Philip Bates
From Finance to Flip Flops, A New Leader Emerges

You were born in Georgia. How was life growing up?

I grew up in a place with small-town energy, and always had a desire to experience more as there wasn’t much variety locally. We spent a lot of time outside, playing in the woods, swimming, or fishing in lakes and rivers with few people around. In hindsight, I see it as wholesome and charming, and I treasure my upbringing there. I left at 20 for Oregon, and I’ve been on the West Coast ever since.

You moved from private equity and venture capital to hospitality. Why?

I started my first business when I was 16. I soon realized that it’s the investors who call the shots and drive the major business decisions, so I moved into private equity and venture capital to understand finance at a deeper level. Eventually I lost interest, because in these industries, you’re not building the end product. So I grew disenchanted with finance, and frankly bored. The reason I love hospitality is that each day is different, you build real value, and the most unique spaces and special interactions tend to be in hotels. The design that goes into hotels is also remarkable, it’s way more detailed and intricate than other real estate product types like apartments or conventional office buildings. Plus, you get to travel, which is one of the most rewarding things we can do as humans.

What is the design style that defines Drift?

Clean, minimal, raw, and organic. Almost everything is made by hand, and when you do that, there’s a certain quality associated with what you’re doing that cannot be replicated with machines. Think hand-troweled stucco, hand-cut wood, hand-made ceramics, and textiles done in warm tones.

What is Nashville’s signature vibe, and how did you find ways to show this through the Drift Nashville property?

Nashville is a bastion of creativity and progressiveness compared to much of the south, which tends to be very traditional in its style and approach to design. Nashville has a huge and diverse music scene, an incredible food and beverage scene, and a compelling design culture that can get overlooked, yet they are the unique elements that make Nashville so attractive. There’s also a big creative and industrial history to Nashville which has yielded makers of all types. We wanted to stay away from the cliché of putting guitars in rooms to focus on the city’s industrial modern style, which is very consistent with Drift, and use repurposed materials—different kinds of tiles, steel, and brick—and various kinds of locally made textiles, as there’s lots of creators in Nashville repurposing local materials into unique design products.

So, what are the main signifiers of the Drift Santa Barbara property?

It’s four blocks from the beach. It was originally a hotel, 120 years ago, which for California is ancient! We decided to paint the walls of each room black to make them more cozy, which is a big departure from the typical bright and airy beach vibes, you know? All the wood in the rooms is actually the redwood that the building was built with; it’s indigenous to coastal California, which is what brings a touch of the coastal element back into the rooms. In a special way, even though the rooms are black, the material palette makes them feel uniquely beachy. In addition to this, pretty much all the people we collaborated with there were local Santa Barbara residents, from our designers to our surfboard maker to our photographer—everyone was local. All of our art on the walls was done by local photographer Will Adler; he’s one of the best surf photographers out there. At the end of the day, the local team made the end product feel very true to coastal Santa Barbara. 

Describe yourself in 3 words?

Driven, free-thinking, and resilient.

What is one of the coolest things you’ve ever done?

My wife Daniela and I circumnavigated the world over 6 weeks; we hit Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australasia. It was this cool amalgamation of experiences—from riding motorcycles in Tuscany to visiting one of the ghost cities in China, which was the strangest thing.

Describe your relationship to the ocean?

A few years after I moved to Southern California, I decided to surf almost every day for six months until I got it. Now I love it, and it’s probably the physical activity that makes me the happiest. Recently, I’ve gotten into long distance open-water swimming, which is an entirely different battle with the ocean. It certainly introduced some new fears and variables that needed to be overcome. I did two miles yesterday. It was so cold that my face hurt, but the cold water gives a certain vigor that I love.

What is a perfect day for you?

Wake up and do an ocean swim or surf, then work on something creative related to the hotels. Then I would want to spend time with my two young boys; exploring with them is my happiest joy because everything’s new to them. So I’d take them to the beach, the hills, or a forest. And then end the day with a really good meal with our family, as good food is so central to our lives.

What is one piece of advice you’d give to any young entrepreneurs wanting to run their own venue?

Try to have an infinite mindset instead of a finite mindset. Because in hospitality, and in entrepreneurship in general, the finish line is unknown. So rather than being timeline or end-goal focused, if you have more of an infinite mindset, you’ll find that you can better endure the ups and downs of entrepreneurship—because they are numerous and perpetual—and stay focused on your product to build for the long-term. The result will be a higher quality set of decisions, relationships, products, and services. In the context of design, when you apply this mindset to designing and building a hotel, the end product will have staying power and longevity. 

Do you have a specific motto you live by?

In regards to people, everyone matters or no one matters. And with respect to details, every detail matters or no detail matters.

If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

A polar bear. They just seem really cool. I’m not trying to scare people though, I’d be a friendly one!