Nearly 40 years after leaving his position as general manager at the Sheraton Grand Mirage, hotel industry veteran Erhard Hotter still gets nervous about “naming names.”
As a former keeper of one of Australia’s most infamous and hedonistic hotels during the 1980s and 1990s, it’s no surprise.
Hotter, a quiet-spoken German who is now nearly retired at 82, once presided over all aspects of the iconic Sheraton Grand Mirage Resort on the Gold Coast, a hotel that hit headlines this week after it went on the market for $ 200 million.
Built by fugitive developer Christopher Skase in 1985, 16 years before he died of stomach cancer in Spain, the hotel became the ultimate beacon of 1980s excess, where guests from across Australia and the world came to relax. .
Christopher Skase (with wife Pixie) built the Sheraton Mirage as the ultimate beacon of ’80s excess
Guests from all over Australia and the world would come to holiday and relax at the Sheraton Mirage, located on Southport Spit.
“And some of them are still alive today, so I don’t like to get too specific,” Hotter, who served as general manager from 1988 to 1995, told Daily Mail Australia.
‘But of course we attracted some very high-profile people. Lots of Hollywood actors and famous people from Europe too.
And the very rich of Sydney and Melbourne. The Mirage was the kind of place that earned a reputation for social theater and it was our job to make sure the guests got everything they wanted.’
On one occasion, the New York Knicks basketball team alighted in the hotel’s gleaming marble lobby, carrying one particular eight-foot-tall player.
“So we had a custom bed made for him,” says Hotter.
“I was so happy that I was able to sleep comfortably, I couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe we did that.
There was the visiting British celebrity, who wore only Versace pajamas and robes at all times and made her own sangria at the pool bar late into the night.
Or the long-term guest and acclaimed drinker who would order a Shepherd’s Pie and a bottle of Jack Daniels Red Label before bed.
Mirage guest Joan Collins pictured at the hotel in the early 1990s, with locals Heather Haynes and Donrecka Issakidis.
Former Mirage General Manager Erhard Hotter reveals some of the secrets of the famous hotel, which is now up for sale.
Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall checked into the Mirage during a state visit in 2018
Or the famous Australian writer, who called ahead to advise of a ‘specific need’ that required ‘specialist’ catering.
“He said, ‘I can only wear socks because I have gout,'” Hotter said, adding that the affliction once dubbed “rich man’s disease” was not uncommon among his wealthy clientele.
You’re pretty good at spotting it. It’s in the way they walk,” she says.
There were also favorite guests, the sentimental favorites received year after year who became part of the ‘Mirage family’.
“Michael Caine was one. Peter Allen was another,” says Hotter, who hosts the Australian cabaret legend annually for Christmas along with his extended family.
“Peter would come over for a month every year with his mum and his nieces and nephews and do a few shows at the (Tweed RSL Club) Twin Towns, so he was in a lot of demands because he worked late into the night.
“But we would do everything we could for him because he was a lovely guest.
“The staff loved him and on his last visit it was difficult because he was getting sick.
‘So we’d have the kitchen make special soups for her and bring her fresh fruit.
Favorite guest Peter Allen often spent Christmas at the Mirage with his mother Marion and extended family
Former general manager Erhard Hotter (C) with regular guest Michael Caine and his wife Shakira in 1995
‘At the end of that visit he came up to me and said goodbye and we both had tears in our eyes. Because we knew it would be the last time. And of course she died six months later.
Then there were the famous ‘Mayordomos’ (Spanish for ‘head butler’); young male personal butlers were stationed in the VIP villas, whose duties regularly included escorting some of the wealthy female clients on shopping excursions through the high-end boutiques at Marina Mirage.
“They would go shopping with the customers and might bring some bags for them and ride with them in the limousines,” Hotter said.
“I think some of the women enjoyed it. A young, good looking and polite guy to go shopping with.
And what about the folklore that some of the ‘butlers’ might have even extended their services to guest rooms in a more ‘intimate’ way?
‘That wasn’t actually officially allowed, but… if they take the bags to the rooms, who knows.
“Let’s just say we never had any complaints from the guests.”
But if the Mirage Resort was a symbol of decadence, then its core was the Rolls nightclub, a maelstrom of mirrors and velvet shrouded in a haze of cigarette smoke (back when indoor smoking was legal, if not encouraged).
Rolls, located on the basement level, was Skase’s personal playground. He was known for standing on top of a podium and dancing to the tunes of his favorite singer, John Farnham, while black-tie waiters served bottles of Veuve Cliquot and Moet & Chandon.
The definitive hosts; Skase and his wife Pixie earned a reputation for throwing wild parties that drew VIPs from Australia and abroad.
A view of the hotel’s famous boardwalk that spans the entire complex
The centerpiece of the nightclub was a real, not a replica, vintage 1934 Rolls Royce that guests could reserve to walk in, lock the doors, and “do whatever.”
“I mean, it wasn’t really that comfortable, but what they chose to do inside was up to them.”
However, Rolls, with its ample overhead and disparate distance from the Surfers Paradise party strip, eventually went out of business after a brief but wild ride.
Around the same time, talk at the Mirage had already become widespread back-of-house that Skase and his beleaguered Qintex empire were on the wane.
Skase and his wife Pixie, who often flew by helicopter from the Gold Coast to the Mirage in Port Douglas, had begun spending less and less time in Southport, where they owned a detached villa overlooking Main Beach.
Hotter left Mirage for a position at the Sheraton Nusa Dua in Indonesia and would go on to manage international hotels for another 30 years.
Skase dumped the rest of his shares in Mirage and disappeared in Mallorca when his $1.5bn Qintex group collapsed, leaving behind hundreds of millions of dollars in devastated shareholders.
Meanwhile, other resorts were quickly usurping the Mirage as the epitome of Gold Coast bounty.
Though he would die bankrupt in 1994, Mike Gore’s visionary Sanctuary Cove had become the new mecca for millionaires looking to moor their mega-yachts and play golf.
Then, in 2001, Palazzo Versace became Broadwater’s new hotspot, attracting Hollywood celebrities and the European super-rich.
Opening Night: George Hamilton and Catherine Oxenberg were among the international rich and famous who attended the opening of the Mirage in 1985.
Sheraton Grand Mirage would change hands multiple times before The Star Entertainment Group took over in 2017 only for the embattled casino operator to put it up for sale this week.
His future, now, seems uncertain. As one developer told Daily Mail Australia this week; “She was a blast in her day, but she’s old and looks like she needs a lot of work.”
For Hotter, who decided to return to the Mirage to celebrate her 80th birthday in 2021, it still holds a place in her heart.
“It’s a shame it’s not the same anymore because it was so classy and so fabulous and now of course the Gold Coast has changed so much,” he says.
“But I was lucky to have been there during that time, before all the social media when it was all about having fun in the moment.”