Summerset Colonial Hotels and Villa - Ghost Hotel 2014 Part 1

Finding interesting out of nothing indeed ..

I came here with a car club many many years ago - Summerset has had 257 hotel rooms and 51 private chalets .. and as far as I can recall, it was not cheap either. Located not far from the town of Kuala Rompin, it is about 220km away from Kuala Lumpur. Elegant, with romantic incan lighting throughout the resort, this place was posh in its heyday and truly lived up to its colonial aspirations : main building with a fabulous dome, ornate furnishings, marble table lamps, french windows and doors, solid wood furniture all sprawled along the coast of South China Sea. This is one resort built with passion and a flair for design.

That was some 10 years ago.

In 2014, I was making my way from Pekan - Kuala Rompin on a decidedly long detour back to KL. Kuala Rompin has grown - it has KFC now - the barometer determining how modern a town is :). But what struck me was I didn't recall passing by Summerset ... a quick search on the Garmin and I was routing back to where it used to be ..

Hidden amongst the undrgrowth

"Eh surely cannot be!", i exclaimed. No way can this place bungkus. You can expect the Generic Budget Beach Resorts to fold but surely not a resort of this scale, size and grandeur. The owners would be stark raving mad to allow it to be foreclosed!

The tarmac road is clean - I can explain to you why NOW but I shall leave it for another blog entry involving a mysterious couple dwelling within these abandoned grounds ....

The Lobby

The paint job is holding on well in 2014 - definitely not cheap plaster paint. This is was a quality development.

One of the last few entries by the security guard

Part of the hotel block being reclaimed by the sea

The chalets look like a scene after Hurricane Katrina

Everything was left behind when the hotel was closed : furnishings, beds, TV, lamps, telephones, linen : most of them have been scavenged by looters but you can still find the odd CRT TV lying around (this was in the days when LCD was not even on the market), some of the bedsheets are still pure white after years of being abandoned, divans and mattresses are scattered all over. The office was left as is - documents, files, folders all left behind - printers, even staff shoes and not least the security logs, staff claim logbooks.

The paint job is holding up amazingly well - underscoring what I suspect has always been the mantra of the developer : build quality build posh, Everything just reeks quality - when most hotels go for simple windows and sliding doors, Summerset opted for French doors and windows. When resorts opt for cheaper carpets, Summerset went the country mile and used expensive wood flooring. The selection of paint too would not have escaped the attention to detail of the developers and it shows till today.
My guess is that one day all the staff turned up and found that the resort was locked up by Receivers and Managers. The R&M probably paid for security for awhile before it too ran out of funds - before the looters came swarming in.

Ok finding this place was a mini-discovery in itself - but what made the entire experience surreal was my close encounter with inhabitants of this resort .... next entry!

This entry would not have been possible without pics from the following blogs. I do not claim or own the copyright of the pre-2014 images taken therein.


http://j-travel.blogspot.com/2007/04/summerset-resort-kuala-rompin-8th-9th.html
alvinchew @ panoramio
http://www.my-rummy.com/rompin/Summerset_Resort.html

Further reads can be found here :

http://www.thestar.com.my/story/?file=%2f2009%2f9%2f7%2fsouthneast%2f4640483&sec=southneast