Our History

Welcome to the Island Hospitality History page!

Our Palm Beach Florida based company was founded in 1986 by President and CEO Jeffrey H. Fisher as JF Hotel.  A timeline of events is documented below:

• 1986 - The company’s first property was the Hampton Inn West Palm Beach Airport (now a Best Western).
• 1987 – Our first Courtyard by Marriott opened as a redeveloped Sheraton hotel in the Cypress Creek area of Fort Lauderdale (visit website).
• 1994 – Our first Residence Inn by Marriott was purchased in Binghamton New York (visit website).
• 1998 - We changed our name to Innkeepers Hospitality
• 2001 – The first owned and managed property built from the ground up was the Residence Inn by Marriott Tysons Corner Mall located in Vienna Virginia (visit website).
• 2003 – Signed a management contract for the company’s first Starwood brand, the Sheraton Raleigh Capital Center (visit website).
• 2004 – This was a big year for us as we added several notable locations to our portfolio including:
   - Our first TownePlace Suites by Marriott in Horsham, Pennsylvania (visit website)
   - Added a portfolio of six Summerfield Suites properties across the country
   - Added our first Homewood Suites by Hilton Hotel in San Antonio Texas on the 
     Riverwalk (visit website)
   - Signed a management contract for our first full-service Marriott Hotel – the
     Cornhusker in Lincoln, Nebraska (visit website)
   - Added our first Doubletree Suites in Washington, D.C.  (visit website)
• 2005 – We added another Starwood branded hotel, our first Westin – the Westin Governor Morris in Morristown New Jersey (visit website). Later this year we incorporated the Boston Bulfinch Hotel into our portfolio (visit website).
• 2006 – In October we added our first two full-service Hilton Hotels at the Ontario California Airport and the Anaheim area. Two Residence Inn’s by Marriott were added as part of that transaction to bring our total number of Residence Inn properties to 50.
• 2007 – Our name changed to Island Hospitality. In October we opened our first Embassy Suites hotel in Valencia, California (visit website).

Today we operate over 70 hotels representing 14 brands across the U.S. in 22 states plus the District of Columbia. We invite you to visit our complete list of hotels and thank you for visiting our history page as we look forward to the future and continuing our growth.