Alan Fuerstman had a different idea about luxury. In Montage, it’s been a triumph.

It’s been 20 years since Montage Laguna Beach opened its doors. Back then, global worry centered on SARS not COVID. Alan Fuerstman, meanwhile, was focused on his brand-spanking-new luxury brand, Montage Hotels & Resorts. He made what might not sound intrepid now, but back then was a bold bet: approachable luxury.

In the early aughts, luxury was still dominated by the legacy flags, Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons, to name two, purveyors of heavy luxury. They had it down to an art form, all the way to the dense drapery. Fuerstman, now an Orange County resident by way of New Jersey, saw a gap in the market, the awareness that another type of luxury traveler existed who wanted a less stuffy experience that was still high end and high on style.

“My take on luxury was that it was too pretentious, too formal and that the next generation of luxury traveler was looking for something more humble in the form of style, service and culture,” Fuerstman, the founder, chairman and CEO of Montage International, told HOTELS about his vision some two decades ago.

By that time, he had worked his way up the ladder. A product of the 1960s, when idealism was a practice and not a fancy, Fuerstman worked part-time as a bellman at a local Marriott hotel until shipping off to Gettysburg College. Upon graduation, Fuerstman made his Horace Greeley move and headed out west on the invitation of a general manager he had worked for in New Jersey. Marriott at the time was opening a resort in Rancho Mirage, Calif. “I was just planning on going on an adventure out there with a friend,” he said. He was given the distinguished role of bell captain and it was then and there that hospitality burrowed in and embedded into his marrow. “I literally fell in love with the business. That was the real beginning of my career and I never looked back.”

Fuerstman’s luxury ethos was galvanized when he led The Phoenician resort in Scottsdale, Ariz., at a time when it was part of ITT Sheraton. It was the desert. It was the southwest. It was hot. Yet, still, the atmosphere suggested sport coats in the lobby and dining room. “What I took away was: Why don’t we make it more comfortable, but not lose any of the attention to detail, craftsmanship–the things that I feel are real markers of luxury,” he said.

“I thought there was an opportunity in the broader luxury space to create that kind of style of service coupled with an incredible physical property that didn’t look the same city to city.”

The seedling had been planted for Montage Hotels & Resorts. After a stopover in Las Vegas opening the Bellagio with Steve Wynn, Fuerstman created Montage in 2000 and opened the Montage Laguna Beach shortly thereafter. From the jump,…