Skift Take
The founders are trying to retain the community feeling they established in Brooklyn at properties in the Catskills and East Nashville — and another set to open in Denver this winter.
The founders of Urban Cowboy opened their first boutique hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 2014 without a real plan. Little did they know they were starting a minor hotel empire.
“I kind of just designed my dream house, and I didn’t know what I was going to do with it,” said Lyon Porter, co-founder.
Porter, a former professional-hockey-player-turned-real-estate-broker partnered with his now wife and co-founder Jersey Banks to convert the freestanding townhouse, built in the 1880s, into Urban Cowboy, a five-room boutique hotel. They say it was only the second boutique hotel in Brooklyn at the time, other than the Wythe Hotel, which opened in 2012.
“When we first opened, I didn’t have a way to take payments," said Banks. "I didn’t have a credit card processor at first."
Things began simply. Banks, for example, would respond to email inquiries instead of relying on direct booking systems, and hand each guest a welcome cocktail on
Photo Caption: One of the guestrooms at the Urban Cowboy Catskills. Source: Urban Cowboy.