Dana Hokin, the Hokin family,
and The Bitter End.
(Editorial note: The following entry resulted from an interview with Dana Hokin, Granddaughter of the founder of Bitter End Yacht Club, but also includes significant background material about the operation from a variety of websites.)The Bitter End Yacht Club (BEYC) is a well-known resort on North Sound Virgin Gorda. The Hokin family through their company Gorda Estates Limited, of which Dana Hokin is Managing Director (MD) and Chief Operating Officer (CEO), owns it. As one website indicates, “as Managing Director Dana Hokin is responsible for the overall profitability and expansion of the company’s brand. She joined the organization in 1994 as Sales and Marketing Director in order to reposition the asset for growth. In 1997, she was named Deputy Managing Director and shortly thereafter received her current appointment of Managing Director. Under Ms. Hokin’s leadership, the Bitter End Yacht Club brand has flourished and the resort has consistently been rated one of the top resorts in the Caribbean and one of the top in the world by both Conde Nast Traveler and Travel & Leisure Magazine” (http://www.seiinc.org/index.php/about-us/board-members/item/438-dana-hokin). But this is a long way from where things started nearly fifty years ago.
As the Bitter End website (http://www.beyc.com/index.php/history.html) indicates “In the summer of 1964, the Hokin family visited Little Dix Bay and brought their 24' sportfisherman, REM, to explore the British Virgin Island's angling opportunities. They spent many days in North Sound, Virgin Gorda. The Sound was remote and quiet, much as it had been three centuries before, when the English pirates and freebooters, Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins, anchored in its shelter, planning daring raids. The natural beauty of the Sound captivated the Hokins and during the sixties, they returned in the chartered ketch Tontine, and later in their own ketch, Alianora.
One year they found that a shorefront pub and five cottages, called Bitter End, clung to the unlandscaped hillside. Basil Symonette, a pioneer Virgin Island yachtsman, had built the place for charter captains and adventurous sailors. (Editorial note: Basil Symonette is also described as a “famed Virgin Island sailor” and a “legendary Virgin Island yachtsman” in various websites. Dana Hokin credits him with being a “founding father of crewed sailboats” in the BVI.) During construction, teenage circumnavigator and author of Dove, Robin Lee Graham, sailed into the Sound. He wrote, "Some people here at a place called The Bitter End are building a resort. They have found a really lovely spot and they've hauled in all the material they need." His stay turned from days to months as he lent a hand in the construction. The walls, windows and tiles he installed still stand in the resort's five original cottages.
Accommodations were rustic. Beds were made with paper sheets, and only cold water ran in the bathrooms. Evening lights were provided by an old diesel generator and water was collected on the roofs and stored in cisterns that doubled as cottage foundations. If visiting yachtsmen came for dinner, they were required to approach a long wooden pier and sound their boat's air horn. If Basil, the eccentric son of the last colonial governor of the Bahamas, felt sociable, he would respond by megaphone and the visitor would be allowed to come ashore and buy a meal. The evening would last until Basil would abruptly decide it was time for lights out and shut down the generator.
As Myron and Bernice Hokin became frequent visitors to the Bitter End during winter cruises in the Virgin Islands, they had many lively conversations with Basil. Bernice suggested that it would be nice to have a place to go ashore for a day or two, so during one conversation, Myron said that he would like to buy or lease an acre to build a cottage for himself and Bernice. Basil needed time to consider the proposition but promised an answer when the Hokins next called at Bitter End.
A few weeks later, the Hokins returned to find that Basil had decided against their offer. Instead he offered to sell them the whole place. The Hokins couldn't refuse. They realized that Bitter End would make a perfect family retreat.
In 1973, the Hokins became the new owners and Don Neal, the charter captain of their sportfisherman Reef Sampler, became the major domo. While none of them had any experience running a hotel, they had plenty of enthusiasm.
With their grandchildren and picnic basket in hand, they explored the islands from Anegada to the Dogs. The surrounding reefs offered spectacular snorkeling and diving. Neighboring islands and cays had beautiful deserted beaches for shelling. The flats, reefs and offshore waters had abundant populations of bonefish and other game fish. The area was ideal for sailing, fishing, snorkeling, scuba diving and beachcombing. As their interest and familiarity with the islands grew, so did their desire to share their experiences. All excursions the Bitter End offers today are inspired by these family outings.
British Virgin Islanders were just as excited as the Hokins to share their love for the islands and sea. With their help through the years, the Hokins have been fortunate to share their retreat and create a special place for many to enjoy.
Architect Peter Brill, who gave up the world of city skyscrapers for a sunnier life sailing the Caribbean, worked with Myron to design Bitter End's breezy buildings and cottages. The entire resort is intended to be organic, comfortable and beautiful. Bitter End still generates its own electricity, collects and distills its own water, utilizes solar power and uses treated grey waste shower water to irrigate the hillside gardens.
Today Bitter End has grown into the world's finest watersports resort. Top of the line sailboats, skiffs, windsurfers and other equipment, along with roomy excursion boats and exciting day trips have been added over the years. Word of mouth has given the resort a worldwide reputation and a loyal guest base of families, friends and couples who enjoy the watersports and relaxation that are a way of life at Bitter End.
While the resort has grown over the years, its main purpose has never changed. The Bitter End is still a family run resort, with the Hokins all participating in its growth and dedicated to the enjoyable vacation of every guest.”
Dana Hokin was originally from Chicago where her grandfather Myron was a steel industry (“Century Steel”) executive for 60 years. She now lives in New York (when she is not at Bitter End Yacht Club), with her marine-engineer husband, and daughter, where she is an artist and a philanthropist as well as an entrepreneur (http://www.seiinc.org/index.php/about-us/board-members/item/438-dana-hokin). But in many ways she grew up with the Bitter End, “homesteaded by her grandfather” as she puts it, as a significant part of her life. “It was really a family compound with a bar” that “grew organically”. It was never expected to become the largest resort business in the region. And compared to now, Dana’s ‘childhood Bitter End’ was a simple place that was “truly rustic”. She remembers one of the local North Sound people having the region’s first indoor plumbing, and Gun Creek had the closest telephone. Her actions as Chief Executive Officer Managing Director of the resort are guided by her family’s actions in those early years, and despite its growth Dana does not see the Bitter End as “just a resort”. She sees it as part of the North Sound Neighbourhood, with the BEYC being a particularly good neighbour. It employs around 300 people, with some living on site and the rest commuting from the Gun Creek area.
Dana took over BEYC in 1997 after her grandfather died, but had been working to become MD and CEO since 1994 when Myron convinced her that she was the one to carry BEYC forward in the family tradition -- growth but without sacrificing the original charm of the place. Having said that, things have had to change to some extent as considerable growth has taken place. Rather than family meetings there is now a professional management structure with her father Richard and uncle William also serving on the board. Profit and loss statements are now produced, along with traditional organisational staff charts. This is necessary to govern a sixty-eight acre operation (mostly owned, with a small area around the Clubhouse leased) that was bought for $150,000 but is now worth up to $40 million (http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/feb2005/sb2005022_1584_sb022.htm).
Over the past four decades Dana has seen nearly everything change in the North Sound area, and she is quite happy with her family’s contribution to this development. Lots of people have been introduced to the BVI by the activities and magnetism of the BEYC. The fourth generation of Hokins is seeing the fourth generation of some of its visitors. In particular Dana has seen the standard of living rise for the region’s residents – in large part a reflection of the success of BEYC and some of its neighbours. She fears, however, that this rapid success has led to expectations amongst the population that may not be sustainable and sustainability is extremely important to the Hokin family. The landscapes around North Sound have been transformed, but the region may not be able to support much more change. Dana has always seen BEYC as a “green” operation, even before that concept had a name, and worries about the future of the environment. At the same time BEYC has to change, as you need to keep a modern infrastructure in order to maintain sustainability. Dana has also seen cultural change in her decades on Virgin Gorda and fears that some of the entrepreneurial spirit witnessed by her grandfather may no longer exist.
The immediate future is one of concern for Dana, as BEYC’s operations have been negatively affected by the recent economic upheaval around the world the same as everybody else. But her family retains its commitment to the region and to its staff and is trying to keep as many people as possible working. But the BEYC has to survive on its own – it can’t be “bailed out” of trouble if good management alone cannot guarantee its survival. The Hokin family members demonstrate their personal commitment by not taking any money (“profits”) out of BEYC – a truly unusual feature of the operation – particularly in the contemporary entrepreneurial world.
Dana and her family like to “keep under the radar” as far as possible, but retain their local community commitment. Although her family are not BVIslanders or Belongers, which surprises many people, Dana tries to keep in touch with government officials and citizens alike in order for her family and BEYC to be good neighbours. For instance, they support search and rescue operations when VISAR might be too far away. And The Bitter End Yacht Club has adopted the Robinson O’Neal Memorial Primary School, in North Sound, as part of the Ministry of Education and Culture’s Adopt-A-School Programme. (http://www.virginislandsnewsonline.com/news/bitter-end-yacht-club-adopts-robinson-o%E2%80%99neal-primary)
Running BEYC is not easy, but it is part of the Hokin family’s life work, and Dana wouldn’t change a bit of it. No doubt the fifth and succeeding generations of her family will feel the same way.
Draft of July 8th of interview of June 28th, 2011