Manhattan Transfer to Island Hotel; Ham & Keller Refine Focus

Gerard Widder, new GM of the Irvine Company’s Island Hotel, arrives in Newport Center with experience from several high-end Manhattan establishments, including a tenure in the same post for the flagship W. He came up on the finance side of the business, including a stop at the Waldorf Astoria, and walks into his new job on the heels of a renovation of the place that stretches from its penthouse suites to the Oak Grill and Aqua Lounge on the ground floor. Word has it there’s more in store on the food side, too, with plans to offer guests and locals a selection of gourmet grab-and-go offerings from the hotel’s kitchen and select purveyors … Richard Ham and Chris Keller are zeroing in on the hotel-based restaurants in their portfolio, with plans to shut down the House of Big Fish and Ice Cold Beer in Laguna Beach sometime in October. It’s one of two stand-alone ventures for the partners—the other is the nearby Marine Room Tavern. Their hotel-and-restaurant portfolio includes La Casa Del Camino—the Laguna Beach home to their K’Ya Bistro and Rooftop Lounge—as well as the Menage Hotel in Anaheim, where they also own and operate the Palapa Bar & Lounge and American Tavern … What does Chapman University President Jim Doti do on the back end of a half-marathon? He used the final few miles of the recent Disneyland Half Marathon to negotiate terms of his next appearance on “The Bold and the Beautiful,” a soap opera that counts Chapman alum Casey Kasprzyk as supervising producer. Note that the 67-year-old Doti had to keep pace with 30-something Kasprzyk to close the deal … No one made much mention of Howard Gillman as a likely successor to Michael Drake as chancellor of UCI—except Chuck Martin, who suggested in a Business Journal report way back in May that Gillman might be a dark horse with legs … Kudos: to Chris Walsh and his colleagues at Sunwest Bank, which recently turned a distressed asset into an $80,000 donation to Habitat for Humanity. The house in Bremerton, Wash., will get a fix-up by the nonprofit, and the family that had fallen behind on the mortgage will be allowed to remain there. The move was hailed by public officials as the start of a revitalization campaign for a historic neighborhood in the town of 40,000 or so … A stunning gap, no doubt, at the First Nights for “The Tempest” last Friday at the South Coast Rep, which lost a big backer with the death of Robert Palmer. The partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s office in Irvine earned a top professional reputation as a litigator and personal regard as something of a Renaissance man. He was a big backer of SCR and other arts groups, along with the United Way. He also found time to work as a radio host and writer who contributed occasional reviews to the Business Journal. His penchant for world travel took him on a recent vacation to China, and he reportedly returned last week feeling poorly and died a day later … Personal Note: XO in more ways than one to Rod Bornhop of Orange—husband, father, grandfather, officer, gentleman, pal, avid stock trader, and loyal Business Journal reader until his passing on Aug. 26.