Master of
New England
Innkeeping
p
Fritz Koeppel
The Wentworth, An Elegant Country Inn
By
Dr. Kathy A. Mathis
A Man of Grace in a Place Apart
E
llie and Fritz Koeppel have been married twice. To each other.
The first time was November 2005 in an Elvis Chapel in Las
Vegas. Fritz tricked her into it by deliberately missing a turn for
the bridge that should have taken them from Montreal back to
Jackson, New Hampshire. He claimed he had found a short cut.
It wasn’t long before Ellie, clever observer that she is, realized they
were headed for an airport. Apparently, the couple’s happiness
quotient was increased by good luck in Vegas – they drew a middle
of the road Elvis: Not too old, not too young; although appareled
in his later years’ customary bling, he himself had not yet gone to
fat. Not the ruined Elvis. The package included the bride’s walk
down the aisle with the faux King of Swing and three songs, which
Elvis crooned under bright fluorescent lights amid fake bouquets of
flowers. Their three songs included “Viva Las Vegas,” “Love Me
Tender,” and as Fritz jokingly quips, “Return to Sender.” They are
happy to report that the second song turned out to be the defining
one. Once not being enough, they got married the following April
by a Mayan shaman on the beach in Tulum, their favorite vacation
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spot. Several of their hotel staff accompanied them, including
Irina Ilieva, the all-capable Gal Friday from Bulgaria; Pat Davis,
loquacious front desk personality (now retired); Ike, local NH
native and savant, dishwasher for 30 years at the Wentworth; Fritz’s
two sons -- accomplished White Mountain landscape painter Erik
(and now with his lustrous-voiced girlfriend, peripatetic half of a
musical duo) and Alex, gene cruncher and bioinformatics expert.
Last but not least, an entire contingent of Murphys made their way
to the Yucatan Peninsula from County Cork, Ellie’s family “home.”
No story about the elegant Wentworth Inn in Jackson should start
without an encomium to love and country. Weddings saturate the
place and the genius of place itself, sustained by the hospitality
Diaspora from Switzerland, Ireland, and Eastern Europe, not to
mention the hyper-local talent from Jackson, stuns you with its
dynamic peace. Even from the beginning it was so. After serving
as a soldier fighting for the Union in the Civil War, Marshall
Wentworth returned to Jackson, where he had grown up on a
working farm, in order to marry Georgia Trickey, another Jackson
farm girl. On another romantic November, this one in 1868,
Marshall wrote a letter to Georgia’s father, Joshua, lamenting the
fact that he had not seen the “lady that I love better than my life
for two long years.” If Mr. Trickey would give his consent to the
proposal, the letter continued, it would bestow upon Mr. Wentworth
the utmost happiness. Given the passionate tone of the letter, one
could easily imagine the two lovers defying parental authority and
eloping, had Mr. Trickey not said “yes.” The Wentworth, then,
might never have come on line. As it turned out, Mr. Tricky was
overjoyed, and in the merry month of May 1869, the two were wed
and the “Thorn Mountain House” presented to them as a wedding
present. In 1883, they built Wentworth Hall, site of the present
main building of the Inn.
The couple ran the hotel successfully well past the turn of the
century, engaging New York City architect William Bates to design
a series of connected cottages. The popular Queen Anne style of
the Victorian era, badge of peculiar beauty that still distinguishes
the historic hotel today, is recognizable by its decorative shingle
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siding, chivalric turrets, arched passageways, sharp angle gables,
and wraparound porch broad enough for group dancing. At the
peak of its 19th century prosperity, the complex was self-sustaining
and boasted 39 buildings, including an electric plant, farm and
greenhouses, a laundry, a dairy and pasteurization plant, a blacksmith
shop, printers shop, telegraph office, boutique, casino, beauty parlor,
three dining rooms, and the first ever golf course, a full six holes,
in the Washington Valley. The Wentworths could host and house
over 400 guests and employees. Today it is a destination world class
inn, part of the Jackson Falls National Historic District along with
seven other buildings circling the little town center.
During the 1970s the Grand Resort Hotels of New Hampshire were
in decline. It was no less true for The Wentworth, which had been
abandoned and boarded up. When it fell into disuse in the early
‘80s, only seven shabby buildings of the 39 once-lavish ones had
survived. The family that owned the Wentworth Golf Course at
the time was entrepreneurial. They sought permission to build 80
condominiums around the golf course. The clever town fathers of
Jackson agreed to give permission with a proviso: the must restore
The Wentworth. The seven buildings were a great eye sore in the
center of the Village, and they badly needed attention, but the family
was disinclined to invest fully in an old grand resort hotel. The
present owners describe the mandated restoration efforts as placing
serviceable “band aids” on the existing structures. Nevertheless,
the hotel reopened in 1984 and was run by a local businessman
until the recession of 1990 when he was forced to divest some of his
property. Enter Fritz Koeppel, year 1990.
At the time, Fritz had been general manager at Banff Springs
Hotel in Alberta where he generated record profits at the famous
Canadian icon. He had long been known in the industry as the
king of renovation, cutting his teeth on Ritz-Carlton in Boston and
Chicago and then the Four Seasons in Edmonton, Toronto, and
Santa Barbara. A product of the world-celebrated École Hôtelière
de Lausanne, Switzerland, Fritz was hankering to return to New
England and the four seasons of nature if not hotels. He was tired
of big companies and wanted to strike out on his own. He got into
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his car and started driving around New England. He travelled over
15,000 miles looking at hotels and creating a profile of what he
wanted to buy. He knew he wanted a hotel with over 35 rooms, and
he knew it had to have a restaurant and at least two seasons. When
he arrived in Jackson, he met up with Peter Pinkham, a realtor who
told him that Bank of New England was going under and now was
a great time to buy. Fritz was shown The Stonehurst Manor in
North Conway which was on the market, and while it had many of
the elements that he was looking for, it did not have everything. As
fate would have it, the same proprietor also owned The Wentworth.
Donning his trickster costume and a pseudo French accent (which
came off naturally since Fritz speaks French, Italian, Spanish,
German, and Swiss German quite fluently, with a dash of Gaelic
thrown in for good measure), he approached Pat Davis at the front
desk of the Wentworth pretending to be a tour operator. Being the
trusting sort, she gave him all the keys. One look was all he needed.
It was love at first sight.
Strangely enough, Ellie had been there the year before on a J-1 visa
from Ireland, just for the summer. What she really wanted to do was
go to South America to live and work. Her professor at University
College Cork had warned her to start saving for a plane ticket since
there was nothing for her in economically depressed Ireland. She
had missed Fritz by a year. But when a friend persuaded her to enter
a green card lottery and she won, she decided to come back to the
Wentworth for foliage season. That was in 1993, and Fritz had been
the owner for three years. She walked in the doors in September,
and by November they were in love. They had a long courtship,
during which time they fixed leaky pipes and fished squirrels out of
toilets. During which time Ellie heard there was such a thing as
iced tea (a sacrilege) and iced coffee. She made a glaring mistake
at the outset of her waitressing career by putting lemon in the ice
coffee. It didn’t go over well. Not surprisingly, she had never heard
the term “86.” Many of her customers in the dining rooms were
ordering lobster the day she furthered her education. When she
came in to the kitchen with the orders and the chef said they were
out of lobsters, Ellie, chagrined, replied, “But you have 86 left!”
She was lucky she wasn’t there in ’91, when all the heat was electric
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and the first bill came to $18,000.
The Swiss King of Renovation plunked his life savings and all his
profits back into the hotel for the first 10 years. Nothing the guests
could even see, really: Heating. Plumbing. He just kept chipping
away, paving, painting, re-fitting, trying to keep to the original,
but ripping up what was ugly, like the lobby carpeting. Fritz knew
there was good hardwood under there, he just wasn’t sure if it was
thick enough to restore. But when he relayed the measurements
to “Vinny” the Italian floor guy, Vinny, who was then in his 70s,
said, I’ll be right over. It took him six weeks to finish. It was 1996.
Ellie remembers the year because there was the constant roar of the
sander, and then it would stop for a few seconds, while Vinny passed
wind uproariously, and the sander would resume. It was a noisy,
bilious season of renewal.
Local rumor has it that Fritz might have bought the hotel for Ike,
because Ike was there first, at least five years before Fritz. To give
Ike some street cred, we need to flashback to 1998, when Fritz and
Ellie nominated Ike for employee of the year in the NH restaurant
division of the state’s annual hospitality awards night, a big deal
held that year at the Omni Mount Washington. Ike was up against
two chefs that had garnered wholesale kudos by guests. Of course no
guest is going to say a thing about a dishwasher, so the Wentworth
staff built their own case.
One hundred percent of the staff wrote pages upon pages of praise
for their favorite employee. One of Ellie’s favorite submissions was
from their youngest and newest employee at the time. She said that
Ike hollered out to her from the kitchen. “Wait up!” He appeared
with an oversized umbrella. He said to her, “It’s raining. Let me
walk you out and make sure you don’t get eaten by a bear.” It
probably didn’t hurt his chances any that his homemade trail mix is
considered trade goods around Jackson. Whenever any of the girls
are mad at him, he comes in well stocked. Raisins don’t’ get within
six feet of the sweet and salty mix. It’s a combination of chocolate
M & Ms (plain and peanut), butterscotch apple cinnamon cheerios,
mixed nuts, and sunflower kernels. Everyone loves an underdog,
and apparently the whole room was rooting for Ike that night.
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When he was declared the winner, the place erupted. He gave a
big speech that went something like this: “I sure as hell don’t know
how the hell I deserved this. But I’m sure as hell not giving it back.”
This year, Fritz and Ellie are grooming Ike for night manager, so
it will be out of the hot kitchen and into the warm lobby for him.
No more jeans, sneakers and t-shirts; in fact, prior to his promotion
Fritz took Ike shopping and got him Brook-Brothered up for his
new position. Yes, Ike came with the Wentworth. He started in
August of 1985 planning to work for just a couple of months. He’s
outlasted three dish washing machines, two kitchen floors and an
entire kitchen remodeling. If he had a family crest, it would read, “I
endure.” Ike can walk the floor of the award winning restaurant and
spot tarnished sliver from across the room. His motto is, if it isn’t
done well, it isn’t done. And it will be done before he goes home.
What keeps Ike on at the Wentworth is the respect he’s shown by
Ellie and Fritz. Fritz has been around the world running resorts
and rubbing elbows with notable people. But he treats everyone as
equals. Ike says Fritz is the most steady-tempered person he’s ever
known, and he knows him well after 25 years of 70-hour weeks.
He’s only seen Fritz angry once in all that time, when vandals took
some paintings off the wall and threw them in the street.
Ike has a memory built on long hours of reflection and affection,
in the kitchen and out. When he took significant time off to hike
the Pacific Crest Trail, he said Fritz could have told him to keep on
hiking, but his job was waiting when he returned. He doesn’t so
much look at mountains as he walks now, but at time itself: Here,
the White Mountains are 485 million years old, the time it has
taken to wear down 20,000 feet of granite to 5,000 feet. These
surrounding mountains and the rushing waters of two rivers give the
Wentworth its peculiar sense of timelessness, although Ike knows
that just as important to the Inn’s prestige is Fritz’s determination
and passion – the same gutsiness that went into tearing down and
rebuilding every cottage and building at the Wentworth – Amster,
Sunnyside, Fairlawn, Arden and Thornycroft, not to mention
the main building itself. An elevator is next on the list, then the
renovation of Wildwood Cottage which is currently closed and
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used for storage. Then one would think he could take a breather.
Not so! The Koeppel’s know that their labor of love will continue
throughout their tenure at The Wentworth.
For Tamsin Freeman, who is retired but still serves in the dining
room when needed, the Wentworth is something out of a Thomas
Hardy novel. Before Fritz saved the Wentworth, she remembers
deliberately giving visitors bad directions and weaving in and out of
guests on her bicycle. Her father was the local plumber, so he had
keys to all the buildings. She and her friends made mischief in and
around the hotel, switching flags on the golf course, rushing in and
out of rooms, their only excuse being that there wasn’t much to do
in Jackson, and tipping cows was out of fashion. When she was a
child, 25 buildings still stood, including staff quarters, a caddy shack,
a movie theater and a ballroom. She remembers in the 50s and 60s
swimming at the old Solarium, a pool built into the river with decks
for eating, drinking, and sunning layered into the embankments.
There was an electric shower generated by piped in river water
so strong it could take your bathing suit off. Every year the decks
would have to be rebuilt when the ice melted. Mostly visitors came
from New York and Florida. They’d walk the streets after dinner
dressed in their diamonds and minks in the middle of July. The men
all smoked cigars. Every summer the hotel hired a couple to teach
dancing to the crinolined guests. They danced every night on the
porch of Wentworth Hall and neighbors would open their windows
to hear the sound of band music.
But what Tamsin remembers most clearly is the graciousness
of Fritz and his ability to create an atmosphere of inclusiveness.
Every Tuesday night for the past 30 years, the Wildcat Tavern up
the street features “hoot night.” Fritz, wanting his foreign student
workers to fit in and have fun, would lead the charge to the Tavern
towing 10 or 12 employees behind. He doesn’t need to speak about
living life fully, he just does it. And he continues to demonstrate it
most clearly as host. Every year, he closes the dining room for staff
Christmas parties and for the golf cookout at his house. As hosts,
he and Ellie collect empties, cook burgers, clean dishes, arrange
flowers, toss salads, and laugh easily with all comers. If you haven’t
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tried his veal tenderloins you haven’t really lived.
Fritz and Ellie want to make sure people get taken care of, both guests
and staff. They greatly reward great loyalty. Irina is a case in point.
When she arrived at the Wentworth at 23 years of age, she barely
spoke English. Nonetheless, they sponsored her for a management
trainee program because they saw something in her. She put her
head down, like Ike, and never complained. She acquired an F-4
visa, got her degree in finance from UNH, College of Lifelong
Learning, and then went on to earn her MBA from Plymouth. Ellie
describes her as determined and dedicated to them, and she runs the
hotel hand in hand with Ellie and Fritz. “She sees the hotel from
an owner’s viewpoint. No short cuts. She can do it all – marketing,
bookkeeping, dining room, front desk, room service. Whatever it
takes, she’s there. We are very lucky to have her.” It’s a mutual
admiration. When Irina was in a car accident a few years ago, the
first person she called was Ellie. In this industry, she says, it’s good
to like your work, because it’s 24/7, spending holidays together, and
filling in for people when they’re in the hospital having babies.
There is something about Fritz and Ellie that make people want to
say, “Don’t let me go.” They make a couple feel as if they were the
only wedding of the season, even though the big white tent never
comes down in the summer. Of course, there’s something about
Jackson, too -- A combination of sublime scenery, art history, the
promise of epic hikes up the Presidentials or cross country skis over
the Ellis River, 18 holes of pristine golf, a day of cycling through
mountain passes, trout fishing on the Wildcat River, and walkabouts
in the national forest. The Wentworth itself and all the cottages
that belong to the property are built around the concept of respite
from a crazy world. Nothing takes place in a hurry in Jackson. Fritz
knows that if he’s going to the post office on Saturday, he needs to
plan to spend a good half hour there. Everyone will want to talk
to him, find out how he’s been doing since the Saturday before. If
you’re one of the lucky couples getting married there and you’ve
lost your suitcase on the plane, no worries! Someone will have a
pair of shoes for you. They may not be the right size. That actually
happened on Pat Davis’ watch. She said the groom had to shuffle
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along in the too-big shoes of one of the staff, but then right before
the ceremony his own shoes arrived and they rushed them to the
altar.
Pat, who is retired now after almost 30 years at The Wentworth,
was also nominated by the Koeppels for an industry award in 1996,
when she won Employee of the Year for the State of NH. Pat says
that when you come to work here a certain “energy” takes over. An
overriding sense of unity and teamwork prevail – whatever needs to
be done in the kitchen, the rooms, anything that makes the guest
happy – everyone will pitch in. Pat still cultivates a twang of her
South Carolina accent; she is impeccably groomed and likes to
chat. She still takes ballroom dance at 74 and has a flair for the
Argentinian Tango. In a bit of girl to girl black humor she confesses
that she’s probably killed two partners already. But, she says, they
died with their shoes on. She’s been bored since retirement; she loved
going to work. But she was forced out by unreliable knees. When
it comes to Fritz, she’s an unapologetic admirer. He’s charming,
gracious, handsome, always there, and he’s got that Swiss accent.
She says she’s never known him to miss a day of work, unless he’s
on vacation. And he never stops upgrading: carpeting, upholstery,
furniture, kitchen, in ground pool – always kept between 78 and 80
degrees.
Fritz and Ellie treat guests as if they were relatives that they actually
like and haven’t seen for a few years, even when they return every
season. It shows in all the personal touches: backlit digital menus
the better to see what delicious choices you have; fragrant flower
bouquets from the back garden in oversized glass vases; architectural
surprises like stained glass insets in the chimney; original White
Mountain landscape art; farm to table local vegetables; suites with
heated bathroom floors, separate hot tub rooms and big screen TVs
overlooking the golf course – you certainly don’t get that in New
York City or San Francisco. In a way, they are still new owners
after 25 years – they never stop innovating. And not everyone
gets Jinnie Kim, of Jinnie Kim Design out of Boston who sits on
the top of the textile chain when it comes to interior design for
large luxury hotels. She adopted Fritz and Ellie because she liked
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them and brought her rapid-fire, luxury hotel stratagems to bear on
Jackson. Of 61 rooms, 40 have been completely transformed into
luxury suites and the 21 rooms in the main inn have comfortably
and elegantly restored.
Fritz is quick to give credit for his success to others, in particular
Jim Bennett who was the GM at the Ritz in Boston and with whom
Fritz worked side by side for seven years. Apparently, Jim had
so much charm and panache, so much grace and respect that he
could fire people and they would thank him. Fritz calls him an
exceptional hotel man, a reincarnation of Caesar Ritz. He lived
in the hotel, hardly ever seen without a pinstriped suit, and would
appear in the lobby every day between 5:30 and 7 PM greeting
each guest. From people like Jim Bennett and Issy Sharp, a founder
of the Four Seasons, he learned the “3 Ps” of hotel management:
people, product, and profit. For Fritz, running the Wentworth is
all about happy employees doing what they do best, and never
saying a bad word about a guest. When you have the right team and
fellow workers treat each other as friends, then you can worry about
curb appeal and the physical aspects, keeping the profit motive in
focus. As Fritz put it, you can spend millions on stylish furniture,
landscaping, and renovations, but if a housekeeper doesn’t vacuum
the carpet or a waiter is surly at the table, it all goes for nothing.
The bottom line is that is you have the right people and the right
product you never have to worry about the profit.
But long before Jim Bennett, there was the Meierhof Restaurant
(cross between an Irish pub and a neighborhood eatery) that Fritz’s
parents owned in the town of Waedenswil on the Lake of Zurich.
They served lunch and dinner six days a week. Cliental would
come to play cards, eat, tell stories, chat with their neighbors,
and fraternize with Oscar and Ida, Fritz’s father and mother. Oscar
cooked and Ida, waitressed and tended bar. As soon as Fritz could
help in the restaurant he did. Both diligent and precocious, by age
seven he was manning the coffee machine. He had to get it right,
coffee being the nucleus of Swiss life. By nine he was manning the
cash register and stocking wines and refrigerators. He became a
master bookkeeper.
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While Fritz loved the restaurant business he wanted more. As a
young teenager he was determined to attend the École Hôtelière
de Lausanne – the best hotel school in Switzerland and possibly
the world. This schooling would be entirely in French and since
Fritz’s mother tongue was Swiss German, he decided at 15 to move
to Lausanne for a year to become fluent in French. He worked
at a Laiterie selling all types of cheeses, milk and dairy products.
Every morning Fritz would open the store, the fresh milk would
be delivered in churns, and he would load two of them onto a cart
behind his bicycle and ride through the town fulfilling orders. The
locals would leave their empty milk bottles with a note letting him
know what they wanted that day – how much milk, what cheeses,
etc.
After gaining fluency in French, Fritz completed a food service
apprenticeship, cutting a year off of expensive hotel schooling.
He apprenticed at the Alpen Blick Hotel, where he studied wine
and food, working at the hotel during their busy season and taking
classes in the off season. The apprenticeship lasted two and a half
years and Fritz graduated with the best grades of the Canton of
Glarus. Always on a quest for more knowledge and mastery of world
languages, he traveled to Guernsey, one of the Channel Islands,
where he worked at the Manor House Hotel for the season to learn
English. He next moved to Tenerife to learn Spanish and spent the
winter working at the Hotel Valle Mar in Puerto de al Cruz – the
one and only winter of his life where he did not ski.
Fritz had not yet seen enough of the world, not by half. He traveled
to Rotterdam, earning his “Monster Bookje,” which allowed him
to work on ships. For his first job aboard the freight ship “Leto” he
was flown to Belfast to embark. (When he first met Ellie he told
her that he had been “hijacking” in Ireland. Ellie backed away
wondering who this lunatic was until he made the universal sign for
hitchhiking and she realized that he probably was not so bad). The
crew of this ship was Dutch but mostly spoke English to Fritz. He
read his first book in English during this trip, which took him from
Belfast to Montreal, up the St. Lawrence River to Thousand Islands
in upstate New York, and on to Toledo, Ohio to pick up a load of
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grain. It’s a miracle that he continued to work the seas, since he
experienced the most horrific storms of his life on the return to
Rotterdam.
In Piombino, Italy, the crew picked up a cargo of coal and delivered
it to Sierra Leone. Soon after he joined the crew of the Hapag
Lloyd, a combination passenger and freight. He travelled to Penang,
Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Philippines and back to
South Hampton, England. Fritz’s chief occupation on board was
to translate menus from German to English, enough for the day.
Printing in those days was a little more daunting, more manual, and
inky. Before long, Fritz being Fritz, he mastered the translations and
the printing mechanism and could complete this task in less than
two hours. Books in English were plentiful aboard ship and Fritz
read more during his free hours.
In Alexandria, Egypt Fritz printed menus days ahead of schedule
and subsequently convinced the ship captain to let him travel to
Cairo where he explored the National Museum of Cairo, admired
the Great Sphinx, marveled at the Pyramids in Giza, and re-joined
the ship in Port Suez, a much worldlier Fritz. His hospitality career
was interrupted back in Switzerland when he completed mandatory
military training. After an initial 26 weeks, he was required, as with
all Swiss males, to return every year for three weeks until the age of 32
when service was reduced to two weeks per year. After three months
of basic training he was sent to various villages in Switzerland where
he slept in tents, school houses, and gymnasiums, a far cry from fine
linens and bone china. Fritz was in the mountaineering division
and one of the requirements was to be able to march for 50 km in
full gear in less than 24 hours. It was during this time that he finally
applied to the École Hôtelière de Lausanne; one of the happiest days
of his life was the day he received notice of acceptance. But with
school starting in a year Fritz realized he needed to make money so
he went to sea once again.
In Bremerhaven, Germany he joined the MS Europa, a giant of a
ship with 1,500 passengers and 1,500 crew. The ship traveled from
New York on a seven day cruise to the Caribbean and back, during
which time Fritz started a lifelong love affair with the Caribbean
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and with snorkeling. He opened a bank account in New York and
deposited his tips every two weeks. At the end of the nine months
with his tips, regular pay, and overtime he had saved enough money
to pay for two years of college.
From 1967 to 1971 Fritz attended the College with 300 other
students from 33 different countries. He studied hard but also
enjoyed the heady distillation of life, making friends from all over
the world, many of whom remain in touch today. He completed
a culinary internship in Zermatt at the Mont Cervin Hotel under
Chef Orsini, which turned out to be one of the best winters of his
life, not just for the work, but the world class skiing.
Towards the end of hotel school he saw a notice that the Ritz
Carlton in Boston was offering a management trainee program. It
would require him to spend spring and fall at the Ritz in Boston
and summers at The Eastern Slope Inn in North Conway. To top
it off, the program included classes at Cornel University. Fritz’s
drive to understand the American way of hospitality was keen, and
naturally he jumped at the opportunity. He arrived in Bean Town
on March 17, 1971 to the peculiarly Boston sights and sounds of
a St. Patrick Day parade weaving its way through the streets of
Southie, firework displays, and the near universal consumption of
green beer. He spent a year and a half in training.
In 1972 he took a year off to travel South America. He bought
a van in Boston and refurbished it into a comfortable camper,
leaving Boston with only an idea to be at the carnival in Rio de
Janeiro in February. He travelled through Mexico, Guatemala, El
Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and into Panama. The Darien Gap
in Panama is a break in the Pan-American Highway consisting of a
large swath of undeveloped swampland and forest measuring 160km
long and 50km wide. He left his camper there with a friend from
hotel school and travelled by plane to Columbia and on to Ecuador,
Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay and on to Brazil, traveling by
boat, plane, train, van and on foot. Having traveled the Pacific
Coast, he returned to Panama, picked up his van, and set out for the
Caribbean and Mexican coast where he discovered the beautiful
town of Tulum. Later in life he took regular trips there with Ellie,
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and since she liked it so well, they enacted their second wedding on
that beach.
Fritz finally settled back in Switzerland, becoming front office
manager at the Hotel Butterfly in Zurich. (It was popular at the time
for Swiss hotels to have English names.) Ella Fitzgerald was one of
the hotels many famous guests. Given the extent of his travels, one
would think he’d come home to stay, at least for a few years. One
would be mistaken. After little more than a year in his homeland
he was contacted by the Ritz Carlton in Chicago and offered the
position of front office manager there. He took it. The hotel was
the first multipurpose use building in North America with a hotel,
retail, and condominiums all housed in one building. Opening was
delayed, however, and Fritz was once again relocated to the Ritz
Carlton in Boston where he became food and beverage director from
1974 to 1979. Fritz believes that the position fell in his lap because
of his European accent and his capacity to pronounce a wine’s name
with authority, no matter its origins. During his tenure in Boston,
he also assisted with the opening of the Ritz Carlton Chicago in
1975.
In 1979 he was contacted by the Woodards, a prominent family
in Oregon. They were frequent guests of the Ritz in Boston while
their son was attending Harvard. They offered Fritz the position of
general manager of their property, the Village Green in Cottage
Grove, which at the time was one of only two five diamond hotels
listed by AAA and five star hotels rated by Mobil in Oregon. Never
one to miss an opportunity or new adventure, Fritz said yes. He had
a young son, Alex, at the time and thought Oregon would be a great
place to raise him. During his time in Cottage Grove his second
son, Erik, was born. The family lived the good life in a large home
with a fenced in yard and a swimming pool.
In 1982, on another extraordinary day in the storied life of Fritz
Koeppel, he received a call from a headhunter offering the position
of resident manager of the Ritz in Chicago, then managed by Four
Seasons Hotels. With hardly a thought, he moved his family to a
three bedroom suite 31 stories up in the new hotel where his two
sons learned to ride their tricycles on the housekeeping floor. Life
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for the family was room service, laundry dropped into a basket
and returned clean and pressed, and the in and out daily tide of
housekeeping. During his time as resident manager the hotel was
voted number one in North America and number seven in the
world. But Fritz’s goal was to be the general manager of a Four
Seasons Hotel. The call was not long in coming. In ‘84, John
Sharpe, Executive Vice President of Operations, offered him just
that – he would only have to move, again, to Edmonton, Canada.
Fritz’s first reaction was “where is that and will they have the Wall
Street Journal.” He later received a call from Isadore “Issy” Sharp
the founder and chairman of Four Seasons Hotels thanking him for
accepting the position. Issy informed Fritz that they had thought of
him because of his proximity to the Canadian Rockies and because
of Fritz’s love of skiing. Issy told him that in Edmonton he would
have the greatest hotel staff ever -- Ukranian immigrants with a
great work ethic. This proved true. Issy told him also that as a GM
he’d need to be more involved in the community, become a member
of local boards and be an active promoter of the hotel. A typical
activity, at least initially, was for Fritz to participate in an event like
“Tea and Crumpets.” It was a three week publicity stunt to make
it to the top of Mount Logan, the highest mountain in Canada and
the second highest peak in North America at 5,959 meters. Fritz
was joined in the expedition by pilot Peter Lake; Hector McKenzie,
a guide out of White Horse, Yukon; and Nick Danger, a journalist
for the Edmonton Journal. In his daily reports, Nick would regale
readers with the team’s exploits. One article in the Journal quotes
Fritz: “Climbers have always told me the thrill of testing their
courage, initiative, skills, strength and fitness sent them up the
mountains. But I think it’s because the sheer grandeur of mountains
brings a stillness to the soul.”
Unfortunately, the summit attempt was unsuccessful. Weather
trapped the four for seven days 182 meters below the summit. Once
it was clear they were stuck, Hector instructed them to dig out a
shelf, cut out blocks of ice and anchor the tent with them. The wind
was so strong that they each had to take a turn holding the center
pole of the tent. Fritz had brought along a book, James Michener’s
Space. When he finished a page, he ripped it out and passed it
Page 15
along. (Book desecration is a forgivable offense given seven days in
a tent on a windswept mountain peak.) Of course, it was impossible
to get word back to Edmonton, and the entire town was on edge.
After a year and a half in Edmonton, having upgraded the AAA
rating from four diamonds to five, Fritz received another call from
Issy offering him the GM position at the Inn on the Park in Toronto.
It wouldn’t be like Fritz to settle in anywhere. Besides, in Toronto
he would direct a multi-million dollar renovation. The Inn on the
Park was the largest (with 568 rooms and 600 employees) and oldest
hotel in the Four Seasons chain. He couldn’t say no. Fritz’s fame
was spreading. Even the Queen Mother of England noticed him.
He was featured on the front page of the Globe and Mail having a
cocktail with her during his stint in Toronto.
After a successful renovation in 1987 Fritz became general manager
of The Four Seasons Biltmore in Santa Barbara, which had just
been purchased from Marriott Hotels for 58 million. Once there,
he immediately started a 15 million dollar renovation while
simultaneously operating the hotel. At this time Reagan was in
office and the Four Seasons was dubbed the West Coast White
House. A personal letter from President Regan hangs today in
Fritz’s home in Jackson thanking him for making him, his wife and
his staff so comfortable at the hotel.
Renovations were 95% complete by March 1988 when Fritz was
contacted by Canadian Pacific Hotels and invited to head the
famous Banff Springs Hotel in Alberta. Plans were underway to
spend 30 million renovating the hotel, creating a spa, and improving
the entire arrival experience. But in 1990 a recession hit the north
east and Canada: the renovation was put on hold. Fritz decided that
this was the time to start searching for his own hotel. He left Banff
in April, 1990 and landed at The Wentworth Hotel in November.
He never looked back.
Fritz’s office retreat on the top of the Wentworth commands a
stirring view of the rushing Wild River. The staff calls it The Tower
of Power. These days, Fritz is more comfortable in an office just off
the lobby, made cozy by photos of friends and family and son Eric’s
Page 16
landscape paintings. He is actively translating his dream and his
vision to Ellie and to his longtime employees. Each one of them
knows what it takes to run an elegant country inn. Of course, it
is still Fritz whose animating spirit, youthful energy and boundless
grace make every day at the Wentworth a pleasant surprise.
Fritz always brings champagne to the kitchen
for all the staff every New Year’s Eve!
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Annie, The Wentworth Hotel Dog
Fritz and his grandson, Brandon
Fritz and Ellie in Switzerland
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Fritz, Ellie, their nephew Brian and nieces Maggie and
Roisin at their wedding in Mexico
Fritz and the Murphy Family in Ireland
Fritz, Ellie and staff on the occasion of their dishwasher
Ike Garland being awarded “Employee of the year” for
the State of NH, Restaurant Division
Page 19
Fritz and the Koeppel Family in Mexico
Fritz and his niece, Maggie
Fritz and Ellie with niece Yvonne and her sons Sasha
and Robin who live in Switzerland
Page 20
New England Inns & Resorts Association
PO Box 1089
North Hampton, NH 03862
PH: 603-964-6689
www.NewEnglandInnsandResorts.com