This week, the owners of Pompano Beach Club announced that they expect the hotel to be sold in the coming months.

For me, Pompano is one of the most beautiful hotel properties in Bermuda. It has an exclusiveness about it, sitting on the South Shore with incredible views and a character that feels different from many of our other hotel properties.

I first met Larry Lamb when I was working at HOTT 107.5, and years later I had the opportunity to work more closely with him during my time with Bermuda Tourism.

The Lamb family and Pompano Beach Club have served Bermuda’s tourism industry well. I remember traveling throughout the northeastern United States, particularly New England, meeting with travel professionals and hearing them rave about Pompano and the Lamb family. What always stood out was the genuine connection they seemed to have with their guests. It wasn’t just people booking a hotel room. There were visitors who returned because they had developed a relationship with the property and the people behind it. That’s something you can’t necessarily recreate by just purchasing a hotel.

At this point, there are no public details about who may eventually purchase Pompano or what their plans for the property might be. But whoever eventually takes ownership isn’t just getting a beautiful piece of Bermuda real estate. They’re potentially inheriting a hotel with history, a reputation and an established clientele.

Now, think about it. I would love to see a group of Bermudians with a genuine passion for hospitality and an interest in business have the capital necessary to purchase a property like Pompano. I’m full of ideas about what I’d like to see from a Bermuda hotel, and I know plenty of other Bermudians who are as well. Imagine what could be created if local people with experience across hospitality, tourism, finance, marketing, food and beverage, entertainment and business came together with the necessary investment behind them.

I’m not saying that whoever eventually purchases Pompano won’t do a great job. We don’t even know who that will be yet. But whenever a significant Bermuda property changes hands, I think there’s value in asking whether Bermudians have a realistic opportunity to participate not simply as employees, but as owners and investors. We spend a lot of time talking about getting more Bermudians into hospitality. Why shouldn’t ownership be part of that conversation as well? 

Pompano already has an identity. That’s something many businesses spend years trying to create. The challenge for whoever comes next will be determining how to build upon that without losing what made people fall in love with the property in the first place.

For now, though, I think this is an opportunity to simply say thank you. Thank you to the Lamb family for the years they’ve invested in Bermuda tourism, for the relationships they’ve developed with visitors and travel professionals, and for creating a property that so many people have come to associate with a particular kind of Bermuda hospitality.

Whatever happens next will be interesting to watch. But I think I speak for many when I wish the Lamb family well in their retirement and thank them for the role Pompano Beach Club has played in Bermuda’s tourism story.