No place like home: plane crash survivor Carlos Lopes is in his third stint running the Hotel Bel-Air, known for its distinctive rooms and vaunted privacy.

CARLOS Lopes has managed some of the most prestigious hotels in the world, but he keeps coming back to Bel-Air. Lopes, managing director of the Hotel Bel-Air, directed the property for four years before leaving in 1986 to start his own business. In all, he has managed the property for 12 of the last 22 years under three different owners. He has overseen two major renovations, increasing the number of rooms by a third. Since his 2002 return, Lopes oversaw completion of a $16 million renovation and won back the hotel's five-star rating. He has also learned to battle paparazzi and soothe celebrity clientele.

Question: How did you get into the hotel industry?

Answer: In college I hadn't really selected a direction in life, and a good friend recommended working in hotels on a part-time basis. It fit me from the start. I liked the creative process. I liked the multifaceted nature of the business, from operations and finance to marketing and design and architecture. It takes so many different talents to run a hotel, I felt with hotels I could dabble in any of those areas.

Q: It must be difficult to run a hotel with 91 distinctly different rooms.

A: You wouldn't believe it. We have 300 different types of fabrics and more than 160 different colors of paint. It's enough to make a housekeeper commit hari-kari.

Q: Why customize each room?

A: We are the only hotel in the world where we customize each suite. We have about 20 of them designed for specific guests. We have a customized suite for Oprah Winfrey with Italian silk curtains and a hand-stenciled ceiling. There are another 18 or so suites where we have done the same for a specific guest's tastes. It's a very personal thing for them.

Q: What's the most requested room?

A: Rooms 155 and 157. They are always the first rooms to be booked. They each have a private patio with a personal Jacuzzi.

Q: Do guests ever protest the hotel's renovations?

A: One of our guests, she is here at lunch very often, is Mrs. Reagan. She takes tremendous pride in this hotel and we listen to her. There was a story in The Wall Street Journal earlier this year that mentioned a possible location for our new spa as the site of our herb garden. Mrs. Reagan was upset and called me after she read the story. A number of our regulars thought we were going to destroy our gardens to build the spa. We never planned that. The spa is going to replace our current gym. None of the gardens will be affected.

Q: What precautions do you take to protect your clientele?

A: Paparazzi are always an issue here. But the Bel-Air is not really exposed. It's hidden in a canyon, so paparazzi can only locate themselves in the public areas outside the main entrance. And since our bungalows are so isolated from the street, it's very difficult for them to get shots of the building. We also have excellent security and if they try to penetrate the periphery around the 12 acres of the property, there are cameras that will catch them.

Q: Have paparazzi ever evaded security?

A: They are very obvious. Regardless of what they look like, they will always need a camera with a zoom lens, so they are easy to detect. Mostly, they try to walk through the main entrance of the hotel and dress like guests carrying a small shoulder bag. We see them wandering through the residential areas of the hotel and can pretty easily tell if they are a guest or not.

Q: What happens when you catch one?

A: We remove all the film from their cameras, remind them they are trespassing and if more is required we will pursue legal recourses if necessary to protect our guests' privacy.

Q: How many surveillance cameras are around the hotel?

A: Let's just say there are many cameras on the periphery. The moment anyone attempts to enter the property illegally they will be spotted immediately. Nobody has attempted this in the last year and a half since we installed the camera system.

Q: Has 9/11 changed the way the hotel conducts security?

A: With everything that's happening in the world we have to be very careful about the security of our guests. For diplomats and the diplomatic community, it was an important investment.

Q: How did you come to the hotel?

A: Eric Prevette, CFO of Rosewood Hotels, which is owned by the Hunt family, hired me as a senior vice president. The company focused on boutique properties. The hotels were smaller, the quality more intense, the service more refined and they were very focused on design. They didn't repeat designs from hotel to hotel and they never used the same interior designers. The thought was each hotel should be able to distinguish itself by its own merits. The Hunt family had just purchased the Hotel Bel-Air from the estate of Joseph Drown, who had owned it for 30 years. They sent me here in 1982 to reposition the property, which encompassed everything from marketing and operations to overseeing the hotel's first major renovation, which added another 31 units.

Q: You were in a small plane crash in Seattle Bay three years ago. How has that experience affected you?

A: During the last 30 seconds, I really believed that was going to be the last 30 seconds of my life. After that, I made a decision to become closer to my daughters. I really believe I was given another opportunity in life and so were all the other people on that plane. I tend not to take life too seriously anymore and appreciate what I have on a day-to-day basis.

Q: Do you still fly?

A: I avoid it like the plague. Already I've had to fly back to New York on business twice. When I do fly, I take night flights and I take sleeping pills to ease my anxiety. But it's definitely changed me.

Q: Do hotel neighbors complain a lot or give you a lot of problems?

A: Not at all. You see the locals all the time at the bar and eating at the restaurant. They put their friends and business associates up here. We are more a regional hotel--we don't have to market to the whole world because we only have 90 rooms. Our core supporters live within a five-mile radius.

Q: You've left the Bel-Air, but you kept coming back.

A: I left in 1986 with Eric Prevette to start Unique Hotels. We specialized in the management of boutique hotels. We had the K Club on Barbuda, where room rates were $1,000 a night. We also managed the Grand Hotel du Cap-Ferrat, France and the Hotel Del Mar in San Diego. In 1990, Rosewood sold the Bel-Air to a Japanese group called Sazale for $1 million a room. Sazale, which had hotels in Japan but none in the U.S., hired us to manage the hotel for them. So we moved back into the Bel-Air, and from the Marilyn Monroe cottage, in the back of the property, we ran three of the world's Top 10 hotels.

Q: But you left again?

A: We were presented with an opportunity in 1995 to join Rock Resorts in Scottsdale. The intent was to grow that company to 20 resorts. Our responsibility was to acquire hotels for their portfolio. But post-9/11, a corporate decision was made to change their investment philosophy. They shifted to commercial and residential real estate, and they looked for an exit and in late 2001 merged with Vale Resorts.

Q: Is that when you came back to Bel-Air?

A: After the crash, I wanted to be closer to my daughters and my family. Living in Scottsdale and driving to L.A. every weekend wasn't fun. I figured I'd take a year off and maybe start another real estate company. Instead, Kava Holdings, which bought the Bel-Air in 1996, asked me to come back and manage the hotel. They needed someone to finish the renovations, regain the five-star rating and, without sacrificing service, find a way to make the property more profitable.

INTERVIEW

Carlos C. Lopes

Title: Managing Director

Organization: Hotel Bel-Air

Born: Lisbon, Portugal, 1946

Education: Sir George Williams University, Montreal

Career Turning Point: Joining Hilton International Inc.'s career development institute in the 1960s

Most Admired Person: Donald Mumford, former president of Hilton International and a "perfectionist who instilled in me the qualities it takes to run a luxury hotel"

Hobbies: Hiking, tennis and hunting, mostly for quail and duck

Personal: Divorced with three children