Exclusive | How tycoon Goodwin Gaw revived the fortunes of the iconic Hollywood Roosevelt

It hosted the very first Academy Awards in 1929. Shirley Temple tap-danced on its ornate tile stairway, and a married Clark Gable had his clandestine weekend dalliances with Clare Lombard between its sheets. Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift were one-time inhabitants.

But by 1989, over six decades after it was built, the once-happening Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel was running a US$38 million debt.

Then, in 1995, Goodwin Gaw came along. He looked at the crinkled furniture, worn walls and chipped banisters and saw something that can’t be recreated with a new building: a soul.

The then-26-year-old, fresh out of Stanford University, bought it for less than US$10 million and spent another US$20 million revamping it. He also downgraded it.

“The hotel had good enough bones, but the previous owner made it more high-end than it could [sustain],” said Gaw, who later became the founder of Gaw Capital. “You have to tailor to your surroundings, adjust to the right demographics.”

Two decades and several makeovers later – including a US$35 million revamp by Canadian design company Yabu Pushelberg in 2015 – the hotel has regained its glitz, raking in over US$50 million in revenue, compared to US$8 million in 1995.