Dive Brief:

• Hotel development and management company Lark recently added four North Carolina boutique hotels to its portfolio: The Beach House and The Starlite Inn in Carolina Beach, and The Admiral’s Quarters Motel and The Sand Dunes in Kure Beach. 
• The hotels will be part of the company’s Lark Independent brand, which launched in 2020. Hotels under the brand remain independently owned while Lark takes over management and operation. 
• Lark has beefed up its portfolio in the Southeast in recent months. The new additions come on the heels of three others in North Carolina, and the company plans to continue building its presence in the region.

Dive Insight:

"We've been eyeing an expansion in the Southeast for the last four years and have been looking for the right strategic partners,” Lark Founder Robert Blood told Hotel Dive. 

Lark Hotels’ portfolio includes more than 50 boutique hotels in the U.S, and Lark Independent is its third-party management division, which operates and markets independent hotels. The company plans to continue expanding its portfolio in the Southeast both as a third-party manager and a joint venture partner for developing hotels. 

“When we enter a region, we want to make sure that we have a strategic plan in place,” he added. “With the addition of four hotels in the Asheville area and four on the coast, south of Wilmington, we now have a hub from which we can build a larger, well supported presence in the Southeast."

The latest batch of additions to Lark Independent are all on North Carolina’s southern coast, but the projects join other, previously announced hotels near the town of Asheville: Asheville River Cabins, which opened in 2022, and The Radical and Zelda Dearest, both opening this summer. A Lark Hotels-branded guest house called Blind Tiger Asheville, the company’s first in the south, will open this summer as well.

Since its founding in 2012, Lark Hotels has primarily operated in New England and California. But in recent months, the company’s directors have fallen for North Carolina. 

“Much like the beach towns and mountains of the Northeast, we were instantly drawn to North Carolina’s natural serenity, contemporary urban settings and adventurous Blue Ridge Mountain towns,” Blood said in a statement. 

The recent additions put the number of properties under the Lark Independent brand at 18.