A workman touchs up the paint in the lobby of the Magnuson Hotel. (Herb Nygren Jr./Staff)

BY CASEY MURPHY

cmurphy@tylerpaper.com

Kevin and Susan Carlile dabbled in investing in residential real estate before buying the Magnuson Hotel in Tyler.

Since purchasing the property in April, they have worked to renovate its 159 hotel rooms, conference and event space, lobby, restaurant and courtyard.

“This is basically a new hotel,” Carlile said Wednesday while showing off the completed spaces. “This is the hidden gem of south Tyler.”

Carlile, 53, grew up in Whitehouse and attended Tyler Junior College and Texas A&M University. He worked all over the world for Trane Co. for 25 years, including as European sales marketing director in Amsterdam. He moved back to Tyler 10 years ago when he became North American vice president of sales.

Carlile retired from the company three years ago, and he and his wife have several apartments and other real estate investments. He said they began looking into investing in a hotel and researched about 150 hotels to understand the industry.

When the Magnuson Hotel property came on the market, “we saw unbelievable potential,” he said. “We have an all-inclusive corporate event center here.”

When it was built 30 years ago, the hotel sat alone on top of a hill. Although it is now surrounded by restaurants and other businesses along Troup Highway, “the courtyard setting makes you feel like you’re out in the country,” Carlile said.

The hotel sits on 6.5 acres that features a now well-manicured lawn, veranda and swimming pool.

“You can’t duplicate that anywhere else,” he said.

The hotel was built as a Holiday Inn in 1984. About 10 years later, it became a Ramada for about a dozen years before becoming the Magnuson. About two years ago, the original investors took it over and housed a management company out of the facility, which had become run down, Carlile said.

He said the Magnuson franchise is one of the fastest growing hotel brands but is not very well known. The franchise is not highly intrusive and lets the owners run their property like they want to, which is what attracted Carlile.

“They don’t build them like this anymore,” he said of the hotel. Because of its “good bones,” he believes after a cosmetic renovation, the facility can become a nearly brand new, resort-style hotel and conference center.

On April 21, Carlile started renovating the property. It was closed for about six weeks while the ballroom, lobby and first building of 50 rooms were completely redone. The hotel has been open for about five weeks and Carlile expects the second of three buildings, each with about 50 rooms, will be complete by the end of September.

There is 7,900 square feet of conference center and event space, which includes a 3,800-square-foot space that can be rented out in its entirety or split up into smaller rooms; and a 5,000-square-foot ballroom.

When he worked at Trane, Carlile said there was limited meeting space in town for company functions. He saw the hotel’s meeting spaces and ballroom as a tremendous opportunity.

The restaurant opens today and will serve foods such as wraps, sandwiches and nachos from 4 to 10 p.m. It also will serve breakfast and will offer a full catering menu — from brisket to salmon — for events held at the property.

He hopes to attract families, extended stay workers, people attending corporate meetings, sporting teams and others to the hotel. He said they will probably have live music on the veranda on some weekends and locals are welcome to enjoy the full bar and restaurant.

The hotel has about a dozen employees but will have more than 25 when it is fully operational.

“If you’ve seen the movie, ‘We Bought a Zoo,’ that’s what it has been like,” Carlile said of buying and renovating the hotel. He said his 14-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter have come to the hotel with them a lot this summer and have “had a blast.”

“Right now, we’re here every day as part of the management team … getting everything set up,” he said. After renovations are complete, Carlile and his wife of 22 years plan to turn over the day-to-day operations to a general manager, sales and catering staff while they will be support.

When Carlile worked abroad for so many years, he lost touch with his hometown community and said it has “been neat to reconnect with Tyler.” After seeing the economic condition the city is in, he did not hesitate to invest in the property, he added.

“From an investor’s standpoint, I don’t know that you could choose a better place in the country than Tyler, Texas,” he said. “It’s all do to the leadership in this town.”