By Erik Bojnansky
March 10, 2023
Nitin and Dev Motwani’s first year at the Merrimac Beach Resort in Fort Lauderdale was an adventure. They had a pool. Sometimes they checked guests in.
It was 1986. Nitin was 7 years old; Dev was 6.
“Our living room had a door that connected directly to the front desk, so if our desk clerk didn’t show up, we would leave that door open,” Dev said. “And whoever was closest would go to the front desk and try to sell a room.”
When asked what that experience was like, Nitin laughed: “It wasn’t that complicated back then. There were no computers. You just filled out a card.”
As the brothers adjusted to life in a motel, their parents, Ramesh and Ramola, were adapting to new economic realities. Within a year of buying the 49-room motel, Fort Lauderdale city officials clamped down on spring break revelries. The disappearance of thousands of partying college students devastated the local economy.
“We started to see a lot of foreclosures, a lot of businesses struggling,” Dev said. “People were selling [their properties] at depressed prices and moving on.”
But Ramesh and Ramola, who had run an import-export business in St. Louis, didn’t give up. Instead, they doubled down, purchased more neighboring properties, and got involved in city politics. Following her husband’s death after a sudden heart attack, Ramola, who ran the motel properties, learned more about the city’s zoning code, and even lobbied municipal officials. By the early 2000s, Dev said, she was informally known as the mayor of Fort Lauderdale Beach.
Today, the Merrimac is no more. The motel, along with neighboring hotel properties owned by the Motwani family, has been replaced by the Four Seasons Hotel and Residences. One of the developers of that 22-story project is Merrimac Ventures, run by managing partners Dev and Nitin. The brothers’ goal: to apply the lessons they learned from their immigrant parents – namely, don’t give up.
“We watched our parents go through much, much tougher odds,” Dev said. “Whenever times got tough, they just worked harder. They instilled that in us. And I think when you have that perseverance and fight in you, you can get through almost anything if you don’t quit.”
Branching out
When the Motwani brothers were younger, leaving the motel life behind was something they yearned for. After years of checking in guests, and later waiting tables at the properties’ restaurants and cafes, the Fort Lauderdale adventure had become old.
“We lived in these motels. We worked in these motels. We went to public school.” Nitin said. “And we couldn’t wait to get out of South Florida.”
After graduating high school in the late 1990s, they went to Duke University.
“After Duke, we both went to Wall Street,” Nitin said, “while mom was running the hotels.”
By the early 2000s, developers interested in building on Fort Lauderdale Beach, and redeveloping the family property, were meeting with Ramola. Nitin and Dev sat in on the meetings.
Mar 10, 2023
