Virgin Beach Resort Cebu...How It All Began

I grew up in a small town in California during World War II.  My father returned home from the Navy after the war and started Perry's Drive-In just north of Tulare.  I worked in the various restaurants that he had through my school years and studied Hotel and Restaurant Management at San Francisco City College and went into partnership with my father in a restaurant in Fresno, California.  A few years later, we sold that and bought a farm east of Tulare and I farmed there for 18 years.  Going thru an ugly divorce, we sold the farm and continued in agriculture doing "farm tours".  I began writing to Fe Alarde of Bogo, Cebu, Philippines and we met in Manila in January of 1990 and were married at the Bogo Municipality before I returned to the U.S.  On a return trip, a friend of my wife wanted to show me some beach property north of Bogo.  It was about 4.5 acres or 2 hectare and had about 75 meters on the beach (east side of the island facing Leyte) and about 250 meters long.  Price was only P12.5 per square meter so we decided to purchase it.  We finished the deal in 1993 and began construction the following year.  There was only maggai (a cactus like plant that is used to produce "abaca", a native rope in the Philippines) and a few coconut trees and lots of stone.  In fact, the resort only has a few places where there is actually any top soil and this has proven to be a challenge in landscaping later on.  Our first project was to clear the land and build a stone fencing around the property with the stones on the property.  Simultaneously, we began building a sea wall on the south side of the property into the sea (we were obtaining a "foreshore" lease from the DNR (Department of Natural Resources).  Later we would add the sea wall on the north side of our property.  Countless stones were used and at one time we hired about 100 neighbors to do the clearing and construction at about P50 per day.  The completion of a private road from the resort to the barangay road was next and we ended up purchasing that roadway of about 500 meters long by 4 meters wide.  All the work was done by hand except for about $100 we spend for a bull-dozer to level the area where we would build the hotel.  We tried using a jack hammer several times but found out that the limestone there can be very hard.  The following year we build a small hotel in the pension house style (we now call our Bougainvillea Hotel with 6 private rooms and two shared bath and accepted our first guest in September of 1995.  By then we had already added a guard house with store and improved the beach with native style cottages for day use.  We began our main hotel next year and had our first guest in it in 1997.  In 1998 we began building deluxe cottages on each side of the main hotel (we now call the Orchid Hotel) and continue adding for a total of 8 duplex cottages.  We also added a kitchen building, cement basketball court, sand volleyball court, swimming pool with water slide, barkada lodge and a large function room for more than 350 persons and so many more projects.  I've learned a lot about investing in a business in the Philippines and also about construction.  My heart is here at Virgin Beach Resort and invite you to enjoy this tropical paradise.