Opened in 2006, Lebua at State Tower has proven itself to be not only a stalwart of Bangkok’s competitive hotel scene but also one of its most enduring leaders, introducing the concept of vertically integrated luxury entertainment to Thailand and by corollary, Asia. Boasting not one but two two star Michelin restaurants (Mezzaluna and Chef’s Table) as well as the world’s highest open-air restaurant (Sirocco) at 810 feet above ground, the hotel is a must-visit destination (read our review here) for those who appreciate fine dining, spectacular views and service with a personal touch.
Former guest and Luxury Editor journalist Simon Rumley sat down with owner, Narawadee Bualert, and Vice President of Operations, Rajan Khurana, in the hotel’s curated champagne lounge, the Pink Bar, to discuss the hotel’s past, its present and its future.
Bualert’s induction into the hotel Industry was unusual to say the least. “I was studying Business Management at the University of Royal Holloway in North London. It was 1994 and in my generation at that time you either went into IB (investment banking) or advertising. I love travelling, I enjoy spending time with my friends, eating, clubbing, etc and I was always interested in creativity so I thought working in advertising would be the way forward. But one day, my mother came to London and she showed me a magazine with this building on it. She broke the news to me: ‘Okay, look, now we own this building!’ I was shocked.”
Bualert’s mother had zero experience of the hotel industry, although at that stage, the building wasn’t a hotel, more a space with residential and business units. In 1994, the Thai economy was booming. Interest rates were high, but banks were keen to lend money which meant many buildings were constructed, many of which were sold off plan. Bualert’s mother was, in fact, a lobbyist. Banks came to her, keen to offload an asset when someone else couldn’t keep up with payments. Assets included real estate, detached houses and even low rises but nothing near this size. “This was the biggest building in Southeast Asia at the time.” Bualert continues. “It’s 330,000 square meters and at that point, in 1994, the building was only constructed up to the 13 floor (there are 68 floors in total). My mum, who’s a kind of high-risk, high-return person, said yes to the building within half an hour of being offered it.”
Bualert swapped the streets of North London for those of Chicago and then New York where she joined her mother in a fact finding mission. They met architects, visited the Sears Tower, the Chrysler building and generally tried to understand how some of the world’s tallest, highest profile skyscrapers functioned as viable business ventures. What struck both women was the sale of their building’s units seemed completely random. There were 1716 condo owners scattered around the 13 floors but this represented only 40% of the building’s capacity and intended usage included both residential and business concerns. After deciding to streamline the building when selling the remaining units, Bualert senior spent three years pitching her new vision to the condo owners (all 1716 of them) and ultimately convinced them to follow her plan which in itself was a major achievement.
As if fate decided to play a cruel trick on the family, these plans were scuppered as, in 1997, the Tom Yum Goong crisis hit Thailand. The economic bubble burst. The Bank of Thailand floated the Baht. The Baht lost over 50% of its value almost over night. “It was so bad. A lot of people lost their jobs, a lot of people committed suicide. I think 58 financial institutions were foreclosed. There was chaos. Demand vanished. There was suddenly no one buying units…Overnight, we had a big ‘For Sale’ sign over the Thailand map but the tourism industry made a quantum leap and the government came up with a campaign to promote tourism even further. My mother’s a fighter…She’s a self-made businesswoman, so we sat back and thought, ‘OK, if there’s no demand, we might as well convert those units.’ ” And so it was that the idea for the Lebua at State Tower was born and, with it, the concept of vertically integrated entertainment.
Bualert still clearly remembers the day she visited the top of the building for the first time. It was via an elevator which ascended on the outside, not like the ones now which ascend on the inside. The lift felt rickety and she didn’t dare look at the view on what felt like a very slow ascent. In fact, she was so scared, she had to turn her back on it. “I stepped out and turned back around and, my God! It was when I really respected my mum. I thought, ‘Oh, my God, she made such a right decision. This is not what money can buy.’ I’d never seen anything like it. You can see the Old City, the Thon Buri side, the Bangkok side. You can see the CBD. You can even see the ocean. You see everything, you see the Chao Phraya River. It’s amazing and I had this kind of epiphany. I became emotional, like, ‘Oh my God! This is it! This is my destiny!”
Impressed by Las Vegas hotel,s which didn’t just peddle rooms as sleep chambers but offered lifestyle experiences to aspire to, entertainment to boast about, Bualert wanted her hotel to offer something similar. Still with no day-to-day experience of running such a venture, she and her mother hired a management company to work on the job’s nuts and bolts. The company was excited about everything except an outdoor rooftop restaurant. It had no interest in taking on such an extraneous venture. Didn’t believe it was interesting. Or that it had legs. Didn’t believe it would generate enough revenue. That it would be a burden to them and their employees. In a gut instinct move similar to the one that had brought the building into the family, Bualert asked her mother if she could establish a restaurant herself, one becoming of the stunning location. Her mother didn’t hesitate and agreed immediately.
By this point, Bualert had some experience managing a small neighbourhood eaterie but had to close it to concentrate on the much larger venture. After various false starts and dead ends, a friend introduced her to culinary behemoth Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who happened to be in town working on a promotion at the Mandarin Oriental kitchen he’d taken over at the tender age of 23 back in 1980. He loved the Lebua site, invited Bualert to New York to check out his burgeoning empire. Their sensibilities and visions matched and they assumed a Gentleman’s agreement in which he would develop a restaurant at the Lebua’s top. But yet again, fate conspired against the family. When the World Trade Centre collapsed, Jean-Georges had to focus on keeping his own restaurants afloat. Undeterred, unafraid of the steep learning curve ahead, Bualert decided to go it alone. Sirocco was officially launched in December 2003, three years before the hotel. It was an immediate success and remains as iconic now as it did at its opening. In the subsequent years, Breeze followed on the 52nd floor and Mazzaluna on the 65th.
Around this time, Bualert read a magazine article on a flight about the impending acquisition of the management company her family was using. She decided this was an opportunity to rebrand what, at the time, was called the Meritus Suites, especially as much of her senior restaurant team had at some stage been hoteliers. Her mother agreed and in 2006 Lebua At State Tower was born. I ask Khurana, who has worked his way up through the hotel’s infrastructure over the last fifteen years, what the secret of Bualert’s success is. ”I was having this conversation with a guest yesterday, actually. I shared with him the story of what happened during Covid and that she was probably the only owner in Thailand who did not fire a single member of staff. When you come and work with her, it’s more like a family.”
“I’m not trying to be cheesy,” Bualert concurs, “but my staff are like the wind beneath my wings. I had to keep going during Covid because I thought of the hundreds of families that relied on my leadership. The first thing I did for them, the least I could do, was to get everyone, every household, vaccinated. It wasn’t an easy thing over here and it was even more complicated because we have a large population of expat employees. The priority for the Thai government was to get the Thais vaccinated first and the expats later. But obviously, we had connections and every day our office would coordinate with those connections and every day, people went in the morning or in the evening, 10 people here, 20 people there…”
Bualert felt she came out of Covid a stronger person and a stronger leader and with a different operating system. “We have to create new concepts. This building is huge and we occupy only half of it. We have a whole pipeline planned for the next 10 years,’ she teases before explaining about the planned refurbishment of all the suites, about the possibility of making a kind of hotel members’ club on what is now the M floor, adding a spa, a state of the art fitness centre and several other ideas which align with contemporary sensibilities. “Potentially, we can develop a nightclub. We have our 10 restaurants and bars but we’re looking at 24 outlets in total, all to be run and managed by us…Though maybe it will be like a cruise ship with some collaborations.”
As it closes in on its first quarter century, with Baulert, Khurana and the whole management team functioning on full cylinders, the brand looks like it will continue to blaze a trail of glory as it continues to mature and grow.
The future is bright. The future is Lebua.
