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BARRY STERNLICHT REPRISES HIS GREATEST ROLE.
Barry Sternlicht is co-founder, chairman and CEO of Starwood Capital Group. He founded Starwood Hotels & Resorts in 1995.
KING
By TATIANA VALENZUELA
By DAVID EISEN
In the 1968 film“ The Swimmer,” Burt Lancaster bops from one backyard swimming pool to the next, an idyllic Connecticut suburb serving as the backdrop for his peripatetic progression. His end point, home, where his daughters await, playing tennis. The movie’ s glossy setting belies its allegorical underbelly, expressing emptiness and disillusionment with the American Dream.
Barry Sternlicht, the billionaire real estate tactician, CEO of Starwood Capital Group, creator of Starwood Hotels, is the personification and gratification of the American Dream— antithetical to Lancaster’ s“ Swimmer” persona. But, aside from its doleful ending, Sternlicht and the film share some commonalities: Connecticut, pools, tennis. Growing up in Connecticut, Sternlicht just wanted to have enough money to one day own a pool and a tennis court. It’ s a goal he essentially accomplished by his thirties.
Connecticut boy done good. Real good.
November 2025 hotelsmag. com 15