The hotel built by billionaire Larry Hillblom in Phan Thiet is in danger of being demolished. Since its construction, it has gone through many ups and downs. This is also the place where the love story that has consumed much of the press between the hotel owner, an American billionaire,with the Vietnamese maid.

4-star hotel of American billionaire in Binh Thuan

The Chairman of the People's Committee of Binh Thuan province has just made an announcement after a meeting approving a separate urban design plan for the coastal area of ​​Ocean Dunes Resort, Phan Thiet City, according to a source from the PL TP.HCM newspaper.

Accordingly, the provincial leaders agreed to change the land use purpose of about 25,000 square meters of the Phan Thiet Ocean Dunes Resort project and Novotel hotel from commercial service land to urban residential land and demolish the existing hotel building to create uniformity with the Phan Thiet coastal urban project.

Billionaire Larry Hillblom

Larry Hillblom's stake in DHL is worth billions of dollars. Despite his wealth, Larry Hillblom's main outfit is faded jeans and a short-sleeved T-shirt. That's why he's been nicknamed the "jeans billionaire" by the business world.

Larry Hillblom was also one of the earliest foreigners to come to Vietnam to invest and do business. In 1993, after many visits to Vietnam, Larry decided to invest in the hotel and tourism sector.

During his investment in Vietnam, billionaire Larry was attracted by the beauty of Phan Thiet. He spent money to buy back Vinh Thuy Hotel from Binh Thuan Tourism Company to upgrade it into a four-star hotel and named it Novotel Phan Thiet Hotel, then handed over the management and operation to Accor Group - France.

Four-star Novotel hotel renamed Ocen Dunes Resort

After 20 years of operation, in August 2012, the hotel changed ownership and was renamed Du Parc Hotel. On August 19, 2014, this hotel was merged into the Sea Links City resort complex, under the management of Rang Dong Group. This hotel was once again renamed Ocean Dunes Resort.

It is designed like a yacht lying close to the shore. Through the ups and downs of history, this hotel system still retains its inherent peaceful and gentle beauty.

Billionaire Larry also invested in building a beautiful 18-hole golf course surrounding this hotel. This was one of the most beautiful golf courses in Asia - Pacific at that time, designed and built with world-class standards. Novotel Hotel and Ocean Dunes Golf Club (also known as Phan Thiet Golf Course) with a total area of ​​65,000m2, have become the destination for foreign businessmen on weekends.

Panoramic view of Phan Thiet golf course

After the billionaire passed away, the golf course was sold twice to two other foreign investors. On November 15, 2013, Rang Dong Group bought the golf course. But only half a month later, Rang Dong sent a document to the People's Committee of Binh Thuan province asking for permission to convert Phan Thiet golf course into an urban area. The demolition of the golf course to build an urban area caused a stir in Binh Thuan for a long time.

The love story of the hotel owner and the maid

During the renovation of Vinh Thuy Hotel, the "jeans billionaire" met and had a whirlwind romance with the maid Nguyen Thi Be (born in 1974, from Tan Xuan commune, Ham Tan district, Binh Thuan province).

Being poor, Bé was allowed by a relative to work at the Vinh Thuy Hotel. From a skinny, dark-skinned girl, Bé has grown up, has white skin, long hair and caught the eye of the boss Larry. After being "noticed" by the boss several times, Bé became pregnant.

Not daring to confess her pregnancy to her boss, Ms. Be quietly left her workplace and returned to her family's dilapidated house in Tan Xuan. At the end of 1994, she gave birth to a baby boy who looked exactly like Larry. She combined her name and her lover's to name the baby. But when she went to register the baby's birth, her father somehow misspelled Larry as Lory. The name Nguyen Be Lory was born from that.

Nguyen Be Lory with his mother when he first came to the US in 1998.

Hearing that Bé had given birth, a friend of hers came to take three photos of her and baby Lory and sent them to Da Lat for a close relative to deliver to Larry. Thanks to these photos, billionaire Larry learned that he had an illegitimate child in Vietnam.

But on May 21, 1995, during a seaplane flight from Pagan Island to Saipan, billionaire Larry died, and his body has not been found to this day.

Some time after the sudden death of the ill-fated playboy billionaire, Miss Bé contacted a friend who used to work at the Vinh Thuy Hotel, informing him that her child was the son of the hotel owner. This person immediately contacted lawyer John Veague, who was in charge of dividing billionaire Larry's assets. The story of Nguyen Bé's search for his father to claim inheritance rights also caused a stir in public opinion for a long time.

After a legal battle involving hundreds of lawyers to gain inheritance rights for billionaire Larry's illegitimate children in Southeast Asia, in the end, only four of the eight children were officially recognized as his blood relatives, including Nguyen Be Lory; two Filipino boys and one on Guam.

At the end of 2015, Nguyen Be Lory, after turning 21, inherited an estate of nearly 100 million USD. On his recent return to Vietnam, Lory and his mother also visited the hotel where his late father invested.

According to Vietnamnet