Interview with Rolf Masshardt
General Manager of Carimar Beach Club (2015 to 2025)
Rolf Masshardt will be retiring on October 31, 2025, as General Manager of Carimar Beach Club. Lockhart Hughes, who worked as Assistant GM for over two years, will take over as new General Manager on November 1.
We asked Rolf some questions about his 10 years of stewardship at one of the loveliest properties on Meads Bay.
Q: How did you become GM of Carimar Beach Club?
A: In spring 2015 I got a call from one of the owners of Carimar Beach Club, asking if I would be interested in returning to Anguilla to manage their hotel.
Having been in Anguilla since 1988, and having our own hotel for nearly 20 years, I was very familiar with the property as it was on the same beach as La Sirena Hotel, which we had owned and managed until 2005.
Although when I received the call, we managed our own hotel in Switzerland, it did not take me long to accept Carimar’s offer since we missed our second home. We packed our container and in October 2015 I took over the position as General Manager at Carimar.
Q: You are retiring after 10 years with Carimar Beach Club. What do you think have been your major achievements during that time?
A: Carimar Beach Club was already well established and successful, with many loyal guests staying at Carimar year after year.
The property was well maintained and managed, with a great pool of staff often working at Carimar for years, some since it opened in the eighties.
Within the first years, together with very supportive ownership and a strong team of employees, I developed plans for further improvements and extended our marketing activities to increase our occupancy, especially in the summer months.
Today Carimar Beach Club has an average occupancy throughout the year of 90%, which allowed us over the years to invest heavily to keep Carimar Beach Club as one of the prime mid-market hotels in Anguilla.
Q: Can you go into more details about what improvements you have been talking about over the last 10 years?
A: From the beginning, I had a strong vision to give our returning guests some exciting improvements on the property.
Sometimes they were immense investments over years, like the new bathrooms, creating a gym on property, or redoing the tennis courts. Sometimes it was just little things like introducing the manager cocktail party, having bicycles available for our guests, or having a spice rack in each unit, to name a few.
We also created a new website giving our (potential) guests a wide range of information about the property and the island of Anguilla.
It was important for me that we could surprise our guests every year with some new features and improvements.
Some of the larger items I remember were:
Installing AC units in the living rooms
Completely redesigning and implementing new bathrooms
New tiles for the balconies and porches
Lovely marble tiles for all the walkways
Exchanging all windows and blinds
Changing our entrance doors and the lock system
Upgrading our gardens and outside areas
The last big project: creating a new reception and entrance area for our guests, which will be open in early November this year
There have also been a lot of behind-the-scenes improvements like a desalination plant, installing solar panels providing today about 20% of our energy, having additional storage areas, and a second stand-by generator.
Although all these things were milestones, the most important factor that guests return to Carimar year after year are our strong and devoted employees. Their hard work is the most important reason for our success.
Q: What have your biggest challenges been during your time with Carimar?
A: Maybe the biggest challenge was Hurricane Irma in September 2017 and the Covid epidemic in 2020 and 2021.
Especially after Irma, we have been fortunate to have so many loyal guests, and we could welcome the first guests within a month after the storm, keeping the hotel and island going in a difficult time.
Our employees have been so grateful to hundreds of guests taking part in collecting over US$130,000 for them so they also could start to rebuild their homes and lives.
Q: How do you see the future of Carimar Beach Club?
A: Carimar Beach Club is lucky to have with Lockhart Hughes a local GM with a lot of experience in the hospitality industry.
He has his own vision of how to further improve the resort with the help of our dedicated team, keeping the promise to our guests to always find “a home away from home” on Meads Bay.
I am very happy to leave “my hotel” in such good hands. I am confident that with his leadership, Carimar Beach Club will remain the number one choice of mid-market hotels in Anguilla in the years to come.
With this said, I would like to close with a big thank you to my team. They are outstanding in every way and a big part of our success. Also to the ownership, which always supported my visions and ideas over the years, and last but not least to our guests, who are the ones that make all our work worthwhile.