Every remarkable holiday tradition begins with someone willing to imagine it before the rest of us can see it.

Richard C. Kessler has spent more than five decades in hospitality, but “hotelier” alone does not fully explain the worlds he creates. Born in Savannah and raised in Effingham County, the founder, chairman, and CEO of The Kessler Collection has built a career around the conviction that a hotel can be more than a place to sleep. It can be a gallery, a gathering place, a stage, a dining room, a neighborhood catalyst, and a doorway into the character of a city.

Art, music, cuisine, culture, and design recur across The Kessler Collection because they are not decorative afterthoughts. They are the experience. Kessler is directly involved in the conception and design of new developments, and his personal interest in art and lesser-known artists gives the properties the feeling of living collections rather than interchangeable hotels.

Nowhere is that philosophy more visible than Plant Riverside District. The Kessler Collection acquired Savannah’s decommissioned Riverside Power Plant site in 2012 and reimagined the 1912 industrial landmark as a 4.5-acre riverfront destination. After years of restoration and redevelopment, Plant Riverside opened in 2020 with the JW Marriott Savannah, restaurants and lounges, retail, music venues, public spaces, art, science exhibits, and a new stretch of riverwalk.

The achievement was not simply the preservation of an old building. It reopened a portion of the riverfront that had been inaccessible for generations and gave an industrial monument a new civic life. The smokestacks remained. The history remained. But the old power plant began generating a different kind of energy: culture, curiosity, celebration, and human connection.

Then came the Christmas market.

Kessler has explained that the Savannah Christmas Market grew from his travels through the celebrated holiday markets of Austria, Germany, and Italy. He wanted to bring some of that European wonder home to the Hostess City. The market launched in 2020—at a moment when people deeply needed beauty, community, and reasons to gather safely outdoors—and quickly grew from a new idea into one of Savannah’s defining holiday traditions.

That vision is worth pausing over. Kessler did not attempt to copy Europe and place it unchanged beside the Savannah River. Instead, the experience blends old-world market traditions with Southern warmth: artisan stalls and evergreen garlands alongside river traffic, historic architecture, Lowcountry flavors, live music, family activities, and Savannah’s gift for turning hospitality into theater.

The result now welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors and has been recognized among the country’s notable holiday markets. More importantly, it gives artists, independent businesses, makers, families, and travelers a place to become part of one shared seasonal story.

The Greenville Christmas Market extends that spirit into another Kessler setting. Grand Bohemian Lodge Greenville opened in 2022 beside the Reedy River and Falls Park. With its monumental fireplace, art collection, natural materials, floor-to-ceiling views, spa, restaurants, and strong sense of place, it offers a more intimate, lodge-like interpretation of Kessler’s belief that hospitality should awaken wonder.

Together, the markets reveal what The Kessler Collection does especially well: not merely hosting an event, but composing an environment in which architecture, art, food, landscape, music, and people make one another more memorable.