I created our Luxury Seaside Accommodation in Gordon’s Bay, near Cape Town (when I broke my promise!)
For those who don’t know me, I will be writing a series of pieces offering our guests, and travellers to South Africa, tips to make their visit more pleasurable, but to start, I will introduce myself and describe how 185 on BEACH Boutique Suites and Apartments came to be.
It is rather ironic that I promised myself in the late 1970’s, “I will never be in the hospitality industry!” so HOW did I come to start 185 on BEACH Boutique Suites & Apartments?
My training, since the age of 13 was in the direct selling cosmetic industry, first with Nature Girl and then with Justine when they opened in May 1973. Assisting my mother, Mona Stuart, who always strived, and achieved, to be the best in whatever field she chose, I was essentially ‘apprenticed’ to her. Product and sales training, practical administration and, importantly, customer service was part of everyday experiences, so I had ‘done my 10,000 hours’ by the time I joined Justine full-time when I was 19 years old.
Within a year, 1978, I was top sales lady in South Africa, and it was at the ‘Star Night’ – prize giving night – that I met my future husband, Richard Loring, when he came to perform for us as the ‘Star’ of the evening. Richard was a household name in South Africa having been the Narrator in Joseph and his Amazing Techincolor Dreamcoat, the most successful musical in South Africa, which ran on and off for some 15 years! Besides Musical Theatre, Richard was also a star of movies, records, TV and cabaret on the 5-Star Hotel circuit … and he was a handsome heart throb … and I was smitten!
I had also entered the glamour business as university Rag Queen, and a finalist in the Miss South Africa competition which led to 15-year modelling career. I loved it! Surprisingly perhaps, I loved the creativity of the industry, and I learned about the basics of marketing – understanding what would appeal to different markets. I learned about how to structure an attractive and effective photograph too, which was to assist me greatly in my many ‘careers’.
I did actually work in the hospitality industry – for Southern Sun when they opened Sun City. I led a team of 6 young ladies who were to market this new hotel and casino attraction. It was SO hugely popular that our positions were superfluous, and it was then that I made the ironic vow above.
Richard and I were married in 1983 and besides, Justine and modelling, I also managed our Video Hire shop. Not having studied bookkeeping, I created a whole new method of bookkeeping, which, fortunately, was accepted by our accountant!
It was MUCH easier to do a full set of books, literally paper books in those days, after I did a course in bookkeeping, and I managed Richard’s company accounts while I bounced baby Samantha on my knees. When I was pregnant with our 2nd daughter, Natasha, we decided to build on and renovate our kitchen, driven perhaps by a ‘nesting’ instinct! I requested a feature, which the designer said was impossible so, unable to draw to scale, I cut up his plans and created the ‘impossible’. I exclaimed, “This, I can do!” and so with quick design training I began a 3-year business in the kitchen design-and-sales business. I loved it and it taught me valuable design and building skills, while drawing on my years of Justine sales and customer training.
When Richard started his “Sound Stage Supper Theatre” in Midrand in 1989, he called on me to assist, primarily with marketing and now I too was in theatre! Sending out marketing material on the ‘new’ fax machines, and selling to every contact I knew, I created a new manual theatre booking system (thanks to my video shop bookkeeping experience), which handled 80% of our sales. It sounds naïve, but we did not anticipate the success – we did not even have ushers! As people queued up outside, I desperately phoned the Boy Scouts and Church Youth groups for help, and so started the ‘Front of House’ aspect of my responsibilities, which included dealing with irate patrons because of the teething problems (a skill that came in useful later). Thus ‘Public Relations’ and ‘Charity Preview Saleslady’ and ‘Publicist’, creating and distributing media releases and photo to the media (where I drew on my modelling training), were added to my responsibilities. As we employed bookkeepers and Front of House staff and converted to a computerised system my responsibilities lessened and I was grateful to be able to spend time nurturing our girls, but, all the while, I was involved as Publicist and PRO until 2007 when the Sound Stage closed because of a shift in the market.
However, in May 2000 Richard premiered which was to become his award-winning and internationally-acclaimed African Footprint show at Gold Reef City Casino. It ran continuously for 4 years and travelled the world from Australia, China, India, Middle East, to 3 years in Europe, England, 3 years in USA, in Canada and Mexico for 25 years! I have continued ssisting with the publicity, promotions and administration of African Footprint and Richard’s other shows.
Whatever the project I have always assisted Richard, and this too was true for the Charity and Community projects we worked on. We chartered the Midrand Rotary Club and Richard served as President for 2 years, and I as assistant! We were both honoured to be inducted as Paul Harris Fellows for our work with the community and we are both still involved whenever an opportunity presents itself.
The time came when both our children had graduated Richard wanted to fulfil his dream of moving to Cape Town, so we bought 185 Beach Road, realising Richard’s dream of living close to the sea. The harbour sights and sounds remind him of his home in Guernsey which was an added bonus.
I set about renovating to our taste and changed the thatch to tile. Thank goodness I did, because flints from a bad fire later that year would have raised the house to the ground! With Richard in Johannesburg, my creative spirit was let loose using skills I had learned in kitchen design. A large storeroom was changed to a bachelor apartment (Seaside Studio) for our daughter; the existing cottage (Seadeck Luxury Apartment) could be for my mother, and if we rented out the house long-term, I designed and built the 2-bedroom Seaside Penthouse for our family to use.
Or that was the plan! My cousin suggested that I register those 3 apartments with a Nightsbridge booking calendar … and so our business was born! As demand grew, so I added our guest suite (Seaview Luxury Suite) to the inventory, and when our daughters left for overseas, I created the Seaside Deluxe Suite from their wing. Being in Johannesburg much of the time, we decided to relinquish our bedroom (Starlight Premier Suite) and created the Wavecrest Premier Suite from my husband’s office to be comfortable for ourselves. My husband jokes that I evicted him again to the Platinum Seaview Suite, which was originally a snooker room. We created a really comfortable, compact apartment, with a magnificent view, and this is now our ‘home’ unless we are in Johannesburg for extended times with theatre responsibilities, in which case we let it out.
This is how it came to be that between 2011 and 2024 we developed 8 suites. It had never been planned that way but the demand resulted in the house evolving, and 185 on BEACH Boutique Suites and Apartments is the business I now manage, while Richard, with his keen eye from his experience travelling the 5-Star Hotel circuit, ensures that standards are kept high.
What I find interesting is that to run 185 on BEACH I need to draw on all the skills I learned in my diverse careers: Sales, marketing, staff leadership and customer service from direct selling, accounting from our businesses, marketing and photographic marketing from modelling, architecture and design from kitchen design, writing marketing material I learned as a publicist, allocating guests comfortably in suites from theatre ticket sales, and problem solving and sharing the joys of guests’ pleasures from Front-of-House in the theatre business.
So, from vowing I would never be in the hospitality industry, here I am, or as they say in Afrikaans, “Kyk hoe lyk sy nou.” (See what she looks like/where she is now!) Yes, it seems that all my experiences were to guide me to where I am now. However, I think the MOST important lesson I have learned is that I must LOVE – not just the work I do but all the people I deal with – the guests AND the staff. And this I learned from my mother and from Justine … and after 52 years I am still a consultant! Everything else flows from LOVE.