Sandy Lane
While enjoying his winter home in Barbados, former British politician Ronald Tree was inspired to create a luxury hotel with a golf course on the island, and he had in mind the old Sandy Lane sugar plantation. Finance was raised and architects appointed, Happy Ward and Jimmy Walker, started work on the Sandy Lane Hotel in 1958. With just 52 rooms, Sand Lane welcomed its very first guests in February 1961 and quickly became known as the only truly elegant, sophisticated and chic, hotel in Barbados, indeed at that time, in the Caribbean.
The dancefloor was the venue for international singers who performed for a formally dressed crowd.
I put myself in the position of a well-educated English gentleman of the late 18th century going to the West Indies to build a Great House."
Happy Ward, architect of Sandy Lane
Since the heady days of the sixties and seventies, celebrities treated Sandy Lane as their home away from home. The stories that swirl around their visits have become legend: Aristotle Onassis being rowed in from his yacht while Maria Callas swam ashore with a pet marmoset on her back; David Niven inventing his own cocktails at the bar; Elton John adhering to the New Year's Eve black-tie dress code ... (read more under Legendary Stories >).
HISTORY IN BRIEF
1961: Opening of Ronald Tree's Sandy Lane.
1967: Sale of the hotel to Trust Houses, which became Trusthouse Forte three years later.
2001: Purchased five years earlier by Irish magnates, the hotel reopened after a lavish revamp.
HISTORY IN DETAIL
1960: Construction began on the resort, on what was once a sugar plantation. It was the brainchild of Ronald (or Ronnie) Tree, who had fallen in love with Barbados and its people since he began spending time there in 1946. After inviting friends to his Barbados home, Heron Bay, for several years, Tree decided to open Sandy Lane. Tree was British-born but American by origin, the grandson of Chicago department store magnate Marshall Field. He brought in American architect Happy Ward and funded the project thanks to a group of rich and influential friends.
1961: Sandy Lane opened. It was built on 380 acres and encompassed an intimate hotel, nine-hole golf course and real estate lots. Said Ward of his design for the neo-Palladian style hotel, "I put myself in the position of a well-educated English gentleman of the late 18th century going to the West Indies to build a Great House."
1960s/70s: The guestbook read like a Who's Who of that era (see famous guests).
1967: The hotel was sold by Tree to Trust Houses. 1970: Trust Houses became Trusthouse Forte, then the largest hotel company in the world. Sandy Lane was a special favorite of Trusthouse Forte head Lord Forte, who frequented it often.
1996: Tycoons Dermot Desmond, J.P. McManus and partners purchased the property and golf course and embarked on the major rebuilding programme. Due to the wear of over 30 years and several structural problems, the resort was demolished then rebuilt and expanded, in the same neo-Palladian style as the original, complete with its white coral stone rotunda - albeit larger and even more luxurious.
2001, March: The hotel reopened.
2006: The Sandy Lane Country Club golf course hosted the 2006 World Golf Championships-World Cup.
Source: www.sandylane.com
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Michael Pownall
Paul Williams (former F&B manager)
Richard R. Williams
Colm Hannon
Robert Logan
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