They are getting rid of it, and will build two hotels that will be branded by Aman Resorts instead.
Read all about it
HERE
For New Year's, Swells Knock 'Em Back, and Knock 'Em Down, in Paradise
It's the New Year's party you're not likely to be invited to. Unless, that is, your name is
Moby,
Mariska Hargitay, or you were college roommates with
Boykin Curry, the financier-playboy who's building an elite private community in the Dominican Republic, called Playa Grande.
Curry & Co. are throwing a major New Year's bash in the DR to celebrate their demolition of a recently acquired hotel—the Occidental—set to be torn down come January. The lavish 10 day affair is being planned by event impresario
Bronson Van Wyck, who's stretching his party acumen to contend with the challenges of the raw parcel of land. Not content to rough it, the co-owners of the retreat and guests are being catered for in the Manhattan-style to which they are accustomed, flying in chef
Gabrielle Hamilton of downtown restaurant
Prune (
1)for the occasion. Crates of champagne are being specially imported, and guests can expect an extravagant fireworks show set on dramatic cliffs over the ocean as the clock strikes midnight. And as the socialites ring in the new year, their wrecking ball will pave the way for tropical domination.
Playa Grande, a $50 million
Mosquito Coast fantasy, was conceived by Curry as an elite experiment. In March, the
New Yorker's
Ben McGrath wrote a piece on the Caribbean paradise and the artistic, utopian ambitions of the property's creators. Curry, along with 20-odd investors, purchased the 2,200-acre tract of land on the wild north shore of the DR and is hell-bent on making it into a bacchanalian Bohemian Grove for entitled 30-something Manhattanites. He also cites the Hamptons in the '70s as a major source of inspiration. A tipster tells
Radar that Curry & Co.'s plans for a colonial-style takeover are proceeding apace. In August, the cadre of Park Avenue darlings added a fading hotel to their lair, with plans to knock it down to make way for development come January.
Co-owners of the raw land read like a roll call at
Michael's (
1), with machers like
Charlie Rose and
Newsweek's
Fareed Zakaria. And then there's playboy
Alex von Furstenberg, designer to the Bush gals
Lela Rose,
Bronson van Wyck, Curry's wife
Celerie Kemble,
Moby, and architect
Richard Meier, who signed on to transform parts of the land into a soothingly luxe Perry Street-in-the-jungle. As McGrath noted in the
New Yorker, Curry envisions the retreat as a "creative person's utopia," vowing, "we are going to keep it bohemian, and not filled with dentists who got lucky in the stock market."
Those lucky dentists and the rest of the un-anointed can sob quietly into their flat champagne this weekend as Curry and his friends enjoy their 10 sun-drenched days of hedonism in their own VIP commune.
http://www.dr1.com/forums/travel-qu...restiged-members-only-golf-club-course-2.html
