Welcome To The Field Of Dreams Hotel
A History Of Why It Was Built And What Happened When It Was Sold.
After opening the Sand Trap Inn and having met many men who had been coming on vacations over the years between 1998 and 2002 I had an idea of opening a single mens hotel in a more convient location. In 2002 I drew up plans for a hotel that could be built on land across from the Playa Dorada complex. Alberto had approached me with some land he had and was willing to sell it at a very good price. I approached some of my contacts who had kept in touch with me about raising the money for this enterprise. I had no trouble interesting 10 other men and Alberto to invest in my hotel. I raised $400,000us dollars and using my pension money I was a 35% share holder. With the money on deposit in Anoeca (Alberto's investment company) we started the project.After opening the Sand Trap Inn and having met many men who had been coming on vacations over the years between 1998 and 2002 I had an idea of opening a single mens hotel in a more convient location.
As usual nothing goes as planned. We were lots of having lots of bad press (radio, tv & press) in Puerto Plata. We did suspect it was from across the street and the Playa Dorada complex was behind it. The have claimed we were building a cabana. But there are no garages and the design clearly shows it is a hotel with a swimming pool and restaurant. The building permit was rescinded and we had to stop construction. They had the minister of tourism come over from Santa Domingo to inspect the place. Of course that took over three weeks for him to see fit in his busy schedule to arrive.
Above - All the footings were dug by hand (Haitian labor) because it was cheaper than hiring a back hoe.
One morning I came to the site to find it empty, I ask Papito my foreman (Dominican) where all the workers were. He told me the immigration police came and put them on a bus last night and deported them to Haiti. I ask what are we going to do now? He said don't worry they'll all be back tomorrow. They were all back the next day.
Below - Papito with surveyor lining up and marking where the footings to be dug.
After being inspected he "OK'ed" the building as a hotel but we still had to go to court in Puerto Plata. The date was set and I paid a lawyer recommended by Alberto 26,000 pesos ($500 us dollars in 2004) to represent the hotel project in court. As it turned out he (the lawyer Alberto recommended) failed to show but thankfully the architect, Helena, was there (a Dutch lady who spoke perfect Spanish) and she saved the day by convincing the court appointed building inspector that we were only constructing a hotel. We got the new permits but the delay cost us 6 months which would prove very costly.
The problem was it took more than 6 months for all this to transpire which had a devastating effect on the money I had raised to build the hotel. When I started the peso was around 52 to 1 us dollar. The labors were getting paid 25 pesos an hour (about 50 cents an hour) then they got a raise to 45 pesos an hour (about 80 cents an hour. In 2004 when the newly elected president (Leonel Fernandez) came in he pegged the exchange rate at 26 pesos to the US dollar. This effectively put the cost of building the hotel from $400,000us to 650,000us. I now had to borrow from Alberto $250,000us to finish the hotel at 12%. I also borrowed $25,000us as a personal loan so I could buy the TV's and bar fridges for the hotel rooms. That meant I had to pay his company, Anoeca, $3,500us each month.
