Rosen today, at Shingle Creek. ©Rosen hotels & Resorts
FIFTY YEARS AND COUNTING. A lot has happened in the last 50 years, including the inception of Rosen Hotels & Resorts. Think about what the world looked like back in 1974 when Rosen purchased his very first property, what is now Rosen Inn International. There was no internet. No iPhone. When you consider how much the business landscape changed, it makes Rosen’s rise to the top of the hospitality industry here in Orlando that much more remarkable. His is a story of passion, persistence and a commitment to always do the right thing, even if that meant taking the more difficult path.
Growing up in New York’s Lower East Side in the 1940s, nothing came easy for Rosen. His family’s modest apartment still stands at 18 Monroe Street between the East River, the Bowery, Little Italy and Chinatown. As Rosen famously says to this day, “not exactly a gated community, but there was always a great place to eat.”
The grandson of an Eastern European immigrant who settled here in the early 1900s, Harris is the son of Jack and Lena Rosen. Jack Rosen worked at New York City’s famed Waldorf Astoria, and it is here where Harris Rosen’s future as a hotelier formed. Going into work with his father, Harris Rosen was introduced to A-list celebrities, movie stars, athletes and world leaders like the Pope, General Douglas MacArthur, Ty Cobb and Harris’ boyhood hero, Jackie Robinson. But it was a chance meeting in an elevator with Marilyn Monroe that motivated Harris Rosen to follow in his father’s footsteps. After she gave him a warm embrace, young Harris was sold.
Harris Rosen with students from Tangelo Park ©Rosen hotels & Resorts.
Rosen graduated from Cornell with a degree in hospitality management. With the Vietnam War heating up, he decided to go through ROTC and become an officer in the Army. Lessons he learned during his basic training and serving as an officer guided him through life as a successful businessman and philanthropist. He often quotes the Army acronym KISS—Keep It Simple Stupid.
After leaving the Army, Rosen got a job at the same New York City hotel where he walked the corridors with his father, the Waldorf Astoria. He started his career as a conference meeting set-up person. His hard work and dedication quickly earned him a sales position, but he eventually lost his job during an ownership change and found himself with nowhere to go.
Rosen headed to California, where he read in the local newspaper about Disney’s plans for a major development in Orlando. Enter Disney World. Enter Harris Rosen. Enter Orlando.
In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Rosen helped with everything from the hotel designs to creating a central reservation system and using computers at the hotel front desks. He was so engrained in the Disney culture that he worked on his off days as one of its characters (with a hankering for honey). All was good. He expected a raise. What he got was an involuntary exit. “I quickly realized that if I was going to be happy and fulfilled, I had to consider being in business for myself,” says Rosen.
And as happens in life, that risk, that self-inflection, changed everything.
The early 1970s was a tough time in the United States with a stock market in decline and an Arab oil embargo making gasoline scarce and costly. Hotels in Orlando struggled, mightily. Rosen took all his savings, some $20,000 dollars, and purchased a small, 256-room Quality Inn at the corner of International Drive and Sand Lake Road, facing Interstate 4. There was also a $2 million mortgage on the property which he assumed during the purchase. There was no going back.
Harris Rosen at an elementary school graduation. ©Rosen hotels & Resorts
He did everything from cooking and cleaning to gardening and front desk. Rosen lived on property and converted two rooms into an office and a tiny apartment. But more business was needed as hotel occupancy was hovering around 15 percent.
Rosen knew he had to do something bold. He came up with an idea he knew would work. He went back to the Northeast to convince the top motor coach companies to give his hotel their overnight business. They could get gas. They could deliver tourists to Orlando. The key to Rosen’s plan was having them write a hotel room rate (usually around $7-$8/night) on a card and he would honor those rates for three years. They agreed and soon the buses and the revenue started flowing.
Soon after, Rosen would buy his second hotel. Then he would conceptualize and build five additional hotels: three convention properties (Rosen Plaza, Rosen Centre and Rosen Shingle Creek) and two other leisure hotels (Rosen Inn at Pointe Orlando and Rosen Inn Lake Buena Vista).
But like every successful businessman, Rosen knew he could do more. He created the Harris Rosen Foundation to lend a hand to those in need.
High school graduations are close to 100 percent and hundreds of students have received postsecondary degrees. Many are first-generation college students.
Rosen’s philanthropic work is also lauded in the field of brain cancer research, where he donated $12 million to the University of Florida after his youngest son Adam passed away at the age of 26 from a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer. Rosen also donated $18 million to purchase the land which is now the Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida. This school, which opened in 2004, is now rated the best hospitality college in the nation.