With a mop of crazy black hair on his head, entrepreneur Alex Calderwood was the public face of the Ace Hotels, a chain of hotels he co-founded with a pair of friends in 1999. Calderwood died in London on Thursday. He was 47.
A spokesman for the hotel chain confirmed Calderwood's death in London to The New York Times but declined to comment on the cause of death. Calderwood was apparently in London after recently opening a hotel there.
Calderwood and co-founders Wade Weigel and Doug Herrick opened the first Ace Hotel in Seattle in 1999. The company, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, has a number of locations and was expanding to additional cities like London and Los Angeles.
The vintage interior aesthetic Calderwood helped create for the Ace Hotels was often called quirky and artistic. On Thursday, the Ace Hotel's Twitter account tweeted #ripcity which, presumably, is a reference to it's home city of Portland and not a reference to Calderwood's death.
In 2011, Calderwood sat down with Entrepreneur magazine for a series of three videos that touched on topics from innovation to branding to business travel tips. "It's important to not chase after cool ... Do something that has substance and is very personal," Calderwood advised.
You can watch those videos with Calderwood below: