Who

The chairman of HK Hotels, Kallan owns four Manhattan hotels including the Library, the Giraffe, the Casablanca and the Elysee.

Backstory

Kallan left Bratislava, Slovakia at the age of 20 and headed to Vienna to play soccer. When his U.S. visa came though a year later, he left behind a chance to play the sport professionally, arriving in New York with just $20 in his pocket. (Or so the story goes, at least.) Kallan started off his hospitality career as a busboy at what is now the Peninsula Hotel; he later became the hotel's general manager before investing in his first hotel property, the boutique Wales Hotel, in 1988. Several years later, he opened his first hotel, the Elysee, thanks to financing from hoteliers Richard Born and Ira Drukier.

Of note

Kallan's hotels—which now include the Giraffe on Park Avenue South and the Library Hotel—aren't very high profile. One exception was the meatpacking district's Hotel Gansevoort, which Kallan operated on behalf of Michael Achenbaum, the hotel's owner. (The pair terminated their relationship after a year.) More recently, Kallan sold a hotel he owned in Prague—the music-themed Hotel Aria—so he could focus on a North American expansion. He recently announced plans to co-develop and operate a nine-story boutique hotel in Minneapolis.

Drama

In 2003, Kallan was sued by a nonprofit library group—yes, he was sued by a bunch of librarians—for using the trademarked Dewey Decimal System at the Library Hotel, which, in keeping with the theme, Kallan decorated with some $45,000 worth of used books. Kallan used the classification system to number his guest rooms. As part of a settlement, he agreed to donate a portion of his profits to a charity that helps children learn to read.

Personal

He's married his childhood sweetheart, Emilia Kalandov. They have two grown children: Jeanette, who handles the finances for HK Hotel group, and Christopher. The couple lives on East 89th Street, in a three-bedroom apartment they bought for $2.995 in 2009. They also have a home in Southampton.