profession: pilot career: actor - Jet Aviation

Resort | Terravista
01 The restaurant at the
Terravista driving range
02 A Terravista condominium at
hole 10 of the golf course
Japanese company had not wanted was
the Brazilian company. The Japanese had
thought it was very complicated to have
a company in Brazil and said they did
not know how to deal with Brazilians. So
Michael Gail moved to Brazil to head the
company.
Terravista
The same year Gail arrived in Brazil, he
and a partner founded Terravista and
hired Tom Krause of Krause Bohne architects,
who have designed resorts in over
25 countries. The architect told them
they should have a golf course, so they
contacted star golf course architect Dan
Blankenship and gave him free reign.
The focus at Terravista is on the course
Blankenship designed. “This isn’t just a
42 Outlook 02/2008
01
02
place with a golf course squeezed in
the middle of residences,” he says. “We
wanted to build the best course we could.”
Nine of the 18 holes are in a forest environment,
while the other nine are by the
ocean, on top of tall cliffs that tower over
the beach.
Gail travels to the world’s top 100 golf
courses, plays a round of golf, and takes a
look at what it is that they do differently.
Then he takes the ideas home. On a hot
day in the Bahamas, staff at a renowned
golf course passed out cold towels soaked
in an essence of peppermint. The effect
was so refreshing that Gail immediately
bought peppermint oil and created the
luxury on his course as well. Now other
courses in Brazil are doing it too.
In addition to golf, visitors to the resort can
enjoy the natural beauty of both the ocean
and the forest. The resort covers an area of
1,200 hectares and has two and a half kilometers
of beach. There is currently one
hotel, and construction on two more very
high-end hotels will begin at the end of the
year. There are also plans for a village with
shopping and dining opportunities, as well
as a Discovery Museum to house pottery
shards that have been found in the area.
Tropic Air
Terravista’s distance from the large metropolises
of Brazil makes it safe and peaceful.
It also allowed Gail to expand on one of
his primary interests. As a young boy, he
had built model airplanes. At university,
he thought about ending his studies and
becoming a Swissair pilot, but his parents