New General Manager Brings First-Class Experience and a Personal Touch to Coterie Cathedral Hill

“I have all these memories of going to visit her and seeing how wonderfully the staff treated her,” Turner says. “We’d sit on the couch watching TV and staff members would come by to say hi and see how she was doing. They always called her Miss America, which really made her light up.”

Now that Matt oversees daily operations at Coterie Cathedral Hill, he makes sure each resident experiences the same level of attentive, personalized care. He considers the special relationship between staff and residents to be just as essential to the luxury care experience as top-tier amenities, gourmet dining, and the cultural and fitness offerings.

Matt brings to Coterie almost two decades of experience in the luxury hospitality industry, including director positions at Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and general manager positions at high-end California resorts. He chose a career in hospitality over other business opportunities because he found it to be a better fit for his outgoing personality.

“Even back in college, I remember taking this hospitality class where we’d visit different resorts and amusement parks, and it was immediately so much more exciting and interactive than a lot of the other business classes I was in. I’m very personable, so having a job where I get to talk to so many interesting people was a perfect fit for me.”

Matt starts every day at Coterie with a walkthrough of the building, visiting residents at breakfast and checking in with staff. This hands-on approach lets him stay engaged with everyday life in the community. He takes pride in the personal bonds residents form with Coterie staff.

“The biggest difference between working at Coterie versus a five-star hotel is that I’m building long-term relationships with residents here,” he says. “You get to know each other and have these conversations you keep coming back to when you run into each other in the halls or in the elevator. At a hotel, you always want to be friendly to guests, but here there’s a higher level of investment and personalized attention because residents and staff really get to know one another.”

The move to Coterie is also something of a homecoming for him, as he grew up in the East Bay area. He and his family now live in the same San Francisco suburb he grew up in.

“My kids go to the same schools I went to and play Little League on the same baseball fields,” he says. “So there’s something satisfying about having that come full circle for me.”

Matt especially enjoys welcoming new residents to the Coterie family.

“We throw each new resident a party with retro jazz music and a champagne toast with all the directors present so they can start getting to know each other on day one,” he says. “It’s always very warm and festive, and I think it makes residents more comfortable settling into their new home.”

He recalls a recent encounter with a 74-year-old man with Parkinson’s who decided to move to Coterie after a 60-day short-term stay.

“I had really connected with him, and I told him how excited I was that he was going to stay. And he said, ‘I chose to stay because I trust you and I trust your staff. And at this phase in my life, I really need to be surrounded by people I trust.’

“That just meant the world to me,” Matt says. “Having seen how much this kind of care meant to my grandmother when I was younger, it’s so rewarding to be able to provide our residents with a community where they truly feel taken care of.”