New owners celebrate Hotel Georgia acquisition
NEST EGG: Leaving Tanzania in 1971, Abdul and Shamim Jamal launched a Chilliwack poultry farm. Their birds sure laid golden eggs. The enterprise evolved into the Pacific Reach Properties firm that son Azim founded with his uncle, Joe Moosa. China-based Anbang’s Cedar Tree Investment Canada Inc. subsidiary recently paid more than $1 billion for PRP’s 24-home B.C. Retirement Concepts chain. The firm retained more than a dozen L.A. and Phoenix properties and 12 in B.C., including the Westin Grand, Radisson Vancouver Airport and Sheraton Vancouver Guildford hotels. Recently, PRP paid $145 million for the 90-year-old Rosewood Hotel Georgia that Malaysia-owned Delta Land Development Ltd. had renovated to the tune of $120 million. The acquisition was celebrated in the Georgia’s Prohibition lounge that was a less salubrious basement pub when the fortune-bound Jamals quit East Africa.
THEY DO: Other Jamal celebrations are imminent. Daughter Zahra Mamdani will marry Spokane-based construction magnate Nick Salisbury in an Indian-style ceremony Aug 12. A Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel reception was booked before the Hotel Georgia purchase. They’ll tie the knot western-style in Santa Barbara, Calif., on Aug. 19. Mamdani’s gown will be by Israeli designer Mira Zwillinger, not residual stock from her now-defunct Wear Else? chain. For a pre-honeymoon, the couple visited Desolation Sound in a 50-foot yacht that Salisbury helpfully docks here.
FLY RIGHT: At the Hotel Georgia celebration, former B.C. Liberal finance minister Kevin Falcon shot the breeze with friend and Delta Land Development president Bruce Langereis. Falcon, who left government after losing a B.C. Liberal leadership bid in 2011, could be a contender again following Christy Clark’s departure. But he likely won’t fly with Langereis, who says he crashed his Jet Ranger helicopter on a glacier recently.
DOWN THE HATCH: Annabel (Paper Queen) St. John’s witty, elegantly self-drawn greeting cards include one captioned: “You know it was a good party when you have to clean the ceiling.” Ditto for having to rush out for another $10,000-worth of Veuve Clicquot Champagne. Pacific Polo Cup co-organizer Craig Stowe did that when hot, sunny weather depleted the event’s already generous supply served in marquees beside the Southlands Riding Club’s field. Like someone with a popped cork approaching his eye, Stowe reacted just in time.
FAIR WARNING: Had Pacific Polo Cup drinking vessels run out, veteran polo player Gery Warner could have helped. Accompanying wife Suzanne, a former Miss Canada, and shaded by marquees that their International Tentnology firm provided, Warner returned the Vancouver Polo Cup he’d won in 1989. As for the real-silver 1938 Wallace Cup he owns, “As soon as I find a worthy cause, I’ll give it to them,” he said.
BOOK A CHUKKER: As the Hertz and Avis of polo-pony rentals, George Dill came to the Pacific Polo Cup from La Conner, Wash., bringing 15 of his 75 mounts for other visiting mallet swingers to ride. The U.S. Polo Association international committee chair, Dill stables 10 more ponies in Calgary, 35 in Santa Barbara and, at age 68, still plays a hard-charging game.
TURNING TURTLE: Although B.C. architects and builders learned long ago how to locate houses on contoured sites, Hamber Island, off Turtlehead at the entrance to Indian Arm, is being partly blasted flat for one.
BENCHED: Former premier, B.C. Liberal party leader and Kelowna West MLA Christy Clark has appeared in this column several times since 1996. Of those portrayed beside her, then-90-yearold Larry Kwong, prompted her to say: “I am honoured to meet you.” The Vernon-born hockey centre winger had experienced years of discrimination before becoming the NHL’s first player of Asian descent. “I didn’t get a chance to show what I could do,” Kwong said of his single, 60-second shift with the New York Rangers. But other ice titans knew. Jean Beliveau, who faced Kwong in Quebec Major Hockey League games, said: “Larry made his wing men look good because he was a great passer. He was doing what a centre man is supposed to do.” Political leaders could ask for no better endorsement.
EASTER’S BREAK: Telus’ past, present and future are friendly to LGBTQA+ members. “I still haven’t mastered that acronym,” executive VP Tony Geheran said while fronting a pre-Pride reception on Telus’ rooftop terrace. The company supports 18 Pride celebrations, he said, and has donated $3.5 million to LGBTQA+ efforts across Canada. Geheran also lauded Easter Armas, who founded the Loving Spoonful HIV/AIDS feeding agency in 1989 and remains a director while coaching preteens in the Young Rembrandts network’s drawing and arts-education programs.
DOWN PARRYSCOPE: Late-night TV efforts aside, it’s a pity that Gilbert and Sullivan aren’t still around to create a rapier-sharp comic opera based on Tweeter the Great’s White House shenanigans.