Businessman and hotelier Peter de Savary, who was responsible for creating many of golf’s most famous destinations, has died aged 78.
The Essex-born businessman, who died unexpectedly in London on October 30, was expelled from school aged 16, but became a millionaire by the time he was 30 after founding an import-export business with dealings in Africa.
De Savary was best known for his work in hospitality through which he developed over 60 hotels, hospitality projects and resorts, including those featuring championship golf courses. The Abaco Club in the Bahamas, Bovey Castle in England and Scotland’s Carnegie Links at Skibo Castle, Royal Dornoch Golf Hotel and Machrie Golf Hotel, were all once among his sizeable golf property portfolio.
Noticing a gap in the market for small, personal hotels with the facilities of grander properties, he opened the first St James’s Club in London in 1979, and built up the chain with venues in Antigua, Paris, Los Angeles, and New York.
He sold St James’s Club in the late 1980s for more than £56m and set about restoring Skibo Castle in Scotland. This became the first Carnegie Club property, complete with Championship golf courses, when it reopened in 1995 after a five-year, £15m revamp.
He sold the Carnegie Club to a group of members for £27m in 2003, two years after he sold Stapleford Park Hotel in Leicestershire, which boasted a championship course designed by Donald Steel and Tom Mackenzie that closed in 2020, although the hotel remains open.
In 2002 he bought the Manor House Hotel & Golf Club near Dartmoor, and spent the next two years converting the art deco-styled property into the five-star, 65-bedroom Bovey Castle, which also boasted lodge houses and a pre-established 18-hole championship golf course, which hosted many regional and national PGA events.
Latterly, working with his third wife, Lana, de Savary developed a string of boutique hotels in England, including the Cary Arms & Spa in South Devon, The Eastbury in North Dorset and The Beachcroft in West Sussex – all of which offered golf breaks after developing ties with local clubs.
Talking several years ago about his drive to develop hotels and resorts, he said: “I don’t need to be doing anything for the money, but I do it for the same reason that actors keep on making films. It’s that challenge to do something creative, to get that applause from the audience. I am fortunate to have it as good as it gets, but it’s still an overwhelming fix. I shall keep going until it isn’t working.”
Paying tribute to her husband, Lana de Savary, who remains chairman of the family-owned business, said: “Peter was extraordinary, not just as a businessman, but as a wonderful mentor, loving husband and devoted father of his five daughters. He was a remarkable man and an enormous gap will be left in our lives without him.”