Paradise Lost

For years a handful of communal farmers were the only inhabitants of the 120-acre area of thicket and coconut groves 20 miles south of Mexico's swank Acapulco resort on the Pacific. Then in 1968, Dallas multimillionaire Troy V. (for Victor) Post, newly enriched by the sale of his Greatamerica Corp. to Ling-Temco-Vought for $500 million, brought his genius and fortune to bear on the wasteland. Before long he had transformed it into an earthly paradise, a resort complete with a luxury hotel and detached villas, two of the world's best golf courses, an Olympic-size swimming pool, a discotheque and a restaurant that served Mexico's finest French food, prepared by Emmanuel de Camp, once a chef at Maxim's. Post seemed close to achieving his ultimate vision: an ultra-exclusive preserve where the powerful and wealthy could retreat to cavort and contemplate.

Today the resort that Post named Tres Vidas en la Playa (translation: "three lives on the beach") is slowly reverting to the thicket it once was. On once velvety golf links, cattle nibble at the patches of imported English grass that have survived months of neglect. Rows of expensive golf carts sit rusting in the salt spray from the nearby Pacific. The Olympic and villa pools, long stagnant, are covered with algae-green slime. Outside the compound's wrought-iron gates, striking waiters, maids and maintenance men--who have been picketing since July under a red and black strike flag of Mexican unions--are encamped with their dogs, turkeys and barefoot children, barring entrance to all. Though they are owed four months of back pay, they contend that they are really there to protect their flag.

What happened? Quite simply, Tres Vidas was so exclusive that almost no one showed up. Post's original notion, an opulent, members-only resort, captured the imagination of the international set. The rich, the royal and the celebrated attended the extravagant grand opening in 1969. "No country club in the world is so deliberately elite, so tastefully plush," bubbled Town & Country magazine in its February 1971 issue. But the initial fee of $8,000 and annual dues of $360 dampened the ardor of many prospective applicants; only 700 signed up. Nonetheless, Post would not abandon his ideal of exclusivity. In 1970, even nonmember Lyndon Johnson was forced to wait at the gate until he was cleared to play golf.

Glitter v. Quiet. Though Post poured some $30 million of his personal fortune into Tres Vidas and borrowed millions more, the resort continued to sink deeper into the red. In 1971 Braniff International Corp. took over managerial control from the man who was once its chairman and began doing away with his members-only notion. "Tres Vidas," announced Braniff, "is a private-membership country club. Guests are currently being accepted on a get-acquainted basis ..." With visions of the hoi polloi overrunning their dream resort, remaining members began to shy away, hastening the downfall of Tres Vidas. By 1974 Braniff had converted Post's dream into an open resort, and was making an all-out bid for middleclass tourists. But they too stayed away, preferring the Las Vegas glitter of Acapulco to the solitude, the skeet shooting and the English grass 20 miles distant.

Rescue is coming, however, from an unexpected source. The Mexican government plans to assume control of the resort and its $8.9 million debt, opening the gate to anyone who can afford entrance. Government officials are confident that the "Mexicanized" enterprise will pay its way, and have promised to split the profits--51% for the ministry of tourism and 49% for the man whose initials are still on the gate: Troy V. Post.

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