It can be convincingly argued that Paul Mihailides, creator and chairman of The Preserve Sporting Club and Resort in Richmond, Rhode Island, has achieved near-legendary success in diverse business ventures that, at first blush, seem totally incompatible with each other.
Mr. Mihailides, thanks to his all-too-rare combination of intelligence, experience, courage, and compassion, has torn to pieces the cliché that the entrepreneur and the preservationist act at cross purposes. He has erased what for some is accepted as a central tenet of business education -- that corporate acumen and social conscience are impossible to reconcile within an individual psyche.
Proof of his accomplishment is dramatically displayed within The Preserve’s 3,500 acres encompassing: 70+ sporting activities; luxury residences and accommodations of breathtaking beauty and diversity; a spa to rival those of Europe and Asia; a sporting goods retail outlet modeled after history’s classic expedition outfitters and recognized as the “Everything Outdoor Superstore”; an equestrian training and riding facility; a fully automated indoor shooting range with the longest lanes in the country; fine dining that has captured the culinary world’s rapt admiration. For starters.
Astoundingly, The Preserve’s unparalleled blending of adventure, luxury, and serenity emerges from endless expanses of pristine forest and boulder-strewn hills carved by Ice Age glaciers. As Mr. Mihailides is fond of saying to Preserve residents and guests, “at The Preserve, the journey from a 21st century white glove lifestyle to unspoiled natural wonders is a simple matter of opening your front door.”
Mr. Mihailides has risen from humble but love-filled, principled roots to rarefied heights of business success. He is to the sporting life born, and his youthful passion for combined challenges to body and mind remains undiminished through decades of hard-fought commercial triumphs.
Indeed, it was his crystal clear, insider’s perspective on the too-frequent devastating impact of unchecked entrepreneurism on the natural world that inspired Mr. Mihailides to make a commitment to, as he puts it, “minding natures business.”
Stated simply, Mr. Mihailides believes that the preservation of the natural world in the 21st century will succeed in direct proportion to the treatment and presentation of nature as a profit-generating commodity. At first blush this conclusion appears to be cynical in the extreme. But when designed and executed by a committed preservationist of Mr. Mihailides’s caliber, the strategy accomplishes its objectives in lasting, truly dramatic fashion.
An unforgettable example presents when one tours The Preserve to experience the magic first-hand. And “magic” is a most appropriate word when a visitor first lays eyes on the property’s Hobbit Houses™. Mr. Mihailides is an accomplished visual artist. The classic works of J.R.R. Tolkien inspired him to design enchanted spaces for dining replete with round wooden doors and carved from the rock of glacial hills. They became an instant “hit” with Preserve members and guests, and they engendered in their creator extreme artistic inspiration.
Today, Mr. Mihailides’s sketches of enlarged, rambling, wood-frame Hobbit Houses™ have materialized with the construction of the first of many phantasmagorical dwellings. Guests may book overnight stays and/or special events within spaces that can be described only as enchanted.
A good deal of Mr. Mihailides’s success may be attributed to his instinctive rejection of false choices. When asked if he is an entrepreneur or a preservationist, he immediately answers with a resounding “yes”.
There is so much more to tell about Paul Mihailides -- family man, sportsman, entrepreneur, preservationist -- whose living legacy, The Preserve Sporting Club and Residences, continues to be refined.
Come to The Preserve and share the realized and continuing dream of a national treasure.
