“It was like the phone in the White House — the presidential phone,” Schwab said. Schwab, German by birth, studied the fine art of hospitality at the world-renowned Heidelberg Hotel Management School in post-war Germany. According to Schwab family lore, Sharp approached the jolly innkeeper with an idea — a plan many others dismissed as crazy — to build an international luxury hotel chain headquartered in Toronto. He understood the European luxury hotel scene was dominated by family-owned establishments — one-offs, in other words — and each had its strengths and flaws. Never one for sitting idle, he launched his own business, Elite International Luxury Hotel Representation based in New York, and set about marketing five-star European establishments to the high-end North Americans.
