SAN FRANCISCO Bill Kimpton, Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, LLC founder and chairman passed away March 30 at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston from complications of leukemia. He had been battling the disease since July, and passed peacefully surrounded by his family, according to reports. He was 65 years old.
With the purchase of his first hotel in 1981, Kimpton began to build a chain of small, European-style hotels often with high-profile restaurants attached. Today, the Kimpton Group owns or managed 35 hotels and 29 restaurants.
After graduating from Northwestern University, Bill Kimpton joined the Army, and later began his career as a typewriter salesman for IBM in Chicago. He became an investment banker in New York and moved to San Francisco in 1969 as the manager of Lehman Brothers. During his tenure there, he helped finance a number of high-profile projects, including the Kapalua Bay Resort hotel in Maui and Kentucky Fried Chicken. He also worked closely with developer Harry Helmsley to finance the renovation of the Palace Hotel in New York.
Mr. Kimpton founded in 1996 the Mental Insight Foundation which treats depression using therapy and mediation as alternatives to prescription drugs and has funded a number of research projects into various forms of mental illness. (4/1/01)