Our philosophy of what a hotel should be is based on a series of simple concepts. We’ve refined them over the past 20 years that we’ve been in this business, but the concepts themselves really haven’t changed. They have been regarded in the industry as groundbreaking—but for us they are timeless. We had the luxury of coming into this business as an outsider—with no preconceived notions. This allowed us to re-think and re-invent things every step of the way. We’ve got to be a bit subversive and create hotels the way we wanted, without being constrained by convention. We’re still passionate about what we do. We still want our hotels to provoke and entertain. We want the experience of visiting one of our hotels to be more like seeing a great movie, reading a wonderful book, or watching a memorable play—not just as a place to sleep, but a place where you feel an honest, emotional connection— where you feel like you are an integral part of the magical story that is unfolding around you—because you are.