The billionaire behind South Africa’s most famous hotel

Solomon ‘Sol” Kerzner was a prominent accountant and business magnate who became a titan of the South African hospitality industry, founding the world-famous Sun City resort.

Kerzner was born on 23 August 1935 in Troyeville, Johannesburg, a working-class suburb in South Africa’s financial capital. He was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants who had fled persecution in the USSR.

The youngest of four children, Kerzner’s family had very little money to begin with, as his parents worked tirelessly to manage a small kosher café and fruit business in Bezuidenhout Valley.

He attended Damelin College in Johannesburg, where he became very physically active, taking up sports such as boxing and rugby.

These interests carried over into his tertiary education, when he enrolled at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg to study accounting while continuing to box and play rugby.

Kerzner later qualified as a chartered accountant in 1957 and began his career at the accounting firm Howard Pim & Hardy, the same firm that would one day merge to form Deloitte.

During his time at Howard Pim & Hardy, he honed corporate finance and auditing skills that would later prove instrumental in his multi-million-dollar property developments.

Throughout his early life, Kerzner was heavily involved in his family’s business, helping to manage the café and learning valuable customer service skills.

The family business later expanded to include Monorah, a budget-friendly 15-room guesthouse in Durban. From there, they began leasing and eventually purchasing larger hotels and properties.

Kerzner helped his parents run the hotels, working as a bouncer, bartender, and event coordinator, reaffirming his interest in the hospitality industry.

At the age of 26, Kerzner decided to go into business for himself. He took out savings and loans to purchase his first property, the Astra Hotel.

The Astra was a modest, struggling beachfront hotel in Durban. He realised he needed to broaden the site’s appeal to turn things around, opening a new venue, The Back Room, inside the hotel.

The Back Room featured live music and dancing, and quickly became a hangout spot for locals and tourists, turning the hotel into a massive financial success.

Becoming the ‘Sun King’

Following the success of the Astra, Kerzner set his sights on a more ambitious goal. He located an undeveloped patch of coastline north of Durban known as Umhlanga Rocks.

At the time, it was a quiet area considered too remote for major commercial investment. Kerzner took a gamble and established The Beverly Hills Hotel in 1964.

It was designed to be South Africa’s first 5-star luxury hotel and became a smash hit with wealthy travellers, putting Umhlanga Rock on the map as an elite coastal destination.

From there, Kerzner went on to partner with South African Breweries to co-found the Southern Sun Hotels. As the managing director, he grew the brand into a chain of 30 hotels across Southern Africa.

All of this laid the groundwork for his most famous project, the Sun City resort. During Apartheid in South Africa, there were strict laws on gambling, sports betting, and adult entertainment like topless shows.

However, the government had also created the semi-autonomous black homelands, or “bantustans,” which had their own legal restrictions.

Kerzner realised this created a legal loophole. He made a deal with the leaders of the Bophuthatswana homeland, securing exclusive gambling rights and buying land in an extinct volcanic crater approximately two hours outside of Pretoria.

Sun City was envisioned as a getaway for people wishing to indulge in pleasures that were heavily restricted in South Africa, featuring gambling and explicit shows.

It became a major success, attracting international attention. Over the years, Sun City has hosted performances by celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, Queen, Elton John, Cher, and Liza Minnelli.

Over the years, the hotel and casino evolved into a resort with an artificial jungle, a golf course, and a massive wave pool area known as the Valley of the Waves.

This ensured that Sun City continued to be a success following the end of Apartheid when gambling and other adult activities were legalised nationwide.

Kerzner’s success wasn’t limited to Southern Africa. He became involved in international hotels and resorts in his later career, most notably the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas.

He later died of cancer on 21 March 2020 at the age of 84 in his family residence in the Leeukoppie Estate near Cape Town.

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Sol Kerzner and Sun City

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