Miami

"Hazy had spent some time working at Hughes Airwest and then consulted to the industry. Through resulting contacts, in 1973, Hazy discovered a DC-8 aircraft on sale for $2.2 million from National Airlines of Miami. Gonda heard of a Mexican airline hunting for a plane to use on a new route from Los Angeles to Acapulco. Putting the two concepts together, Hazy and the Gondas acquired the DC-8 and leased it to the airline. The economics worked, producing positive cash flow that enabled the trio to repeat the transaction profitably. They bought a series of turbo-prop planes from Hughes on the cheap—$250,000 each—and leased them to capital-short airlines in Africa. In the early years, the trio scouted for planes they could acquire at a low price and bought only when a leasing deal was in place. That required persuading airlines about the appeal of the aircraft operating lease. Airlines had conventionally bought their own planes or swapped them with each other under temporary leases to handle seasonal travel fluctuations. The significant capital required to buy planes had to be internally generated or borrowed. The idea of airlines leasing from independent third-party owners was new. Most of the trio’s early customers were airlines based in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, starved for capital and attracted to leasing."

"We tried to avoid playing these games even though our competitors were. Giveaways became common, even ridiculous, before reality set in. We had channels for reporting bribery or extortion attempts, and we had to call in the FBI on franchise competitions in Miami and New Orleans because of bribery proposals we received."

"Sol soaked up every ounce of knowledge that he could from the American. He now had to get back to South Africa and build his mini-Fontainebleau. Even if he did not fully realise it at the time, he had learned far more from Ben Novack than just how to design a resort hotel; he had also seen how to run one. The result was not a 1 000-room beachside hotel in an established resort town but a 72-room replica of the giant Miami hotel, located in an undeveloped village on South Africa’s Natal coast. Sol stopped short of naming his hotel the “Fontainebleau”, which his prospective local clientele would not have understood. Instead, he settled for “The Beverly Hills”. Everyone in South Africa knew what that meant."

"Ian Schrager (then the owner of the Royalton and the Hudson Hotel in New York and the Delano in Miami)"

"then there was travel. My parents took vacations alone together at least twice each year, and with us in tow another three times a year. The Christmas and Easter vacations were often spent in Florida (in or around Miami, where my dad could be within striking distance of Hialeah or Gulfstream Park so that he could bet on the daily double)."