Tyler Morse is just trying to have some fun.
The lively chief executive and founder of MCR Hotels, a top three owner-operator of hotels in the U.S., relishes peculiar opportunities. He also enjoys a good font – Calibri, in fact — and delights in a game of Jenga, an interesting wrinkle for a man whose job requires him to both raze and build structures.
Morse, a native of Los Angeles and the son of a corporate lawyer and travel agent, enjoys the little things about his job, telling Hospitality Investor, “If you’re not having fun, why bother?”
Fun certainly seems to be in his and, by extension, his company’s DNA. MCR is well known for unique projects, such as the High Line Hotel in Manhattan or the popular, award-winning TWA Hotel at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, which honors vintage air travel and lodging and the historic Trans World Airlines through a mid-20th century aesthetic in a redeveloped TWA terminal. The High Line Hotel project, in particular, was realized via an adaptive reuse of an Episcopalian seminary in Manhattan.
MCR’s arrival on the national hotel scene was many years in the making, but its reputation has accelerated considerably since global shutdowns in the spring of 2020, as the company has found opportunities to capitalize on market dislocations.
Strategic Bets
In recent years, Morse has talked often about market distress and having the instinct and courage to make strategic bets when opportunities arise, when there’s “blood in the streets,” he said.
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