NEW YORK — Life Hospitality, the tech-enabled hotel brand and management arm of Life House focused exclusively on independent hotels, added the 76-key BeachWalk Hotel in Sea Bright, N.J., to its growing portfolio. Owned by Sunil Nayak of Innzen Hospitality, the property is nearing completion of a comprehensive renovation to reposition the asset into a locally-rooted boutique hotel—the first of its kind in the beachside town.
Located less than an hour away from Manhattan and tucked between the Atlantic Ocean and the Navesink River, the BeachWalk at Sea Bright is in the heart of the three-mile coastal town in Monmouth County. Innzen Hospitality is nearing completion of an expansion of the existing 37-key property into a 76-key boutique hotel under a to-be-announced brand upon completion this fall. The new guestrooms will have panoramic views of the Atlantic Ocean along with access to the property’s private beach, swimming pool, and waterfront Tiki Bar, in addition to the property’s 40 dock slips and 80 parking spots.
“After studying the landscape for management of independent hotels in seasonal resort environments, I was impressed by Life Hospitality and their impressive case studies in markets that feature similar seasonal demand patterns as Sea Bright,” said Sunil Nayak. “We look forward to starting a fruitful partnership with Life Hospitality, which we hope to expand to new properties in New Jersey as opportunities arise to acquire similar independent hotels throughout the region.”
Life House was founded by luxury boutique hotel veterans in 2017 and is backed by several travel and technology investors, such as Thayer Ventures, Tiger Global, JLL Spark, and Ashton Kutcher & Guy Oseary’s Sound Ventures, among others. Life Hospitality, launched this year in response to the need for tech-enabled management services from the independent hotel ownership community, leverages a proprietary technology stack that enables its teams to efficiently drive incremental revenue and cost savings to the bottom line, supporting owners in a tepid demand environment post-COVID-19.
“We are excited to support Sunil and the partners with positioning this asset to optimize revenues and achieve outsized bottom-line performance as a result of our lean and technology-enabled management platform,” said John Basting, vice president of acquisitions at Life House. “Considering the market’s proximity to Manhattan and the greater New York City Metropolitan population, we feel strongly that long-term supply/demand dynamics in the region are favorable and are actively seeking additional projects to collaborate on together across the Jersey Shore.”
