Page 19 - Club Rockley

with Ron and on arrival at my hotel was a little surprised to find that the mini bar in my room been fully stocked up with Lowenbrau beer a particular favou- rite of mine at the time. Were they planning to get me drunk, I wondered? Or were they simply enthusiastic potential buyers? Well, fortunately it turned out to be the latter, and the deal was completed.
We had a lovely meal at a very good downtown restaurant, and over coffee I wrote out an agreement on the back of a paper napkin, which we all signed /witnessed etc- and which ensured that exactly what Ron was buying was accurately described, and that the price and payment terms and the time and place that the agreement was being made, were all clearly set out (in actual fact all as previously agreed by the members of the “ABC team” and well rehearsed with Peter and David in advance). Later, when Cyndi and Tom , and Ronald had not met with the success they had hoped for in their resale of the “Plumtree Cluster “ on a Time Share basis, Ronald then tried to escape from the ‘paper menu contract’, but it held up legally, and he was bound by it. However, Tom managed to sell off the entire unsold part of the cluster for him to a group of lawyers from Boston, who in turn were eventually able to take legal action which somehow resulted in the property winding up with the Royal Trust Corporation of Canada. I understand that the cluster is now owned or operated by David Callaghan and his very capable assistant- Anne Smith- and continues to host many satisfied holiday makers from Canada, USA, and several other sources. But that is a relatively recent occurrence, and my narrative has only just reached the nineteen eighties! So, back to the ‘80’s we go!
The redevelopment of the Golf Course had commenced in 1979 and was completed in early 1980 with the re-development costs coming in at around bds $1 million at that time! David Callaghan, then the only golfer of the three of us, designed the lay out of the course, working with the well known landscape gardener Richard Coghlan, who had trained at the world famous Kew Gardens, in West London, and had come over to Barbados originally to do the design and landscaping work for ‘The Sandy Lane Hotel” before staying on in Barbados to open the West Coast Garden Centre. In ad- dition to helping David Callaghan with the Golf Course restoration, Richard also designed and installed the first six cluster gardens at Rockley. Another very good professional. Richard also proved to be quite a character.
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