Can Luxury Be Scaled? Delivering a Five-Star Experience in a 1,000-Room Hotel

Luxury hospitality tends to come in small packages. To put a number to this, Relais & Châteaux’s renowned luxury properties across North America average around 40 rooms, with few exceeding 70. For hotels of this size, it’s manageable (though never simple or easy) to give every guest the intimate attention that should lie at the heart of the luxury experience. A general manager can be visible. Staff become familiar faces, and guests become familiar faces as well, with stories known in detail by the people serving them.

So what happens when the operation is larger? How do you maintain standards when a property operates at the scale of a village or small town?

I had to figure this out in a hurry.

In April 2021, I took on the responsibility as president and CEO of The Boca Raton in South Florida, a 1,000+-room property, with a specific remit from ownership: elevate the resort to a Forbes Five-Star level and capture full STR share against its established competitors. The deadline was The Boca Raton’s 100th anniversary in 2026—an aggressive timetable, particularly given that a major transformation, with a cost in the hundred millions, was already underway.

We were about to find out if luxury could be delivered at that size without losing what makes it luxury in the first place: recognition, familiarity, and a sense that the hotel knows and anticipates the guest.

Divide and Delight

It was clear to me when I took the job that delivering luxury at this scale would require us to subdivide, conceptually and operationally. With ownership’s approval, I proposed dividing the campus into five distinct hotels under The Boca Raton’s umbrella, each with its own leadership structure, service rhythm, and guest profile. If we succeeded, the resort would operate on a large scale, but the guest would never experience it that way.

These “hotels within a hotel” range from 60 to 300 rooms—large enough to run operationally, small enough to feel welcoming, even cozy. I think of these as pockets of connection, environments where guests are recognized and where associates have the opportunity to know the people they are serving.

The hotels are segmented as follows:

• Beach Club emphasizes a relaxed pace and informal interaction—what we describe as modern “barefoot elegance”—for guests seeking an unpretentious oceanfront stay.

• Cloister serves primarily corporate and group travelers, with nearly 300 rooms and direct access to extensive meeting space within architect Addison Mizner’s original 1926 design.

• Yacht Club provides an all-suites, adults-only, particularly private experience with the highest level of individual attention.

• Tower serves families and multigenerational travelers who often require flexibility and accessibility.

• Bungalows offer residential-style accommodations for longer stays, with a distinct architectural and experiential feel, along the lines of a Florida version of a stay in Santa Barbara.

Each hotel has its own personality and arrival experience while delivering the same core service standards and full access to the amenities of the 200-acre private Club and resort. When a guest needs something, whether routine or in a pinch, the response comes from someone who already knows them face to face.

Here’s an example from not long ago, at our intimate Yacht Club hotel; a returning guest was eagerly awaiting an Amazon package. Knowing the guest, we brought it up on a wooden tray with a particular touch: scissors. (It may sound minor, but think it through: this was a guest, like many of ours, who wants for nothing, at least nothing that money can buy. But you can bet he didn’t have scissors in his luggage. And while he could, like many of us do, inelegantly rip the package open with his hands, why not elevate his experience?

With the hotel and staff being right-sized, he could, accurately, feel that it was one of the employees he had met who had added this special touch for him.) In a more common example, if someone breaks a heel on their way out, we can fix it right in the building. If a guest’s kid is getting a little cranky (I know your kid wouldn’t!), a familiar face is there to find or cook up new diversions for them on the spot.

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