Boarded-up Las Vegas hostel, formerly owned by Tony Hsieh, sells for $3 million
A boarded-up hostel in downtown Las Vegas that was owned by the late tech mogul Tony Hsieh has been sold.
Apartment landlord George Kanawati acquired the shuttered, graffitied hostel property at 1322 Fremont St. for more than $3 million from Hsieh’s estate, according to property and court records and business-entity filings.
The sale closed July 11.
Las Vegas Hostel, as the property was known, boasted dorm rooms with four, six or eight beds apiece, as well as private rooms, according to its website. Room rates started at $18.
It wasn’t immediately clear what the new owner plans to do with the property at the southwest corner of Fremont and 14th streets.
Kanawati, reached by phone, confirmed the purchase but otherwise did not comment on the deal.
Big portfolio
Brokerage firm Logic Commercial Real Estate had listed the “non-operating” property for sale at $3,035,000.
The three-story building spans about 21,100 square feet and includes 39 hotel rooms, an attached restaurant, a pool, lounge area, coin-operated laundry and “theater room,” according to marketing materials.
Kanawati bought it for the asking price.
Attorneys for Hsieh’s estate did not respond to a request for comment on the sale.
Hsieh, the former CEO of online shoe seller Zappos and face of downtown Las Vegas’ economic revival, died in 2020 at age 46 from injuries suffered in a Connecticut house fire.
He was unmarried and died with a massive fortune, having sold Zappos to Amazon in a $1 billion-plus deal and invested heavily in the Fremont Street area through a $350 million side venture originally called Downtown Project.
He bankrolled bars, eateries and tech startups and became one of downtown’s biggest property owners, buying apartment complexes, office buildings, motel properties and other sites.
By fall 2024, his estate had sold more than $45 million in real estate he assembled. But many other properties he owned had yet to trade hands, and in some cases, their blighted condition drew a nuisance notice from the city of Las Vegas.
Will throws wrench
Hsieh’s father, Richard Hsieh, is the court-appointed administrator of his son’s estate, and the dad’s legal team stated multiple times in court filings that the younger Hsieh died without a will.
However, in what has proved to be a surprising and bizarre turn of events, law firms McDonald Carano and Greenberg Traurig filed court papers in April with a copy of Tony Hsieh’s seven-page last will and testament — dated March 13, 2015 — and a letter explaining how it was found.
It was discovered in February in the personal belongings of the late Pir Muhammad, according to the letter, which stated Muhammad suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and was not aware Hsieh had died.
The letter did not say when Muhammad died or where he lived, nor did it provide any details about his career or his association with Hsieh.
Hsieh had named Muhammad an executor in the will and gave him “exclusive possession” of the original, in part to prevent anyone from destroying it, the will indicates.
But several people who knew Hsieh have said they never heard of Pir Muhammad, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal found nothing that linked the name to Southern Nevada or confirmed who he was.
Attorneys for Hsieh’s estate served subpoenas to the firms that filed the will in court, seeking a broad range of documents. Those law firms then filed motions seeking to quash the subpoenas, arguing the sweeping demand for records was a “fishing expedition” that seemed designed to “harass,” court records show.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
