LaTour to manage Grove Gardens
Being on the east coast, Grove Gardens has views of mangroves rather than beaches.
American hotel management company LaTour is at it again, signing up its third property in Phuket, which also becomes, in press releases, its “third property in Asia”. (Well, it’s true, isn’t it?)
The company already has management deals with Indochine in Kalim and the Dewa resort on Nai Yang Beach. This time it’s gone east to Cape Yamu to take on Grove Gardens and run it as a resort.
There is a connection here – Grove Gardens was developed by former hotelier and long-time Phuket guy Lard Ydmark, who also built and part-owns Dewa. Plainly, the LaTour bosses like the big Swede.
Grove Gardens was originally built as a straight property development, with homes for sale. It’s always had a restaurant and has acquired other facilities including a big pool, tennis courts and a spa. More recently, a hotel element was added, allowing owners to make a bit of money from their homes when they are not there.
The pool at Grove Gardens.
Grove Gardens has 36 units ranging from two-bedroom garden apartments to three-bedroom pool residences, thus allowing to to claim a four-star niche between the standard hotel pool villa (usually one room) and the top-end rental villa (anything up to six rooms).
LaTour have been so busy sending out press releases that they seem to have rather run out of superlatives. In the release announcing the Grove Garden deal, Tom LaTour, chairman of LaTour Hotels and Resorts, is quoted as saying, “We continue to build on the strength of our partnership with IndoChine Group and position [of] the LaTour brand as a premier provider of management services in the Asia-Pacific region.”
But we’re sure he’s more excited than that about the new deal.
