Entrepreneur Peter de Savary who transformed more than 60 hotels dies

Entrepreneur and hotelier Peter de Savary who transformed more than 60 hotels, seven Championship golf courses and three marinas, has died.

De Savary, who was born in Essex in 1944, died on Sunday (30 October). His wife Lana has said: “Peter was extraordinary, not just as a businessman but as a wonderful mentor, loving husband and devoted father of his five daughters. He was a remarkable man and an enormous gap will be left in our lives without him.”

The hotelier left school without qualifications at the age of 16, beginning work as a landscape gardener in Canada. He made his first fortune after establishing an import/export business in Nigeria and would go on to pursue a number of other enterprises before turning his hand to hospitality.

He opened the first St James's Club in London in 1979, noticing a gap in the market for small, personal hotels with the facilities of grander properties, and built up the chain with venues in Antigua, Paris, Los Angeles, and New York.

He sold the chain in the late 1980s for more than £56.6m and set about restoring Skibo Castle in Scotland. This became the first Carnegie Club property (complete with Championship golf courses) when it reopened in 1995 after a five-year, £15.5m revamp.

De Savary, commonly known as PdeS, sold the Carnegie Club to a group of members for £27m in 2003, two years after he sold Stapleford Park hotel. By now he was absorbed in the £12m revamp of the Manor Hotel near Dartmoor National Park which he bought from Le Méridien in 2002. The art deco-styled hotel reopened in 2004 as the five-star, 65-bedroom Bovey Castle resort with 22 lodge houses for founding members to buy.

His next opening, the Abaco Club, went a step further. The luxury golfing resort not only offered townhouses for members to buy but sold 69 lots for them to design and build their own homes on a resort and club in Tuscany.

He would go on to restore properties including Littlecote House near Hungerford. De Savary also developed the Havana West portfolio of boutique hotels, with his wife Lana, who remains chairman of the business. These include the Beachcroft hotel in Bognor Regis, West Sussex; the Cary Arms and Spa in Torquay, Devon; the Eastbury hotel in Sherborne, Dorset; the Merry Harriers in Surrey; and the Parkway Hotel and Spa in Cwmbran, Torfaen.

Telling The Caterer about his drive to continue developing hotels in 2004 he had said: "I don't need to be doing anything for the money but I do it for the same reason that actors keep on making films. It's that challenge to do something creative, to get that applause from the audience. I am fortunate to have it as good as it gets, but it's still an overwhelming fix. I shall keep going until it isn't working."

De Savary was also a keen yachtsman, who led the British challenge for the America’s Cup in 1983. He was also involved in many charities and founded the Victory Trust in 1983 to help underprivileged and handicapped children.