Creator of controversial Plett landmark dies
Countrywide condolences and posthumous vitriol alike have spilled over on social media in the wake of hotel magnate Sol Kerzner’s death last weekend, but in Plettenberg Bay mostly condolences have poured in after news broke of the man which many Bitou burghers would argue put the coastal holiday town on the map.
Kerzner, the SA hotel magnate and creator of the iconic Beacon Island Hotel in Plettenberg Bay, lost his battle with cancer on Saturday.
He died at the Kerzner family home in the Leeukoppie Estate in Cape Town.
The founder of South Africa’s two largest hotel groups, Southern Sun and Sun International, developed the Beacon Island Hotel in 1972. For some, the building dominating the entire Plettenberg Bay seaboard remains the most prominent picture-postcard landmark by which to recognise Plettenberg Bay since the 1970s – for others it represents an architectural eyesore that flies in the face of the natural environment like so much egg.
The history of the hotel at the mouth of the Piesang River goes back to 1771 when the first navigational beacon, hence the property’s name, was erected on the island. The beacon was a wooden block inscribed with the latitude and longitude of Plettenberg Bay and erected to enable mariners to check their location and chronometers.
The wooden beacon was replaced with a stone one a hundred years later. It was replaced by newer versions several times over the following years and can still be seen in the gardens of the hotel today.
In the 1830s, the first lease to use Beacon Island as a whaling station was obtained. Whaling, however, came to a halt in 1916. When whaling ceased, a home that was erected on the property by Norwegians involved with whaling, became a boarding house and forerunner of the Angler’s Inn. The original hotel was erected in 1940 and was rebuilt in 1972 by the Kerzner group.
According to Plett Tourism spokesperson Patty Butterworth, in the early 1970s, Kerzner’s Southern Sun group bought the land known as the Beacon Island. At the time, the property already had a hotel on it. It was demolished and the hotel as it is recognised today was constructed on the land. “For holidaymakers and locals alike, the hotel would become a landmark by which to recognise Plett in photos, paintings, magazines, newspapers and on television. Indeed it was the sight one would look out for when rounding the bends on the N2 on the way in from Port Elizabeth,” Butterworth said. She added that all at Plett Tourism extend their deepest condolences to the Kerzner family. Kerzner, who was 84 years old at the time of his death, is survived by his children Andrea, Beverly, Brandon and Chantal as well as his 10 grandchildren. His eldest son Howard known widely as ”Butch”, died in 2006.
Sol Kerzner
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Source: Knysna Plett Herald News