Sunday, October 24, 2010

a chat with Doug Casey

“This will soon be the best place in the world."

Features:

  • golf
  • polo
  • 40 kilometers of walking, biking, horseback-riding trails
  • 200 acres of vineyards, 40 acres of which are in production, all the vineyards will be in production within 4 years
  • 2 lakes stocked with trout & another type of fish to be determined

His goal is for user monthly fees to drop to zero. He does not want to become a winery, hopes to attract a bodega willing to locate onsite.

Construction of the Grace hotel & spa will begin by the end of the year. The hotel restaurant should be the best restaurant in Salta province. Once the hotel is up & running, the Grace people intend to contract with an airline for 3 flights a day between Salta & Cafayate.

The fitness club will be open by October, 2011. Features include:

  • a workout center of Golds-Gym quality
  • a 25-meter lap pool
  • a swim-against-the-current pool
  • a yoga/dance studio
  • 3 tennis courts
  • a squash court
  • a basketball court
  • a bocce court
  • a regulation croquet court
  • a skeet shooting range
  • an archery range
  • a Vita parcourse

The social club will feature:

  • a media room
  • a billiards room
  • a library (stocked with classics etc. by Doug & David Galland)
  • a card room with poker & bridge tables

He likes Cafayate’s down-at-the-heels elegance.

If you buy a large plot of land in Argentina, there are people living on it. He owns a 2,500-acre farm in Patagonia that he would like to sell. He owns 25 miles of lake front on El Dique, which is a large lake 2/3rds of the way from Cafayate to Salta.