This past week marked the finish of an era for equally Gary and Barbara Brown as nicely as the Daytona Beach area hospitality business. Previous Wednesday, the couple sold the Sun Viking Lodge, the oceanfront resort they have owned since 1971.
The new owners of the 94-room hotel at 2411 S. Atlantic Ave. in Daytona Seaside Shores are Ty and Tovah Lohman of Ormond Beach front.
The June 30 sale arrived just three months after the Brown family celebrated the 50th anniversary of the hotel’s opening.
“We’re honored that Gary and Barbara chose us to promote to,” reported Ty Lohman in a cellular phone job interview. “There have been at minimum two other bidders.”
Sunshine Viking Lodge’s staff members astonished Gary and Barbara Brown with a pair of rocking chairs, just about every adorned with a bow, on the couple’s very last working day at perform Wednesday, confirmed their son, Greg.
“My dad and mom are being in the place,” stated Greg Brown, 47, “They’re just retiring and having it easy. They system on sneaking in and swimming in the (hotel’s) pools occasionally.”
Greg Brown will keep on as general manager, a purpose he has held the previous 12 several years. The Solar Viking Lodge employs 35 people. Ty Lohman reported he and his spouse prepare to retain the entire personnel.
“We have got a housekeeper who’s been with us 32 many years,” reported Greg Brown. He reported finding a customer who would retain the staff as perfectly as the traditions and top quality of the resort was important to his mother and father. “I’d say about 30{46006172ad4c53c7af3511c591ddf19e8ffdb2623a08a9c64bbeefa9e4f54948} of our staff have been with us about 10 decades.”
Greg Brown and his sister Karla Ryan were being students at Father Lopez Higher University in Daytona Seaside at the similar time as Ty Lohman. “Karla was a classmate of Ty’s,” Greg Brown mentioned.
Gary and Barbara Brown did not answer to requests for an interview.
Ty and Tovah Lohman are local investors who have several commercial houses in the Daytona Seashore area such as the 144-space Times Inn by Wyndham resort and the 63-home Extended Keep of Ormond Seaside resorts across from Destination Daytona in Ormond Seashore.
The couple also own two hotels in Seminole County: the previous Remington Inn & Suites which they have renamed the Altamonte Springs Lodge & Suites and the recently renamed Opal Hotel & Suites of Altamonte Springs. The previous is at 450 Douglas Ave., Altamonte Springs. The latter is at 230 W. State Road 236.
The two inns in Altamonte Springs are managed by Ty Lohman’s cousin Chris Lohman who is also a portion-proprietor in those qualities.
Ty and Tovah Lohman also lately teamed up with Ty’s dad and mom, Lowell and Nancy, to start off enhancement of a 12-device luxurious townhouse intricate referred to as The Cupola at Oceanside. The development throughout the road from Oceanside Nation Club will be Ormond Beach’s first beachside multifamily household enhancement in far more than a quarter-century.
Brown manufactured significant impact on region
Bob Davis, president and CEO of the Lodging & Hospitality Affiliation of Volusia County, mentioned the Browns have had a big affect on the area tourism industry over the earlier 50 percent-century.
Gary Brown is a longtime board member for the association as properly as a past board member of the Halifax Place Marketing Authority.
The latter oversees and money the Daytona Beach Region Convention & Readers Bureau and is 1 of a few tourism advertisement authorities that industry their respective parts in just Volusia County as vacationer and special occasion destinations. The other two are the Southeast Volusia Promoting Authority and the West Volusia Tourism Advertising and marketing Authority.
Gary Brown now serves as treasurer for the resort association, a purpose that will be handed alongside to his son, Greg, at the association’s August board meeting, explained Davis.
“Gary and his spouse (Barbara) are one particular of the cornerstones of the hospitality market in our place,” claimed John Betros. space basic supervisor of the 132-area Daytona Beach front Regency and 116-home The Cove On Ormond Seashore, in an interview in January.
Davis explained Brown “has been a godsend for the sector. He features good sights as to in which we are, what Daytona Beach front is, what our custom is, and what a compact (hotel) owner has to go by way of to survive. He’s usually presented me apparent way, both of those as a pal and as a hotelier.”
Gary Brown’s depth of awareness about the Daytona Seaside industry will be challenging to substitute, explained Evelyn Good, president of Mid-Florida Internet marketing & Exploration. In that role, Good has documented Volusia County tourism facts given that 1976.
She recalls the worthwhile enter that Brown available in the course of his time on the HAAA board and its numerous committees for the duration of the 1980s and 1990s, a time marked by the increasing effect of distinctive situations this sort of as faculty spring split.
“He was a stalwart, that is for absolutely sure,” Wonderful said. “He generally had some thing essential to say about what it was like to be an independent hotelier and, at that time, they had been mostly impartial hoteliers.”
Gary Brown also was exceedingly knowledgeable about the travel behaviors and expectations of the company that stayed at his family-oriented l
odge, High-quality explained.
“He was thoughtful about what he did to preserve his visitors coming back more than and over again,” Great mentioned. “He understood who they were being and what was important to them. They favored a relatives atmosphere, an owner who was there so they could speak to him.”
Greg Brown explained he grew up “in and around the lodge market” and appears ahead to turning out to be additional actively involved in the Lodging & Hospitality Affiliation.
Lodge sale is 2nd on Daytona’s beachside this year
The sale of the Solar Viking Lodge arrives on the heels of the modifying palms of the Nautilus Inn down the street in January. The 99-space hotel at 1515 S. Atlantic Ave. was sold for $8 million to the developers of the Daytona Seashore Really hard Rock Resort, Asante Asset Administration Inc., led by Abbas Abdulhussein.
Tim Davis, a commercial Realtor with SVN Alliance Professional Genuine Estate Advisors in Ormond Seaside, aided broker the sale of the Nautilus Inn. He also approached Gary Brown before this calendar year on behalf of a customer that was interested in possibly acquiring the Sunshine Viking Lodge.
“It was not stated for sale, but Gary Brown make it very clear that if another person had been to make a honest give, he’d be ready to contemplate advertising,” Davis stated.
“Accommodations have been distressed for the duration of COVID, so it is really most likely a superior time (for buyers) to look at motels,” explained Davis who included that it is likely that far more accommodations domestically could adjust hands in the around foreseeable future.
“With Gary, there was totally no distress,” Davis mentioned of the Sun Viking Lodge. “He was only going to be fascinated if he could get a quality cost.”
Greg Brown confirmed that the Sunshine Viking Lodge continues to be “a solid organization.”
“For the pandemic, we did particularly nicely. We thought we were likely to get strike harder than we did. We got lucky. And now our organization is rebounding,” he stated.
“My dad and mom had gotten a lot of features (to market) above the yrs,” Greg Brown extra. He reported his mothers and fathers finally agreed to provide to the Lohmans for the reason that, “the timing was correct and it was also the right purchaser. They felt relaxed that Ty and Tovah will retain the identical traditions, atmosphere, high quality and benchmarks.”
Ty Lohman declined to say how a great deal he and his spouse compensated for the Sunshine Viking Lodge, but verified that “it was a high quality price tag. (Gary and Barbara Brown) definitely received reasonable current market for it.”
Lohman declined to say no matter if the sale quantity was far more or a lot less than the $8 million that the Nautilus Inn fetched, but acknowledged that the two lodges are identical in dimension.
“We are heading to hold the Sunlight Viking identify,” Ty Lohman said. “It can be a wonderful spouse and children hotel. They have acquired actions for young children as well as a motion picture evening that we are also heading to maintain. It is really genuinely more of a resort.”
The Solar Viking Lodge’s amenities incorporate a 60-foot h2o slide and indoor and outside pools.
Lohman bought get started in funeral dwelling business
Ty Lohman and his moms and dads and uncle Victor ran the Ormond Beach-dependent Lohman Funeral Properties chain for quite a few a long time right up until selling the enterprise to a countrywide firm in 2012. At the time of its sale it experienced grown to turn out to be the greatest family-owned funeral household chain in the point out.
Ty and his mom and dad utilized some of the proceeds of that sale to make investments in condominium attributes both in the Daytona Beach front spot as effectively as Orlando and Jacksonville.
They commenced marketing off their apartment qualities as the worth for them rose. In the past pair of decades, Ty has reinvested his earnings from those people transactions into business qualities. They contain the 7-story Cobb Cole Middle office tower in downtown Daytona Beach, the Aliki Plaza and Renaissance Middle retail facilities in Ormond Seashore, and the Speedway Village retail center on West International Speedway Boulevard, throughout the avenue from Daytona Global Speedway.
Ty’s spouse Tovah is a serious estate broker who owns Starr Realty. Their holding company for the Days Inn and Extended Keep motels up coming to the Interstate 95/U.S. 1 interchange throughout from Spot Daytona is identified as Starr Hospitality. The confined liability enterprise they established when they obtained the Sunshine Viking Lodge is termed TL3 Sunlight Viking LLC.
Ty Lohman claimed he and his wife intend to preserve their Volusia County motels as long-term investments.
“We hope to have our son Tristen do the job with us someday,” additional Tovah Lohman. The couple’s son is 12.
Ty and Tovah Lohman also a short while ago obtained two apartment complexes in Daytona Beach front: the Whispering Oaks Townhomes and Southern Villas Apartments following door. Both of those are together South Nova Street, in between Bellevue Avenue and Beville Road.
Bob Davis, who is not related to Tim, stated he recently spoke with Ty Lohman about his order of the Sunlight Viking Lodge and arrived absent impressed.
“He’s a youthful, vivacious person who’s now finding concerned in hospitality. I welcome new men and women to the hospitality business,” Bob Davis reported. “I also know the Lohman relatives perfectly. They arrive with a standing for staying neighborhood minded.”
Bob Davis stated he would expect Ty and Tovah Lohman to make some enhancements to the Sunlight Viking Lodge, but included, “it won’t choose a great deal. The Brown spouse and children has saved their home in tip-leading shape.”
Ty Lohman verified programs to devote somewhere around a 50 {46006172ad4c53c7af3511c591ddf19e8ffdb2623a08a9c64bbeefa9e4f54948}-million dollars on advancements to the Solar Viking Lodge. “We’re going to renovate the pool space. Greg also has a would like record of other factors for us to improve,” he said.
‘Families are connecting’
When the Browns very first opened their hotel in 1971, there was a lot of area chat about the prospective effect of a new tourist attraction that would open later that yr in Orlando.
“There was a lot of speculation about no matter whether Disney Planet would help Daytona or hurt Daytona,” Gary Brown reported earlier this yr as the Sunshine Viking Lodge marked its 50th anniversary in April. “If you seem at background, I assume it did equally.”
As Disney’s mammoth empire loomed ever-larger, the Sunshine Viking Lodge endured.
It weathered gasoline shortages, wars, wildfires, financial downturns, the effects of the Sept. 11th assaults and, most just lately, the coronavirus pandemic.
The hotel’s distinctive name, Brown defined, was not christened right until pretty much a 10 years just after the lodge had opened as the Oceanfront Villas.
Brown and his spouse, Barbara, have been embarking on a 1970s vacation cruise in Miami when he appeared across the harbor and observed another ship, the Sunshine Viking.
“There were being 20 inns with ‘Ocean’ in their name,” Brown stated. “We have been generally acquiring baffled with another person else. I stated, ‘Why do not we put a Viking ship out there?’”
An additional of the hotel’s signature attributes, its kid-pleasant 60-foot waterslide, was an thought inspired by a check out to River Region, a newly opened drinking water park at Disney Globe in the 1970s, Brown reported.
In April, the Browns explained that the solution of the hotel’s longevity was built on relationships and reminiscences that have held longtime guests returning.
“To me, the households are connecting,” Barbara mentioned at the time. “The young ones aren’t making use of their telephones when they’re going down the waterslide or participating in game titles or swimming or browsing. It might not be the latest hotel on the seashore, but many years later on, they are going to keep in mind connecting as a family.”
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