Who

The man responsible for Studio 54 and the boutique hotel, Schrager no longer manages the collection of properties he created in the '80s and '90s. But he's in the process of building a new empire.

Backstory

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Ian is the son of Louis Schrager, an associate of Meyer Lansky who ran a gambling racket in the '50s and later served time in prison on conspiracy charges. (As fate would have it, Louis wouldn't be the only member of the family to see the inside of a prison cell.) Ian attended Syracuse and St. John's Law before starting out his career in the early '70s as a real estate attorney. He soon quit the legal profession, teaming up with college pal and fellow Brooklyn native Steve Rubell, who was in the process of launching a restaurant chain called Steak Loft. The duo followed up with two nightlife ventures: a gay bar in Boston called 15 Landsdowne and a disco in Douglaston, Queens called the Enchanted Gardens. It didn't take long for Schrager and Rubell to realize that the much bigger opportunity lay across the river in Manhattan, and with $400,000 in borrowed money, they took over a decaying theater in Midtown and debuted Studio 54 in September 1977. It immediately became the hottest club in town, a cocaine-dusted haven for the city's most glamorous. Schrager and Rubell were promptly transformed into New York's reigning nightlife kings, with short, nebbishy, gay Rubell as the gregarious face of the club and ladies-man Schrager in the background making sure everything ran smoothly.

The pair's run came to an abrupt end in 1980 when they were jailed on federal tax income charges. (See below.) But they went right back to work after their release, in 1984 converting the Executive Hotel on East 37th Street into the Morgans—generally considered the first boutique hotel—and jumping back into the nightlife biz a year later with the Palladium. They acquired the Royalton and the Paramount before Rubell died of complications from AIDS in 1989. Schrager continued to expand the hotel empire throughout the 1990s, establishing more than a dozen properties before exiting the company in 2005.

Of note

It was Schrager and Rubell who first conceived of the trendy, boutique hotel. With the help of design guru Philippe Starck, they turned their early properties into showcases of everything cool with dimly-lit hallways, living room-style lobbies, fashionable music, and an equally fashionable staff decked out in designer uniforms. Following the opening of the Paramount and the Royalton—and Rubell's death—Schrager expanded outside New York in the 1990s with the Delano in Miami and the Mondrian in LA. A handful of other properties followed at the end of the decade, including the Hudson in New York, St. Martins Lane and the Sanderson in London, and the Clift in San Francisco.

In 2005, Schrager—who'd sold a controlling stake in 1998—severed ties with the company he co-founded. He's since focused his attention on real estate development and a new hotel chain. With partners Aby Rosen and Michael Fuchs, Schrager unveiled the Julian Schnabel-designed Gramercy Park Hotel in 2006 and the similarly luxe 50 Gramercy Park North. The trio also teamed up to turn 40 Bond into exceedingly high-priced, Herzog & de Meuron-designed condos, and are now planning several properties in Miami. Schrager is also working on a new chain of boutique properties in partnership with Marriott, which has been desperate to up its hip quotient. Named "Edition," Schrager and Marriott are planning to open more than 100 properties, with the first Edition opening in Paris in 2010, to be followed shortly by South Beach in Miami.

Crime file

Schrager and Rubell were charged with tax evasion after a raid on Studio 54 in 1978 uncovered $600,000 in garbage bags stashed in the rafters of the ceiling, plus the key to a safety deposit box that contained close to a million more. (The police also turned up Rubell's infamous ledger which accounted for all the coke he handed out gratis to A-list guests.) They ended up taking a plea deal, avoiding a longer sentence by cooperating with investigations into other New York club owners, and ultimately spent 13 months at a minimum-security prison in Montgomery, Alabama. They shared a cell while in prison—Steve occupied the top bunk, Ian the bottom—and Schrager spent his days working as a busboy in the prison dining hall.

Drama

Schrager has had his share of feuds with his colleagues in the industry, which is probably to be expected considering how many of his ideas have been appropriated by other hoteliers over the years. His most contentious relationship has been with Barry Sternlicht, the founder of Starwood Hotels. In the late '90s, Sternlicht met with Schrager to discuss buying him out. When the deal fell through, Sternlicht established the W chain, borrowing more than a few of the stylistic elements that were Schrager trademarks. ("There isn't an idea in W that's original," Schrager once said.) The grudge intensified when Sternlicht wooed away onetime Schrager protégé Rande Gerber, which later spurred a lawsuit. Schrager has had more polite relations with Andre Balazs, the other hotelier often mentioned in the same breath. Although the two have competed for years, they've yet to face off in court.

Personal

A longtime ladies man, Schrager married for the first time in his late 40s when he "eloped" with Rita Norona in 1994. A onetime dancer for the New York City Ballet and a former partner in the now-defunct Tenth Street Lounge, Norona had two kids with Schrager in the late 1990s: Sophia Blanche (named after Schrager's mother) and Ava Louis (named for his father). The couple divorced in 2001, but they remain on good terms.

Schrager remarried in November 2008 when he tied the knot with another former ballerina, Tania Wahlstedt. He also has one near-marriage under his belt: In 1990, he was due to marry fashion exec and former model Deborah Hughes and several hundred guests had already arrived at his Southampton home for the ceremony when he abruptly called it off and sent everyone home.

Habitat

Schrager plans to move into a $14.9 million, 8,500-square-foot triplex penthouse at 40 Bond once renovations are complete. In 2004, he sold his Starck-designed 6,000-square-foot penthouse at the Majestic for $12.2 million, after first listing it with Roger Erickson for $22 million. Another property he owned on Central Park West was turned over to his ex-wife as part of their divorce settlement. He also owns homes in Southampton and Miami.

No joke

The hotelier has long had a reputation for obsessing over the smallest details at his properties. That remains true to this day. He's been known to fly into a rage if the bouquets in his guest rooms at the Gramercy Park Hotel don't contain precisely 10 pink carnations.