Mr Pikes: The Story Behind The Ibiza Legend

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Pikes was born. Club Tropicana was an early MTV hit, and others sought out the decadent location it portrayed. Pikes became known as a place for ricos, extranjeros y famosos (the rich, foreign and famous). Tony was the draw. He would top up drinks around the pool, take guests out on his yacht then escort them to the island’s vast, open-air Ku Club where he had one of 50 keys for the VIP room. Midnight Club was written because a young woman who was dying in a hospital in the Midwest told me about a club they had at the hospital called The Midnight Club,” Pike explained. “They would meet at midnight to discuss my books. She asked me to write about them. I said I would but I couldn’t have them discussing my books. The idea grew from there. Unfortunately, none of them were alive when I finished the book.” 10. The Midnight Club is getting a Netflix adaptation. A jubilant sense of joie de vivre alongside a mountain of achievements makes this a very fun read. Just like Ibiza and Pikes the book probably isn’t for everyone… but they might just be missing out.

At night he lay and watched the stars through a hole in the ceiling. He thought about his previous lives. He thought about the brother who had abused him. Then he got up in the morning and worked even harder. In 1951, Tony left the navy with dreams of emigrating to Australia. His strong work ethic saw him take on all types of work within the building trade – which would go on to serve him well when building Pikes in the late 70s – and after a year of saving, he found himself on a ship bound for Sydney; this time as a passenger rather than crew. It’s worth noting that his renowned exploits as a ladies’ man began at this point; despite much bragging about his experience with women prior to the journey, it was during a stopover in Yemen on that fateful trip that Tony finally declared himself “a man”. His work life in Australia was varied – he began working in millinery (where he met his first wife and the mother of his firstborn son), had a stint in the Australian Army, alongside labouring jobs and sales work. With his natural-born gift of the gab, selling was something Tony excelled at. Much-married, hedonistic hotel owner who partied hard with many a pop star and was known as the Hugh Hefner of Ibiza; John Donne may have written that no man is an island, but Tony Pike came close. Known as Mr Ibiza, he was the embodiment of Balearic hedonism, a brash, hard-drinking, drug-taking philanderer whose way with women would have made even the love poet blush.Tony was in his sixties, not that you’d know from his memories of the time. He’s on a boat with Kylie Minogue; fighting over a girl with Mike Oldfield; having lunch with Tony Curtis; sharing a shower with Brigitte Nielsen. “And working,” he says. “Always working. I built a bloody room for Tony Curtis.”

THE SUN: HE was the sex-mad playboy who provided a tropical retreat for A-list celebrities to indulge their wildest fantasies.DeepHouseAmsterdam too called Tony’s book a fitting memoir to the life of an amazing man, can be found here.

And then, from the terrace one evening, he saw a man approaching through the fields. The man walked uphill. But, for Tony, he “descended from heaven”. Pike recalled that when he penned the book’s final words, “I want people to remember me,” things got spooky: “Someone tapped me on the shoulder and said ‘Goodbye, we’ll meet some day.’ This absolutely happened. I jumped so high I almost hit my head on the ceiling.” He felt that “it was like a person was done telling me their story and they were moving on. Like they were saying goodbye and thanks.”

Heard It Through the Grapevine

Mr Pikes: The Story Behind the Ibiza Legend by MT INK is one of the greatest books of all time to read. The basis was there for Pikes to become a playboy’s playground; all that was missing were the playboys themselves. In keeping with the ‘if you build it, they will come’ ethos he had been operating on, Tony called on his French connections and soon enough, the rich, famous and influential began to arrive on Pikes’ doorstep. They’d be greeted by Ibiza’s number one host with the most, in every sense of the word. Tony Pike’s big personality was perhaps the biggest part of the hotel’s charm. Drink, drugs, parties, girls, glamour; Tony would promise (and deliver) it all to those who wanted to partake. Of course, given that one of the aforementioned things happened to be illegal, he ended up in hot water with Ibiza’s police chief, earning a two-day stint in Ibiza’s prison as a warning. Word had certainly gotten out that Pikes was the place to be for a good time. He escaped from an abusive, poverty-ridden childhood in England by joining the Navy at the age of 12. As a teenager he sailed under Sydney Harbour Bridge and decided to jump ship. Australia meant hard years of labouring until a chance meeting with a man in a pub led to Tony inventing a revolutionary form of plastic display, making a fortune, electing to become an international playboy (to the dismay of his first wife), suffering an existential crisis, getting on a Spanish ferry and, by mistake, disembarking in Ibiza in 1978. Learn how Mr Pikes became friends or “lovers” with the ‘A’ List celebrities; including Robert Plant, Kurt Cobain, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Jean-Claude Van Damme Boy George, Kylie Minogue Julio Iglesias, Mike Oldfield…the list goes on and on. Tony’s hand-built naughty boutique hotel helped thousands of the guests fulfil their wildest fantasies – an abundance of pleasure…an often drug-fuelled orgy of life.

For me, Remember Me was a gigantic leap,” Pike wrote. “I knew when I was writing it that it was special and when I finished it—I was high as a kite for weeks. I knew I had finally written something beyond me—a book that would last forever.” The author said that it didn’t even feel like he wrote it; it was his first time writing in the first person, and he also had no idea what was going to happen next, “when in all my other books I knew where I was headed.” Not many have lived life to the fullest as the hedonistic playboy and iconic hotelier Tony Pike, the original owner of the legendary Pikes hotel. In his uncompromising memoir Mr Pikes: The Story Behind The Ibiza Legend, he discloses all the dirt and a whole lot more going on behind the scenes of his life and the legendary hotel.Mag so sein. Ich fand und finde es gut, ja sogar spannend, obwohl ich vieles davon miterlebt habe, erscheint es mir jetzt noch einmal in einem anderen Licht. Man erkennt so einige Zusammenhänge, die einem damals in der Feierlaune der Zeit verborgen blieben.