PRACTICE SESSION

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Larry Eppley took a few real estate classes as an undergrad and in law school in the 1980s, but it was years before he was able to apply that knowledge. A group of entrepreneurial friends asked him to negotiate the acquisition of an aging Sheraton hotel in a northern Chicago suburb, and the new owners gave it a substantial facelift. After that, more clients hired him to represent their hospitality projects. “ Eventually it became sort of a niche,” he says.

Now managing partner at Sheppard, Mullin,
Richter & Hampton’s Chicago office, Eppley has
played a role in acquiring, financing and transform-
ing dozens of ailing buildings across the U.S. into
high-profile hotels—including Chicago’s Essex Inn,
Hotel Felix and the reborn Chicago Athletic Associa-
tion. His “tweener” focus—hospitality law straddles
the corporate and real estate fields, he says—suits
his analytical, goal-oriented personality. “I also
found that the people that get involved, either the
lawyers or the business people, are pretty sophis-
ticated, pretty sharp, pretty smart,” he says. “It just
became more fun, I guess, to do those deals.”
Many of his clients are sponsors or developers with
a “laser focus” on adding value to existing properties.

“We sort of help those clients juggle a lot of balls and spin a lot of plates, because it’s not sequential,” he says. “Everything has to be done all at once. It’s a very multifaceted practice. There’s acquisition, there are joint ventures, finance, operating agreements, often labor issues, union issues.” Still, Eppley says, it’s not magic—just focused teamwork.

Larry Eppley

PARTNER, SHEPPARD, MULLIN, RICHTER & HAMPTON BUSINESS/ CORPORATE, REAL ESTATE CHICAGO

Chicago’s Hospitality Lawyer

Larry Eppley helps clients transform historic buildings
into high-end hotels BY NANCY HENDERSON
From his 48th-floor office window on West
Madison Street, Eppley points to a few notable
deals that have reshaped the Chicago skyline. The
Godfrey, a brand-new hotel concept at the time,
was originally a half-finished property with a de-
faulted loan. “There was litigation involved. There
was financing involved. There was EB- 5 financing
involved, and a joint venture,” he says. “And it was
instantly successful, and one of the most popular
rooftop bars in the city.”
Then there’s The Langham, designed in the

1970s by German-American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a pioneer of modernist architecture.

Eppley helped his clients acquire a “vertically subdivided” portion of the office building, which was losing ground to newer competitors, and turn it into one of the city’s most highly regarded five-star hotels. According to Eppley, it was also at the time the youngest building in Chicago ever landmarked for preservation.

More recently, a nearly empty 1920s beaux arts
insurance complex at the corner of Wacker and
Michigan avenues was, thanks to Eppley’s team,
transformed into the LondonHouse, which features
a tri-level rooftop bar and 360-degree view of
the city. “What would the future of that building
have been, absent conversion to a hotel?” Eppley
muses. “I’m not really sure. But it’s a way to pre-
serve an iconic structure.”
His favorite so far is his very first office building
adaptation, which turned an empty space into the
Wyndham Grand in the ’90s. “That was the first
time we did a project that was converting some-
thing into something that it wasn’t,” Eppley recalls.

“All of these other adaptive reuse projects followed
the blueprint of that project.”
Eppley is also often involved in the preservation
of historic buildings, which requires him to be up
to speed on tax credits and other complexities. On
the other end of the spectrum, he’s now working
with more luxury fashion and retail brands seeking
to expand into the hospitality industry with new
lifestyle hotels. “A lot of times you just sit at your
desk, talking on the phone, negotiate documents
and go to a closing,” he says. “But with these
projects, guess what? You can actually go visit the
fruits of your labor.”