Page 119 - Exploration10LLR

Zourab Tchkotoua

Phone call with Uta Birkmayer September 26, 2017

Zourab, our “Zou”, as he identified himself on the phone, only has the fondest memories of La Lomita. He Lake Zourab
has not been in the area in almost 40 years but remembers most about La Lomita are the various beautiful
views when walking around the property. He recalls different areas for horses and cattle and is very proud
to claim that the like was his idea to capture the waters of the seasonal creek. Lake Zou

When living at La Lomita, he also traveled to Arab countries for work and enjoyed coming home to
La Lomita to enjoy a happy time.

Zourab remembers that the property was already called La Lomita. Marieta and her father Pedro
expanded their very successful Spanish horse breeding business to this ranch until Reagan’s tax
reforms, it was no longer a tax shelter. He recalls that Abha Hamir, Marieta’s Arabian, won the
American National Championship twice, competing with 200,000 other Arabians in the US.

After the breeding operation was closed, Zourab was contemplating what to do with La Lomita
Ranch. He and Rob Rossi were close friends and business partners and subsequently came up with
the idea for a golf resort, naming it The Nomad. Zourab brought in another developer from
Australia, recommended to him by his Swiss bank. The team was one vote short to get the project Figure 98: Zourab in 2015
approved by the city. Zu handed the property over to his Swiss bank, who sold it.

Zourab, regrettably, has no connection to his father’s country Georgia. He never
visited, unlike his bothers and nieces. “I feel like a coward!” All property registers in
Georgia have been destroyed, preventing him from researching his ancestors’
property.

Zourab was born in San Francisco and moved to Europe in 1954. He currently resides
in Morocco.

Figure 99: Two old friends - Prince Zourab and King Juan
Carlos of Spain in Mallorca

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