When Hollywood producer Kevin Wendle first told friends he was buying a former home of an Italian duchess in Mexico with plans to turn it into a hotel, he was — perhaps fairly — greeted with skepticism.
“They said, ‘Are you out of your mind? What are you doing buying this on the beach in Mexico?’ I’d never been in the hotel business,” Wendle recalls. “And I said, ‘Well, I mean, if it doesn’t work, I could just rent it out for weddings and invite my friends.’”
Ten years later, that property, Hotel Esencia, has just marked its first decade in business with a coffee table book by Assouline, capturing the spirit of the Xpu Há beach property that has become the “It” destination for the fashion and design crowd.
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Wendle’s route to hospitality is somewhat unconventional.
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Prior to his career in hotels, he was a Hollywood producer, cofounding Fox Broadcasting. He left Hollywood and spent 15 years living in Paris, where he partnered with an architect and was involved in the art and design world. That love of design is what has made Esencia stand out, as Wendle has dotted the property with pieces of his personal midcentury collection.
“I think when you go on vacation, it’s a bit of a fantasy, so you want at least something on par with what you have. But ideally something better.”
Wendle describes the typical Esencia crowd as the media, art, fashion world; last month, the Assouline book was toasted with parties in New York and London, attended by Clive Davis, Justin Theroux, Martha Hunt, Don Lemon, Paul Andrew, Dominique Ansel, Michael Bargo and more.
In addition to art, Esencia has built a following due to Wendle’s desire to have it feel like home.
“What I hear all the time is it’s like staying in your best friend’s aristocratic beach house — because it is a house,” he says. That, and the setting isn’t bad either.
“When I bought it, I said, ‘OK, well, if I start with the best beach, everything else can be fixed.’”
Now Wendle has branched out with his second hotel project: Château de Curzay.
Four years ago, he stumbled upon a chateau in the French countryside on the drive down to Bordeaux and the wheels started turning for his next property. The chateau was a family-run hotel for many years, and the adult daughter had mostly been running it as a horse training property.
“When I arrived the first time, there were 40 of the most beautiful horses running around the property. It was just magical,” Wendle says. “I had stepped into heaven.”
The daughter had closed the hotel portion of the chateau the year prior, and was looking to get out of the ownership. Wendle was more than happy to take it on.
“I own it, but I don’t feel like I own it. It’s a treasure that is part of world history, and I’m just a caretaker at the moment, and I want to share it with as many people as I can in a smart way where I can attract a nice clientele,” Wendle says.
He opens the chateau this month as a private home one-week rental, with aims to eventually have parts that are open to the general public as a traditional hotel as well. At 35,000 euros a week, the rental comes with a full staff, and food and beverages will be available à la carte according to the guests’ preferences.
He adds that he’s taking the same approach with the French property as he did in Mexico all those years back: it may be new to him, but he believes in what he’s building.
“I’m seeing the attention that we’re getting so fast and so furiously,” he says of interest in the chateau. “People want to come.”