of a historic naval receiving station into a 223-key full-service hotel that could open as soon as 2026.

Garner said the company hopes to add two hotels a year for the next few years, mostly through value-add acquisitions nationwide.

We probably wouldn’t have said this a few years ago because we’re all California guys, but we’re starting to look more outside of California. It’s getting difficult here.

Conrad Garner

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“We probably wouldn’t have said this a few years ago because we’re all California guys, but we’re starting to look more outside of California. It’s getting difficult here,” he said. “We are exploring more mid-Atlantic opportunities. We like [Washington] D.C…. It’s pretty selective, probably in markets where we already have a base… and where we think there’s growth.”

Garner said the company would be “entrepreneurial” when thinking about select-service acquisitions.

“We’ll look at a lot of stuff, try to force it through this filter, and see if we can add value. There will be select-service opportunities, but generally, we’re hunting more upper-scale hotels… We’re very comfortable in the independent space, so we will go after independents.”