Emile Haddad has come a long way from his war torn home in Lebanon to founding one of the largest developers in Orange County and then riding off toward retirement.
Retirement came too early for the 66-year old as the founder and former chief executive at Irvine-based FivePoint Holdings Inc. is now spearheading a group that’s developing a hotel resort and high-end residential project in the Bahamas.
Haddad, who stepped down from FivePoint in 2021, is re-discovering his real estate roots with his newest project: Bvlgari Resorts & Mansions in Cave Cay, located in the Exumas archipelago.
The project, whose value is expected to top “north of $1 billion,” will include a 64-room luxury hotel.
The Bvlgari brand resort and residence would establish a new level of elegance in the Caribbeans.
Visitors are expected to dress up for dinners at top-rated restaurants. Forget the flipflops as many Caribbean resorts have become too casual, Haddad said.
“We’re bringing the Italian elegance,” Haddad told the Business Journal in an exclusive interview. “You can be very casual during the day, but at night, you’ll dress up nicely. We’re bringing back something that a certain clientele is looking for.
“We’re creating a different feel.”
The project includes 48 waterfront mansions that would range in size from 6,000 to 10,000 square feet and each would sell for “much more” than $20 million each, he said.
No Retirement
In 2021, Haddad won a Business Journal Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award. That same year, the Newport Beach-based real estate developer left FivePoint, where he is still a consultant.
He started his own family investment office that began expanding.
“I actually tried to retire, but then I got into other things,” Haddad said.
“Basically, friends said, ‘Hey, now that you retired, let’s do something. Since you decided you’re not going to sit at the beach and do nothing for the rest of your life, why don’t we start looking at things?’”
So, he began looking for opportunities by working with other family offices in different countries.
“The world is shifting very quickly, as you can imagine. So, we started looking at different places in the world, including how the global shifts are going to impact capital into the U.S.,” Haddad said.
That opportunity presented itself in the Bahamas, where he learned about the Exumas, an archipelago that consists of nearly four dozen islands and cays in the Bahamas.
The Exumas are known for its caves and white-sand beaches. After due diligence, he invested in a company that bought one of the cays.
Buying an island “is a process that I never thought I’d understand,” Haddad said.
“It’s a beautiful island.”
The Bvlgari Residences and Resort
Next on the agenda was to find the right partner.
“I met with a lot of high-end brands in the world,” Haddad said. “My partners have a lot of relationships.
“We finally landed on Bvlgari. I didn’t know much about the (brand). I knew Bvlgari made jewelry, and I was naive enough to think Bvlgari is actually from Bulgaria!”
Bvlgari was founded in the 19th century as a small jewelry store by a Greek living in Italy.
The company has eventually grown beyond jewelry into a large-scale luxury brand that includes hospitality.
Haddad was impressed with how Bvlgari executives paid attention to details. He said Bvlgari hotels are not lavish but instead “understated,” with the jewelry branded resorts built “all by hand.”
“We see the world the same way, in terms of how do you experience and what is a real experience to the consumer,” Haddad said.
Bvlgari Hotels & Resorts agreed to build its first branded resort and residences in the Caribbeans with Haddad’s Cave Cay Limited Partnership.
“The Exumas have been establishing themselves in recent years as the ultimate glamorous destinations in the Caribbean, attracting the most prestigious and sophisticated clients,” Bvlgari Chief Executive Jean-Christophe Babin said in a statement.
“We envision the Bvlgari Resort Cave Cay to shine as the ultimate sustainable luxury destination and experience in the region, crafted by the Roman jeweler of hospitality.”
From Building for Regular People to Building for the Elite
The Bahamas development mirrors some of the high-end and branded hotel-residential brands being built in the Middle East, Haddad said, noting that these projects are surprisingly in high-demand.
“It’s a world that I was never really involved in,” he said. “I spent 40 years of my life building places for regular people to live in.
“I was never a person who builds for the elite, but this was an opportunity that I find myself getting involved in.”
Haddad now has a team of 40 employees working on the project from London to Istanbul to Miami. Among his employees are his children and former workers at Five Point.
The 220-acre cay will include a shopping promenade and features clubs for kids, a spa, a wellness center, cigars and a Bvlgari-themed bar. It includes plans for a restaurant with food curated by Michelin-honored chef Niko Romito.
The resort, which also includes a marina, is about a 20-minute boat ride from the closest international airport.
Plans call for the development team to break ground early next year, with the resort being built first followed by residential mansions.
Construction is expected to be completed in 2029.
While it seems like a long time, Haddad noted a Five Point project in Los Angeles County took 18 years to put a shovel in the ground.
Luxury Pivot Includes Workers’ Village
Haddad said the project is not just about being a playground for the rich but would instead be inclusive of locals.
“We’re building a village,” Haddad said, adding the new infrastructure could house as many as 600 local employees.
Some of the young local hires could receive job training in Europe, said Haddad, who continues to own shares of FivePoint.
“If we do this, and we do it right, then others will start to follow,” Haddad said.
From a Civil War to the Lap of Luxury
Emile Haddad left his native Lebanon in 1986 when it struggled to emerge from its decade long civil war.
He landed in Southern California where he worked at a $10 per hour job that included a commute of a couple hours every day.
Haddad eventually landed at the developer Lennar Corp., where he rose through the ranks, becoming its chief investment officer. In 2009, the Miami-based homebuilder helped him start FivePoint in 2009 and the company went public eight years later.
FivePoint became known for master planning thousands of homes, offices and retail sites in Irvine’s Great Park Neighborhoods, Santa Clarita and on the site where Candlestick Park, the former home of San Francisco’s 49ers and Giants, once stood.
Haddad notes that he builds housing for everyone.
“I want the kid of the person who bought the $3 million home to sit next to the kid who bought an affordable house,” Haddad said. “It probably goes back to my experience with civil war and seeing communities being torn apart. I’ve become very passionate about bringing communities together.
“We don’t build exclusive; we build inclusive. I don’t build gates; I build bridges,” Haddad said.
