John Flannigan
CEO & Founder of Wylder Hotels
A little bit about John…
John Flannigan is a hotel industry veteran with over 30 years of hospitality experience. He graduated from The Pennsylvania State University with a degree in Hotel Management and work for Wyndham Hotels learning the ropes. In 2000, John was named opening GM of Hotel Giraffe. After three years, John was tapped to open and manage The Roger in New York for JRK for four years. John went to work for Ace Hotels and helped open the Broadway location. He then went back to work for JRK as President and repositioned Oceana Santa Monica, and helped acquire assets such as the Villa Florence in San Francisco. John spent ten years at JRK managing a portfolio of six hotels and building out a management platform. John was recruited to become the COO of Proper Hotels and helped lead the acquisition and transition of Avalon Beverly Hills and Avalon Palm Springs for Proper. In June of 2016, John founded Wylder Hotels to seek out drive market leisure properties that had a nostalgic history. He thought there was white space within the adventure travel sector in tertiary areas of the country that could compete with urban assets, yet at a much lower basis and cost to develop. Wylder sought to take advantage of this dislocation while leveraging adventure travel. The all-season brand, Wylder Hotels acquired the first property in October of 2017, the infamous Harrisons Chesapeake House on Tilghman Island Maryland. He and his team transformed it and soft opened Wylder Tilghman Island in April of 2018. John had simultaneously been working on acquiring the famous Sorensen’s Resort near Lake Tahoe - and was able to acquire it in August of 2019. He accelerated the renovations during COVID-19 and was able to quickly transform the asset and reopen as Wylder Hope Valley by June of 2020 with accolades. Wylder Hotels latest project in Windham NY is a 110 room gem that is set to open in Spring of 2022. John lives in Manhattan Beach with his two sons Owen and Grady and is an avid outdoorsman.