way.

Resort Development Co. Ltd. recently applied for planning permission to demolish all the existing structures of the landmark Palm Reef Hotel.

According to planning records, the company wants to level the Harbour Road site and erect a new office space and residences.

A new marina and grade parking will also be built if the Development Application Board grants the company approval.

The Paget hotel closed its doors last November after eight years of service under the name Palm Reef.

It was formerly called the Inverurie and it has been estimated that the hotel had been in existence for almost a century.

At the time hotel officials said the closure was not the hotel's choice but the Government's.

The Palm Reef needed to install a state of the art sprinkler system, estimated to cost almost $1 million. The third story of a hotel had to be equipped with a sprinkler system under Bermuda Fire Service requirements.

The policy was initiated years ago and had been complied with by all the Island's hotels except the Palm Reef. If the requirements were not met then the hotel would not receive a Fire Safety Certificate which is necessary for licensing by the department.

Over the years, the hotel attracted fewer high spending tourists, producing unprofitable returns on the capital invested.

Hotel officials claimed that they had only remained open for the past eight years to allow their staff to remain employed.

In 1989, John Jefferis, Emilio Barbieri and Bridget Marshall purchased the Harbour Road hotel from the Warwick Hotel Company -- principally owned by Kenneth DeFontes and Conrad Englehardt.

The trio changed the name of the hotel to the Palm Reef, from the Inverurie, that same year.

A former Bermuda hotelier and entrepreneur, Mr. Jefferis owns controlling interest in the Bermuda-based Island Resorts International.

Mr. Jefferis recently built a new five-star resort, Coco Reef, on the Caribbean island of Tobago. Resort Development Co. Ltd. also operates Coco Reef.

Mr. Jefferis is also currently president of the Caribbean Hotel Association, of which the Bermuda Hotel Association is an affiliate, and is one of the regional vice presidents of the International Hotel and Restaurant Association.

The former Elbow Beach general manager was also a past president of the Bermuda Hotel Association. He resigned from the Elbow Beach to devote more time to his hotel in Tobago and to his position as president of the Caribbean Hotel Association.

Mr. Jefferis could not be reached for comment last night.

Yesterday, former owner Conrad Englehart said the Palm Reef was one of the Island's oldest estimating it had been welcoming visitors for close to 100 years.

In 1810 a home was built on the Harbour Road site and its owner named it Inverurie after a town in Scotland, Mr. Englehart said.

Many years later -- the precise date is unknown -- the home became a small hotel but retained the name Inverurie.

Mr. Englehart said he purchased the small hotel in 1956 and devoted 34 years to build it up to a hotel with more than 100 rooms and a nightclub.