They Called My Place the Pits, Claimed It’s Sub-Luxury; But It’s Named the Ritz, and They Can’t Take That Away From Me
Pity the poor soul who’s doing PR these days for John Coleman, the owner of Washington’s Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Must be something like trying to get toothpaste back in the tube.
First came a front-page story in The Washington Post saying, in so many words, that Coleman’s creditors consider him a deadbeat deluxe. Then came another blast of bad ink in the Sunday business section of The New York Times; its story reported that Coleman was in default on more than $30 million in loans from Chase Manhattan Bank and characterized him as “a calculating and lonely man who seems to derive pleasure from working himself in and out of nightmarish financial binds.
The unkindest cut of all, however, came in late September, when the Post‘s Style section disclosed that G.B. Johnson Properties of Atlanta, which owns the Ritz-Carlton trademark, has canceled its licensing agreement with Coleman and filed suit in U.S. District Court to bar him from continuing to use the Ritz-Carlton name and logo. The company claimed that Coleman’s royalty payments had been repeatedly delinquent and cited a logn laundry list of other offenses, ranging from “dirty and torn carpeting” to “surly” employees.
Most revealing, though, was the suit’s disclosure of the Ritz-Carlton’s gross receipts for the second quarter of the year, which, at $3.25 million, seem to be far below Coleman’s projections. More than a year ago, before the hotel’s 100-room new wing had been completed, Coleman told Regardie’s that its 1986 revenues would be in the neighborhood of $20 million.
Many of the Ritz-Carlton’s former managers and employees say they’re amazed that Coleman’s financial problems didn’t hit the fan sooner. But Coleman’s resourcefulness shouldn’t be underestimated. There was the time, for example when the Washington Post quit delivering newspapers to his hotel. Rather than settling the delinquent account, Coleman simply found another supplier: for a while, the hotel’s employees were sent out every morning to buy a big stack of Washington Posts from the neighborhood High’s store.
This article originally appeared in the November 1986 issue of Regardie’s.
Bill Hogan