Witkoff, Blavatnik plan luxury hotel and private golf club at former Banyan Cay Resort in West Palm

West Palm Beach is getting a new private golf club and a luxury hotel after years of stalled progress at the Banyan Cay Resort site. 

Witkoff and Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries are splitting the former Banyan Cay Resort into two parts: Dutchman’s Pipe Golf Club, and the Belgrove, a 194-key hotel, the Palm Beach Post reported. The private club is expected to open this fall with initiation fees starting at $300,000, and the hotel is slated to open in November, just in time for South Florida’s busy season.

Witkoff, based in New York City and Miami Beach and led by co-CEOs Steve and Alex Witkoff, partnered with Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries to buy Banyan Cay in January. Access Industries’ head of real estate, Jonah Sonnenborn, is leading the project for the company. Ari Pearl’s PPG Development is now also involved in the project, according to the Post. The deed did not record with the total sale price, but the buyers scored a $75 million loan from the seller, Los Angeles-based Calmwater Capital.

Calmwater had bought the 200-acre site at auction in West Palm Beach federal bankruptcy court in August of last year. The former developer of Banyan Cay, Domenic Gatto Jr., bought the site for $26 million in 2015, and built the Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course in 2017. Construction for a 150-room hotel stalled repeatedly until Calmwater won a $94.1 million foreclosure suit against Gatto, and Gatto’s Banyan Cay companies declared bankruptcy last year. 

The hotel was 85 percent complete when Witkoff, Access and PPG took control of the property, a representative told the Palm Beach Post. When it opens in November, the Belgrove will have 25,000 square feet of meeting space, event space, a spa, a pool, a main hotel with 150 keys and 44 villas. The hotel and club will have three dining options led by Chef Julian Jouhannaud, the former executive chef of Le Bilboquet in New York City. 

The Dutchman’s Pipe will be a welcome addition to the Palm Beach County golf club scene, which has exploded in popularity with the wave of wealthy buyers who relocated to the area during the pandemic. Current waitlists for private clubs in and around Palm Beach are years long, and initiation fees have gotten pricier with the heightened demand. 

Developers and investors are looking to get in on the region’s hospitality game as well. Billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison dropped $277 million on the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa in Manalapan earlier this month, with plans to update the property. –– Kate Hinsche