Kemmons Wilson

"Holiday Inn founder calls shots for his new Orlando empire"
Orlando Magazine
August 1985
By Nancy Long

Danny Andrews of Whitehall, Pa., spots him first and circles his target. His family hangs back—obviously Danny's the seasoned celebrity stalker of the bunch.

The object of his attention is a ruddy-faced, grandfatherly man in bright orange pants. He looks like any other tourist except he's dressed in a sports coat and tie, something no self-respecting vacationer would be wearing when temperatures are pushing 100 at midafternoon.

"You're Mr. Wilson, aren't you?" questions Danny, politely but firmly interrupting Kemmons Wilson's conversation with the sales manager at Wilson World.

"I saw you on the 'The Rich and Famous' and I talked Mom into coming here."

It is the kind of encounter the legendary Holiday Inns founder savors, almost as much as good barbecue ribs or Tennessee sour mash with Tab.

Danny's reception from the rich and famous encourages him to bring his sisters over.

"Do y'all enjoy Wilson World, honey?" Mr. Wilson asks one of the sisters, who is rendered speechless and simply nods.

Welcome to the Innkeeper of the World's new kingdom.

The sign out front isn't familiar. Not an emblem to bring instantaneous recognition like the screaming green, orange and yellow Holiday Inn signs that have been pop art landmarks on interstates for years. But remember the blue and green "World" sign on State Road 192 in Kissimmee. You may be able to say you saw the first.

Thirty years from now the world-shaped beacon could dot major highways throughout the U.S.

One year old this month, the first $20-million Wilson World has a young track record of near-full occupancy and what looks like-if impromptu comments to their host is any indication-443 rooms full of contented guests.

"It's the poor man's Grand Cypress," says Mr. Wilson, leading me into the domed lobby with a swimming pool and waterfall, center lobby bar, overhead bandstand and glass elevators.

Has Kemmons Wilson, who built the first Holiday Inn in 1951 so traveling families could count on comfort at a reasonable price, hit on the magic chain formula the second time around?

At 73, is he really prepared to put up a fight on the competitive highways of America to capture a new piece of the hotel-motel industry?

"If it hits like I think it will, my kids will take it over," he says. Simple as that. Mr. Wilson is not a complicated man, just an incurable entrepreneur.

On the day before we toured Wilson World he was looking at land for another Wilson World in Cape Canaveral, and he's known for some time he wants to build one in Memphis.

"AT NIGHT THIS is like a fairyland," he says, walking into the expansive lobby with miniature blinking lights outlining indoor plantings and framing glass elevators.

The ambience is a cross between Disney's Main Street Electric Parade, the soaring heights of the Grand Cypress and Empress Lilly's band-over bar. Something for everybody without a high tab to match the amenities that emulate exclusive neighboring hotels.

"If you can't be a good originalist, be a good copyist," says Mr. Wilson, who has a maxim for every occasion.

He sits in the lobby's open bar area, skins the cellophane from another Muriel and orders a diet drink, probably the sixth of the day.

The first one was at breakfast. "I've got to get up and go, quick," he says. The story of his Horatio Alger life.

One of Wilson World's most successful draws is its buffet. "All you want and you can go back as many times as you want-$6.95 and $3.95 for kids," says Mr. Wilson with the pride of a hard-working father able to set a feast before his large family.

It is touted in giant electrical images on the computerized marquee out front. In flashing 8-inch letters it spells out in dollars and cents Kemmons Wilson's new philosophy as a born-again hotelier: give the family or business traveler or group a place to meet, to eat and to stay that has some of the grand hotel extras-but at an affordable package price.

The philosophy hasn't changed all that much since he opened the first Holiday Inn, but his competition has and so have the target markets.

Competition has spurred the luxury amenities approach to attract vacationing guests, and new business markets have encouraged more and better meeting and convention space.

While meeting space for 300 is available at the Orlando Wilson World, the model for the future will include more-a ballroom to seat 800 that can be divided into three separate meeting spaces.

Mr. Wilson produces renderings of the models, showing an efficient setup that provides personally served buffets in each of the three areas with almost no interruption to the business being conducted.

The prototype for future Wilson Worlds, above, will have more meeting space. Suite, studio and king rooms will be available. A large ballroom can be divided and buffets served in each meeting space for business sessions with a minimum of interruption. The design reflects a new target market.

SIGNALLING TO ORDER a refill of his diet drink, Kemmons Wilson spots an employee barely visible behind a stack of boxes he's unloading at the bar.

"Look at those GranDaddy's comin' in," he says with mock gee-haw enthusiasm that emphasizes his good ol' boy Tennessee drawl.

In a sense, it was the "GrandDaddy's" that got him started again after a major heart attack forced him to resign in 1980 as board chairman of the Holiday Inns empire he'd built.

Recuperating from open heart surgery, he said he "almost went crazy" for six months, trying to avoid stirring up new business deals.

"Then I was out in California and I ate some of these chips (GranDaddy's nachos) and I thought they were really good. I found out who manufactured them. He said he would give me the formula if I would buy his used equipment."

Mr. Wilson has three plants that produce the nachos now and talks about them with the pride of any of his major projects. If the nachos paved the way back after the first health setback of his life, it was popcorn that first made him see the entrepreneurial light.

The story has been told in Time, The Saturday Evening Post and countless other magazine and newspaper articles, about how the high school dropout got together enough money during the Depression to buy a popcorn machine to support his mother and himself.

The venture was so successful that the owner of the theater where he had arranged to sell popcorn fired him and put in his own machine. So he sold the popcorn machine and bought pinball machines. Not an auspicious beginning for a multimillionaire hotel, real estate, construction magnate.

His first real estate venture was the house he built for his mother. Then he found he could get a $6,500 loan (to buy the Wurlitzer dealership) on the $2,700 house and lot.

"That's when I decided, 'I want to get into that business.'" He did, in a big way. And also later in insurance, construction and securities, among other things.

But it wasn't until some 20 years after the struggling Depression years ("We had 25 cents a week for dried beans and that's all we had to eat.") that he decided to build a motel because his own family of seven had to pay $16 for a motel in Washington.

While visitors tour Orange Lake Country Club, their children are entertained in a play/computer room. Kemmons Wilson, who has 14 granchildren back home in Tennessee, enjoys a visit as much as they do. (Photos by Bob Eginton)

"It was my Scotch blood that made me start the Holiday Inns," he says. "We stayed in that hotel that cost $6, but when we paid, we had to pay $2 apiece for the children. That was $16 instead of $6. I wanted to build a chain where children could stay with their parents for free."

Some 29 years and 1,700 Holiday Inns later, he had traveled the world in search of land for new inns, known presidents and royalty, earned the cover of Time magazine, the Entrepreneur Award from the International Franchise Association and membership in Fortune magazine's Business Hall of Fame.

"Covering the world's most successful innkeeper is frenetic business," wrote Times writers half his age after following him through workdays on two continents.

Then came the heart attack. The globe-trotting came to a halt, temporarily, and he was forced to slow down. That lasted six months and then a friend showed him a Florida time-share property he'd bought. The new concept in vacationing struck a bell with the hotel pro.

Philosophically he says he did just what the doctor ordered. He stopped to smell the roses and found his roses were his work.

So he bought 375 acres about four miles from Disney in 1981 for $2.1 million, with a $100-million development in mind. On those acres filled with orange groves, he began to carve out a sports-oriented time-share "country club."

In 1983 he bought 450 acres adjacent to the first acquisition "because the price ($3 million) was right and because it came on the market."

He's in no hurry to develop the second parcel, insisting that anything "bought right is half sold." But he does have plans for development there.

"I'll build regular condominiums around lakes-like Bay Hill but not as expensive. There will be an 18-hole golf course."

HAROLD AND CAROL Strotheide and their daughter Norma from Carlyle, Ill., were on their first trip to Florida with Disney as their destination. Staying at a Days Inn, they learned they could get a free gift (their choice, tickets to Disney) if they toured models at Orange Lake Country Club.

After a breakfast presentation and the grand tour, they were being ushered by an agent into the sales office to sign the final papers.

"We never heard of Orange Lake before, or even considered time sharing," said Mr. Strotheide almost sheepishly. But, his wife added, they considered what it had cost them to stay in motels on the trip down and figured a time-share investment was a good deal.

The Strotheides are among the 120 people a day who tour Orange Lake in the summer, lured by the offer of free gifts, said Charles Zanowski, vice president of marketing and sales. During the winter the number is from 75 to 80 a day.

"Mickey Mouse brings them here and I sell them," says Kemmons Wilson, beaming. "I have more time-share units here than anywhere in the state of Florida.

To be specific, 200 completed villa townhomes with 400 more in the works and 168 clubhouse units. They go for $5,190 to $9,990 per week for two bedrooms and $2,390 to $6,590 per week for clubhouse units, depending upon the time of year. One bedroom villas range from $5,090 to $8,590.

It's probably the amenities as much as the tasteful Florida Green and yellow furnishings in the completely equipped units that sell people like the Strotheides. Among them: a 27-hole championship golf course, driving range and golf school; 7,000-seat tennis stadium, 16 lighted courts and a resident pro; Olympic swimming pool; 82-acre lake for sailing, para-sailing and water skiing; and a clubhouse with restaurant and banquet facilities, shopping arcade, workout room and beauty shop.

"Without fear of contradiction, I can say I spent more on this than any other time share in the world," says Mr. Wilson proudly.

It may be Mickey Mouse who brings them, but it's Kemmons Wilson who sells the thousands from around the world who are buying a piece of Central Florida for a week out of the year.

He has a sales staff of almost 70 on straight commission and he says nobody's complaining. There were 6,886 owners at press time representing 8,450 sales. Sales to date total $54 million.

"They come from 50 states and 43 countries. No wait, we just sold Japan-that makes 44," said Mr. Wilson.

"Time share is the only way the average man can have a second home for $5,000 to $7,000, use it for a lifetime and leave it to his children-for only $199 a year maintenance."

Although Orlando is the new headquarters for his time-share and hotel interests, Memphis will always be home. There he and his three sons run a conglomerate of businesses ranging from construction to real estate development, securities, insurance and hotel/motel property management.

An interior rendering of the model for future Wilson Worlds shows the swimming pool lobby that has been popular in the first hotel in Orlando. The next Wilson Worlds could be in Cape Canaveral and Memphis. The new chain will cater to families and business groups.

But the family's new business influence continues to be felt in Central Florida.

The Wilson brothers, Kemmons Jr., Spence and Robert, recently announced plans for a joint venture with another Memphis company, Lockridge & Associates Inc., to build an $18 million hotel with computerized equipped rooms for business travelers at the Quadrangle office park near UCF.

It's not difficult to pick up on the acceptance of a patriarchal attitude in the Wilson clan.

"Every Sunday night all the children and 14 grandchildren come over. It's good, they're all getting to know their cousins," says Mr. Wilson.

And a strong hint of old-fashioned Southern chauvinism.

"We have no help on Sundays. All my life Dorothy (his wife) has done all the cooking. The nickel I spent to buy her a Coke when we met was worth it."

Mr. Wilson is equally proud that the family that's played together has stayed together in business.

"My three sons are all full or co-owners in Wilson businesses. I have one daughter who is married to a lawyer who does our legal work and another daughter who is married to a doctor who keeps us well. We keep it all in the family."

But if the family involvement is strong, his openness to back other entrepreneurs is well known.

"I laugh and my wife laughs about it," he says with a chuckle. "We say if I ever die, I'll never get all my partners in the funeral hall." But he's made sure he'll get that business too. The family owns a funeral home and cemetery in Memphis.

"THAT GIRL DOESN'T know that's one of my pet peeves," says Kemmons Wilson, sending back the cold rolls at the Orange Lake clubhouse dining room.

The consummate innkeeper, he can't walk around Wilson World or Orange Lake without checking out the details. Even at lunch, he stops visitors from Burbank, Ill., to ask how they liked the food. (Their favorite, shrimp with garlic).

Kathryn Cunningham, left, gives prizes sometimes to over 100 visitors a day at Orange Lake Country Club. One of the most popular gift items is the Mickey Mouse phone being tested here by Kemmons Wilson. He gives Mickey full credit for his marketing plan. Disney brings millions of visitors a year to Orlando, says Mr. Wilson, and he's able to attract a segment of the tourist market that changes every week.

I asked if he considers himself a tough boss. "I probably am," he admits, although he seems more like a fatherly presence among the employees and knows most by first name. "I just can't stand anything not done right."

Andy Pennella, vice president and general manager, stops by to speak and Mr. Wilson invites him to join the group at lunch. He asks for the new manager's card to give to me.

How much, he wants to know, did it cost to print the cards. Then he turns to everyone else at the table, to make a pitch for another Wilson enterprise.

"I'm going into the card printing business, you know. Bought a color separating machine that cost $300,000 from Japan. I can take 35 millimeter slides and print them in four colors for $29.95 a thousand. It can print 40 orders at once in 20 minutes.

He offers to print my business card, with my picture in full color, without any charge to prove the quality of his new printing venture.

And then with as much enthusiasm he makes a $40 million offer-this time to Orange County.

It has to do with the Convention/Civic Center.

"You've got to build 1 million square feet of convention space here. Orlando is the only city in the world that has 50,000 rooms within 15 minutes of the civic center.

"If it's not going to be done by the government, I think I could get businessmen to build it. I would invest and I'm sure I could get others to, to raise $40 million to build exhibit space-the land would come from the county.

"If a group of businessmen built the facility and only took the rent, they could make a profit. I would like to have the job of making the investment and getting together other businessmen to raise the money."