Company: The National Hotel
Owners: Chris and Jackie Sereno; Alan and Sharon Pratt
Location: Water Street, Block Island
Selling Luxury Real Estate Requires More Than Exposure
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Private Office Advisor Engel & Völkers Oceanside www.DiSpiritoteam.com…
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Employees: 70 (peak season)
Type of business: hotel
The National Hotel, Block Island’s majestic Victorian icon that has served as a symbol of summer for generations of New Englanders, turns 100 years old this month.
The original hotel, built in 1888, was destroyed by a fire, and the existing building opened in July 1903. It’s the sort of milestone that calls for a raucous celebration, with plenty of eating and drinking and singing late into the night on the National’s impossibly long porch overlooking Old Harbor.
Thing is, that’s what goes on at the National just about every night of the summer. And the place is so busy this time of year that its 100-year mark passed without notice.
On a recent Friday evening, the National was abuzz with a laid-back, feel-good vibe that typifies Block Island. A barefoot guitarist with goatee strummed happy tunes aside a head-bobbing bongo player. An army of servers in navy blue polo shirts doted on patrons clad in sunglasses, shorts and flip-flops.
There’s something about the National’s elevated porch, mansard roof and towering cupola that acts as a magnet to the ferry-loads of vacationers who first glimpse the crisp white building as they motor toward Old Harbor. It’s a natural, it seems, for visitors to envision themselves kicked back with a drink in hand, people-watching the bustling scene on Water Street or simply staring out at the deep blue ocean beyond.
But if you want to stay in one of the 45 rooms (average $200 a night), you’d better book early. For July and August weekends, the National’s reservation book fills up as early as March, according to Julie Fuller, the hotel’s general manager.
Fuller, who worked for 18 years as the general manager at the Harborside Inn – just a few doors down and under the same ownership until a year ago – guesses that the National’s phone rings three times more often, even though the two hotels offer the same prime location.
Its popularity, though, does not make the National’s success a slam dunk. As with most Block Island businesses, the hotel has an extremely short peak season. It’s open May through October, but July and August is make-or-break time.
Fuller guesses that the hotel does half its annual business during the first three weeks of August.
“The owners like to say that one week in August is the equivalent of the whole month of May,” she said. Two couples own the National: Chris and Jackie Sereno, and Alan and Sharon Pratt.
Weather, of course, is a huge factor. Even though reservations are locked in rain or shine, a soggy weekend can keep away day-trippers and boaters. That cuts into the hotel’s restaurant business, which makes up roughly two-thirds of its revenue. The National serves an average of 1,500 meals a day in peak season, Fuller said.
Filling the 70-employee staff every spring can be a challenge too – not for a shortage of applicants, but for a dearth of roofs to put over their heads. Whereas college students 20 years ago could pitch in to rent an island house for the season, those homes today are renting for $2,000 to $3,000 a week.
The hotel’s owners are able to house most of their seasonal workers in an apartment building they own behind the hotel, where most of the staff stays – three or four people deep in dorm-style accommodations. The hotel rents rooms for another 15 or so workers, at a seasonal cost of about $50,000, only some of which it makes back in rent.
While many staff members return summer after summer, there are plenty of new faces each spring.
“It’s like starting a new business every season,” Fuller said.
The National also faces the same lofty operating costs that all island businesses do. For example, it pays $1 for every case of beer to be shipped over on the ferry, and another $1 for each case to be delivered from the dock. Block Island’s electricity, water and trash-hauling rates are notoriously high too.
But by mid-July, the place is firing on all cylinders, and the gray and rainy spring – one of the worst in years – is a distant memory. And even though Fuller works 65-hour weeks during this busy stretch, it might just be the smoothest time of the year.
“Once this place is all up and running,” she said, “it practically runs itself.”
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