Orlando Hotelier and philanthropist Harris Rosen, founder and president of Rosen Hotels & Resorts, died on Nov 25, 2024 at the age of 85.
As well as owning and operating seven hotels in Orlando — including the AAA Four Diamond Rosen Shingle Creek, the Rosen Plaza and the Rosen Centre — Harris Rosen was also widely known for his philanthropic initiatives administered through the Harris Rosen Foundation and Rosen Gives Back.
Prevue had the opportunity to sit down with Harris Rosen for an interview while reporting on the hotel company’s offering for MICE groups in 2018 — in which he talked about his life and career in hospitality and the philanthropic vision that informed his work. The quotes reproduced here are taken from that interview — recorded in the modest office above the two-story motel on International Drive that was his first hotel purchase in 1974, and where he continued to work for 50 years.
“Dad’s family came from Russia and my Mom’s family came from Austria-Hungary,” Rosen said gesturing at walls covered in photographs of his family. “It’s a fairly typical American story. America is well known for incredible success stories from individuals whose parents were immigrants, or their grandparents were immigrants, or they themselves were immigrants. I was born and raised in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where hundreds of thousands of immigrants settled, and that’s where I lived for 17 years until I went off to college.”
Rosen’s father Jack Rosen worked as a sign painter and caricature artist at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City during the 1950s and 1960s. Restaurant Jack’s Place at Rosen Plaza is named for his father and its walls are lined with original caricatures of celebrities such as Alfred Hitchcock and Neil Armstrong, who he sketched while working at the hotel. Harris Rosen had originally planned to pursue his own artistic ability, which he had inherited from his father, until a chance encounter in an elevator at the Waldorf-Astoria changed his mind and set him on a different track.
“What really got me excited about working in the industry was when my father and I would take the elevator to the ballrooms,” said Rosen. “We would run into some very important people in the elevator. Jackie Robinson was one of them — he was the first African American Major League Baseball player — and we met Pope John who was there also. One day we walked into the elevator and a very tall, distinguished gentleman was there with a beautiful blonde lady, and I asked my Dad if he could introduce me to the lady. He introduced me to the gentleman first — and it was Ambassador Joseph Kennedy — the President’s father — and then he introduced me to the lady and said “I’d like you to meet Marilyn Monroe” — and that sealed the deal. I now thought that I would probably want to be in the hotel business — where you could meet someone like Marilyn in an elevator.”
Early Career
After four years at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration, followed by three-and-a-half-years serving overseas in the US Army, stationed in Germany and South Korea, and attaining the rank of First Lieutenant, Rosen began his career in hospitality management working for Hilton. He then joined the Walt Disney Company as Director of Hotel Planning, relocating to Orlando in 1968 to work on the opening of the Contemporary Resort, Polynesian Village Resort and Wilderness Lodge.
“After my time at Disney, I really decided that it would be better if I could work for myself if I could. It was 1974 — and we were in the midst of an oil embargo — and business was awful,” said Rosen. “But I thought that I could somehow make a success of any hotel during any time, and so I started looking to buy a hotel and I bought this one. It was then 256 rooms and the property had been in very serious financial difficulty before I bought it. I did have a plan — the problem was that I didn’t have any money — so I hitchhiked to New York, New Jersey and then Boston — because that’s where the top motor coach operators were.
“During the oil embargo it was very difficult for people to buy gas, but it was much less difficult for motor coach operators to buy gas, and I knew their buses were still coming to Florida. So I went to them with business cards and said to the owners, write on the card what room rate you are willing to pay and I’ll guarantee it for two years, and I don’t care what rate you write down. They looked at me like I was crazy, but they wrote their rates down and I got their business. Maybe a year after I purchased the property, the embargo was lifted, and I bought another hotel.”
Giving Back to the Community
In 1993, Rosen decided it was time to show thanks for the success he had experienced by giving something back to the community. After consultation with local community leaders, he set up the Tangelo Park Program as a way to turn around one of Orlando’s under-served communities by providing education initiatives for residents. The program offers free preschool for every two-, three- and four-year-old child living in the Tangelo Park area, as well as full college or vocational school scholarships, including tuition, room and board, and books, for every graduating high school senior from Tangelo Park.
“You couldn’t walk through the neighborhood,” explained Rosen. “Teachers were asked to leave the neighborhood after they had finished teaching the last class, because it was so unsafe. Now — high school graduation rates have soared, from about 50 percent to virtually 100 percent, and youngsters are going to college like crazy. We’ve already sent over 300 kids to college, from a neighborhood that was graduating less than half from high school. Crime is down about 65 percent and the whole neighborhood has changed dramatically. I think it’s 78 percent of the Tangelo Park kids who go to college graduate in four years, and nationwide it’s 35-40 percent. The results have been quite spectacular.”
Building on the success of these education initiatives, Rosen expanded the program to the Parramore neighborhood in 2016, another under-served community situated adjacent to downtown Orlando. The program resembles the Tangelo Park prototype — providing free preschool and scholarships for local children — but serves an area five times larger than the original model. In 2017, he opened the Rosen Preschool in Parramore, a 24-classroom building offering free preschool for children from the local area.
“We’ve been asked to present the Tangelo Park story and we have,” said Rosen. “But the great tragedy is that no-one has replicated the program. We’ve been to some of the largest foundations in the world and there has been no response. It’s something we really don’t understand. Although, it’s not inexpensive, and it’s not a one-to-three year initiative — it’s a long-term commitment. You can’t just provide the scholarships for five years or ten years and then stop — and I suspect that’s one of the reasons why people have a hard time committing. But it’s very sad, because it is a program that could change America. I believe that America would change so significantly if every under-served community had a Tangelo Park program.”
Support for Haiti
As the employer of many hotel workers of Haitian heritage in Orlando, Rosen organized numerous initiatives to help those living in Haiti. Since the 1990s, school and medical supplies have been collected and delivered to hospitals, schools and orphanages needing support. In 2005, the Harris Rosen Foundation and the Haiti Task Force hosted the Water for Haiti Gala and raised funds to purchase nearly 250 water filtration systems to help provide safe, drinkable water for more than 100,000 people.
When the 2010 earthquake caused devastation on the island, the Harris Rosen Foundation donated $250,000 to relief efforts, matched thousands more in corporate donations towards a $1 million goal, and delivered 20,000 pounds of supplies to the Port-au-Prince and Beauchamp areas. Following the earthquake, the Foundation came up with a plan to construct eco-friendly, earthquake and hurricane resistant buildings called Little Haiti Houses, which would be built in Central Florida and then shipped to Haiti. After negotiations with the Haitian government to secure land for the project fell through, the project was put on hold, but Rosen continued to build and provide on-the-ground support.
In 2016, the Harris Rosen Foundation constructed a school for 300 children in the city of Les Cayes in Haiti, which was built to withstand hurricanes and was later used to shelter more than 200 people when Hurricane Matthew struck the region later that year. Following the hurricane, the Foundation partnered with international nonprofit Food for the Poor to build or rebuild 105 homes in Les Cayes. The new homes were built to withstand hurricane force winds and came equipped with solar panels, providing access to electricity to many family homes for the first time.
“Because so many of our associates are from Haiti — we decided that it was appropriate for us to go there and to help out,” explains Rosen. “So we were there right after the earthquake and we were involved in a multitude of initiatives. Our Haitian brothers and sisters really love the fact that we love Haiti. If you’re a public company and you have shareholders, they might not approve of some of these philanthropic initiatives, and I understand that. But we don’t have shareholders, we have me, and so it’s very easy for us to make decisions.”
Family-Focused Philosophy
With more than 4,000 employees across his properties, Rosen’s philanthropic vision did not overlook his immediate staff either, who are provided with affordable healthcare and free college by the hotelier. As well as a self-funded medical insurance program and access to free fitness and weight-loss programs, the Rosen Medical Center provides a 12,000-sf facility that serves Rosen employees and their families.
“The hotel industry has changed dramatically over the last 50-60 years,” said Rosen. “It used to be that families were involved in ownership — but now the families have disappeared. Hotel ownership is now in the hands of large hedge funds and big corporations. But we’re different — because we are a family. We’re not an employer and our associates are not our employees — they are our family members. We care a great deal about our associates. It’s just a different philosophy. People ask me on occasion, if you had to do it all over again would you do anything different — but why would I change anything? I mean — I may have made some silly mistakes — but I think something has guided me throughout all of these years — and where we are today is a miracle. I wouldn’t change anything. I’m a happy person and life has been very good to me.”
Frank Santos has been announced to lead Rosen Hotels & Resorts as CEO following the death of Harris Rosen. Santos was recruited by Harris Rosen in 1985 and has served as Chief Financial Officer at the company for almost four decades.
