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Master ofNew EnglandInnkeeping

pFritz Koeppel

The Wentworth, An Elegant Country Inn

ByDr. Kathy A. Mathis

Ellie 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

A Man of Grace in a Place Apart

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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!

Fritz and his grandson, Brandon

Fritz and Ellie in Switzerland

Annie, The Wentworth Hotel Dog

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

Fritz, Ellie, their nephew Brian and nieces Maggie and Roisin at their wedding in Mexico

Fritz and his niece, Maggie

Fritz and Ellie with niece Yvonne and her sons Sasha and Robin who live in Switzerland

Fritz and the Koeppel Family in Mexico

New England Inns & Resorts Association PO Box 1089

North Hampton, NH 03862 PH: 603-964-6689

www.NewEnglandInnsandResorts.com

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