Courtesy Weekender Hotels
By Paul Post
Keir Weimer saw possibilities in a run-down, century old Adirondack hotel whose owner was faced with foreclosure.
Today it’s the flagship in a string of properties from Tupper Lake to Southern New Hampshire geared specifically for outdoors adventure lovers.
This year alone, plans call for expanding to Saratoga Springs where his company, Weekender Hotels, is based along with the Catskills near Hunter and Windham ski resorts, and New England’s Green and White mountains.
“We’re connecting people to experiences within these awesome settings,” Weimer said. “Our ideal guest is 25 to 55; singles, couples and families that have a penchant for nature and the outdoors. It used to be more of a niche market. Now it’s really the fastest growing segment of leisure travel. If they want to get out to hike, boat, fish, snowmobile, ski or go mountain biking, we make sure our properties are located near all of those things within a short 20-minute drive.”
The venture began nine years ago with the Great Pines resort near Old Forge. Weimer was its listing agent for a Saratoga Springs real estate firm, but couldn’t find any prospective buyers. So he recused himself as the seller’s broker, became the buyer and convinced two friends to partner with him in purchasing the site, which had 30 rooms and two restaurants.
“We were all in our early thirties and didn’t know a thing about hospitality, running a restaurant or resort, or being a project manager for renovations,” Weimer said. “So that was a big calculated risk. It was a very steep learning curve. The first few years were tough. But we started to get into a cadence and a groove and ended up winning a ton of awards for best resort in the Adirondacks. It was a cool success story in the end.”
In 2020, they acquired Alpine Lodge near Gore Mountain in North Creek, followed a year later by the Placid Bay Hotel, which looks out at Whiteface Mountain, on Lake Placid. In March 2021, they officially launched Weekender Hotels to brand all three sites together.
In 2022, Weimer bought out his partners and launched out on his own.
The company also has resorts now in Manchester, Vt.; New Hampshire’s Monadnock Region; and last fall it opened the Trailhead (formerly Shaheens) in Tupper Lake and a second Lake Placid hotel, Town House, just down the road from Placid Bay.
“We fully renovate every property we acquire,” Weimer said.
But his rise up the business ladder didn’t begin until first hitting rock bottom in a very deep, dark place. In 2007, Weimer was sent to state prison after pleading guilty to vehicular manslaughter for driving a boat while intoxicated on Fourth Lake, and causing a crash that killed a 20-year-old Syracuse woman and injuring several others.
By not going to trial and causing victims more heartache, what could have been a very long sentence was reduced to 2 to 6 years.
Weimer was released in 2012, several months shy of his 30th birthday. He went home to live with his parents in Syracuse, on parole with no money and no apparent future.
“I thought, How am I going to rebuild a life and be something other than that kid who got into that horrible accident?” Weimer said.
He had studied business entrepreneurship at Syracuse University, but seven graduate schools rejected him before he got accepted to New York University and studied part time, while working, to earn a master’s degree in real estate finance.
In 2013 he moved to Saratoga Springs and became an agent for Sotheby’s International Realty. “That first year was hard, I didn’t make one dollar, not one sale, went $40,000 into debt and hit one more wall after another,” Weimer said. “I wasn’t seeing any light at the end of the tunnel.”
Finally, he achieved his first sale and began focusing on unique properties throughout the Adirondacks where family and friends advised him not to go. “I went right back to where the accident happened to see if people would give me a second chance,” Weimer said. “Luckily, enough of them did.”
His comeback story is also “A Quest for Redemption,” the title of a book he authored while in prison. All proceeds go to Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD) and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Nine years after the accident, Weimer and the deceased woman’s mother met and reconciled, and began visiting schools together to talk about the dangers of alcohol.
Weimer can’t undo the past.
More than just a business, where the bottom line is all that counts, with Weekender Hotels he wants to “feel I truly am making a difference, very aligned with personal values and have a contribution in the world.”
He’s constantly on the lookout for small- to medium-sized hotels with 25 to 35 rooms, which are easier to maintain and manage.
Last summer, Great Pines was mentioned prominently in a New York Times article about the challenges hotels and resorts are faced with, in regard to finding seasonal help.
Each hotel is open year round.
“It is tough to find and keep people for hourly jobs in some of these places,” Weimer said. “It’s gotten harder since COVID.”
Lake Placid, the “Winter Sports Capital of the World,” has no trouble attracting guests at all times of year. The company website directs people to a wide range of firms that help people enjoy outdoor activities, at each location.
“People can go sailing on Lake Champlain, ice fishing on Tupper Lake, skiing at Whiteface, see how to rent snowmobiles or go mountain biking,” Weimer said. “As interest rates are improving we plan to acquire three to four more properties, which would give us 11 or 12 by the end of this year.”
He declined to cite specifics, but said he expects to close on a Saratoga Springs property in the near future, followed by the Catskills, northern Vermont and northern New Hampshire near Attitash Mountain Resort.
“For now we’re staying focused on markets we know well, that’s New York and New England,” Weimer said. “We’re looking to grow in the Hudson Valley, the Berkshires and the Finger Lakes makes sense, too.”
“Then we plan to take the brand to other parts of the U.S., down the Eastern Seaboard to the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina and Tennessee,” he said. “Eventually, I really want to take the brand out west to the Rockies, but we’re probably going to wait a few years to do that.”