Petter Stordalen is one cool guy. Not only is he a billionaire and has all of the toys, but he likes to do things with some style. Check out the way that he opens a new Hotel.
Billionaire Greatness
Check out this article for more info about Petter Stordalen.
Remember that old rap song, This Is Why I’m Hot?
You know the tune:
This is why I’m hot
I’m hot ’cause I’m fly
You ain’t ’cause you’re not
This is why
This is why
This is why I’m hot
Well Norway’s fliest hotelier Petter Stordalen must have his own version of the refrain, billionaire style, because his latest stunt only reinforces the message. Along with the likes of Richard Branson and Elon Musk, the Versace-loving triathlete shows the rest of us why it can be great—thrilling and dangerous–to have serious cash. This is why I’m rich.
Forty-nine-year-old Stordalen recently had his electric blue helicopter drop him on the top of the 195-foot Clarion Hotel Arlanda Airport so he could walk down the front, face-first, to celebrate the flagship opening. (His spokesman called itAustralian abseiling, I’d call it rappelling.) Watch the video above and note the personalized chopper and Stordalen’s name emblazoned on helmet like a bona fide Top Gun hero.
Thing is, this latest stunt wasn’t at all out of line with his character. In past years he has played drums in a white jumper and disco ball while descending from a ballroom ceiling at the Clarion Hotel Post in Gothenburg, Sweden. He drove a huge bespoke motorcycle through the lobby of the Clarion Hotel in Trondheim, Norway. He set fire to an electric guitar alone onstage in front of a stunned crowd at a business conference. In Britain in 2002 he chained himself to the gate of a waste treatment plant to protest nuclear power.
I spoke with Petter last summer when he called from his summer home in southern Norway. It was a few days before he and Gunhild Melhus, his model-turned-physician wife, would escape to spend August cruising the Mediterranean on the Maltese Falcon with a few friends including Bob Geldof. Not to name drop or anything.
In fact, the man couldn’t have been more kind. He eagerly described how his father trained him in business from a young age by giving him odd-jobs at the family grocery store, and how his toughest competitors early on were the townswomen selling better strawberries than he could find with his pre-teen intuition. (He now owns Nordic Choice Hotels, the largest hotel chain in Norway.)
He also described how he stubbornly pursued Gunhild, an engaging and statuesque blonde who told me she was “definitely” uninterested in dating such a high-profile “crazy guy.” (Watch this speech to get an idea of the energy involved here.)
As an interesting side note, Stordalen is an avid environmentalist who genuinely cares about conservation and sustainability–he says his father’s love of being in the forest instilled in him a respect for maintaining the resource.
Between the two of them Gunhild and he sit on numerous conservationist boards including the European Climate Foundation, GreeNudge and The Stordalen Foundation, and Gunhild has prompted him to donate millions of dollars to eco groups worldwide. Last year the couple traveled with Al Gore to research climate change in the Antarctic.
Stordalen has also converted his 599 Ferrari to run on pure biofuel. Look for him in Oslo driving with his German Sheppard in the front seat; Gunhild drives a MINI with her mini pig in tow.
All this to say: Sometimes real life characters are just as good as anything in a comic book. And boy does Petter Stordalen put himself through a lot for our benefit.
