Ian Schrager's Admired, Imitated Designs

(CBS)  The story was originally broadcast on May 20, 2007.

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If you have the chance to enter the lobby of New York's Gramercy Park Hotel with Ian Schrager, he'll show off the furniture designed by artist Julian Schnabel and the imposing chandelier imported from Venice.

As the inventor of the 'hip hotel,' Schrager revolutionized the industry, and with his newest creation, he has tried to outdo himself.

"I'm a home run hitter," he told CBS News business correspondent Anthony Mason. "I don't hit singles. I wanna really wow the customer, overwhelm the customer. I wanna really take their breath away. That's what really makes me get up in the morning."

In his edgy, high style hotels, including the Delano in Miami Beach, the Sanderson in London and the Mondrian in West Hollywood, Schrager has strived to break the rules.

"My goal is not just to provide a bed for people to sleep in, because if that were it I couldn't out-do Marriott," he said. "I could not execute better than they can execute."

To Schrager, building a hotel is like producing a show. He sees himself as an entertainer.

"Now, I don't get up on a stage and perform," he said. "But I'm trying to get the same rise. I'm trying to get the same reaction. I'm trying to get the same smile, the same response, something ethereal that entertainment tries to get."

The son of a garment worker from Brooklyn, Schrager has had some stunning rises and falls, beginning in the 1970s when, with his business partner and best friend Steve Rubell, he opened a disco called Studio 54. Record executive David Geffen once said "Ian would like to forget Studio 54, but the world won't let him." Schrager says that is true.

"You know, I have as many bad memories from that as I do good memories," Schrager said. "It was really the first business that I was ever in. It was like holding onto a lightning bolt. And it almost destroyed us."

It became the Mecca of New York nightlife – a magnet for the glitterati. In 1978, the police busted up the party. Charged with tax evasion, Rubell and Schrager spent more than a year in prison.

"You know, I still have the scar from it," Schrager said. "It's healed but I still have a scar from it. I don't love the fact that I have to sort of explain that to my children. It's the baggage that comes with it that reawakens feelings of what Steve and I went through — the rock bottom we hit. And having to crawl out of a hole, not even be able to get a checking account, a driver's license or credit card."

Rubell and Schrager reinvented themselves with their first hotel, Morgan's. In 1989, just as their business was really taking off, Rubell — who had always been the front man — died of AIDS. Schrager had to step out of the shadows.

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