Tony first stumbled across this old finca in ’78, a beautiful wreck with 500 years of stories buried under dust. With little more than stubbornness and sunburn, he rebuilt much of it by hand, coaxing it back to life. Two years later, the island suddenly had something it didn’t even know it was missing: the first boutique hotel, long before anyone coined the phrase.
Word spread, as it tends to do when there’s magic involved. In the 80s and 90s, the hills above San Antonio became a discrete refuge for the glittering, the notorious and the gloriously eccentric. Pop stars sneaking a sunrise swim, record execs losing track of time, the odd royal drifting through the bar – everyone came for the freedom, the charm and Tony’s larger-than-life brand of hospitality.
Freddie Mercury blowing out candles on his 41st birthday, Wham! shimmying around the pool for Club Tropicana, Julio Iglasias escaping the glare of the paparazzi lens – yes, those stories are all true. But, Tony’s greatest trick was treating everyone, famous or not, like an old friend who’d simply found their way home.
He left us in February 2019, and the bar still feels a little quieter without his tales. Thankfully, some of them live on in ink, keeping his spirit exactly where it belongs: at the heart of Pikes.
