Ira Drukier and Richard Born were bored. Facing an early midlife crisis three decades ago, they decided to ditch their careers in engineering and medicine, and follow their fathers into the real estate business.

The move paid off. The Queens-raised partners have become billionaires by transforming their families’ modest real estate assets into a lodging empire that includes some of New York’s most stylish accommodations. With 24 properties including the Bowery and the Ludlow, they’re the biggest owners of boutique hotels in the city. They also control 12 residential and commercial buildings.

Drukier and Born tend to focus on buying projects in need of extensive renovations. They operate properties through their management company, BD Hotels, and hire different teams of architects and designers for each building depending on their neighborhood and history.

“The aesthetic nature of the hotel business evolved slowly -- I’d compare it to jeans,” Drukier, 69, said in a phone interview. “Over time, they’ve become stylized, catering to a very specific group of people. Hotels are more than just a bed and hot water.”

Drukier and Born, 57, are profiting from demand for boutique hotels, which has been one of the fastest-growing segments in the lodging space, especially among younger customers, according to Nikhil Bhalla, an analyst at FBR & Co. in Arlington, Virginia.

Manhattan, Brooklyn

The pair has three hotels under construction: two in Manhattan and one in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. They expanded to California in June, paying $30 million for the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, a rundown property associated with serial killers and suicides.

Their latest venture is the 184-room Ludlow on New York’s Lower East Side. The property started hosting guests last year after Drukier and Born bought the almost decade-long stalled development in partnership with hotelier Sean MacPherson in 2011 for $25 million. Across the street from Katz’s Delicatessen, the brick-and-glass hotel features Moroccan rugs, grand chandeliers and a penthouse suite that starts at $1,950 a night.

It’s one of more than two dozen hotel properties that Drukier and Born have stakes in, along with the Greenwich Hotel, co-owned with actor Robert De Niro, and the Mercer in SoHo, which they operate in partnership with Andre Balazs.

Their holdings are valued at about $2 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg that include room rates, occupancy levels and prevailing capitalization rates in New York City. They own between 40 and 70 percent of their hotels.

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