I wrote about the road in the last post. Inhotim is where the road was taking us. It is a vast outdoor art park. I enjoyed the art because it was in the beautiful natural settings.
You have to give thanks to crazy rich guys. This park is the work of one such man who collected art and wanted to share it with others. It would have been difficult for any but a private individual to justify a place like this. You pay $R20 to get in, but the revenues from that don’t cover the costs of current operations, much less the costs of obtaining the land, building the buildings & buying the works of art. It has never broken even and never will.
People would be unwilling to pay enough to cover the costs. This is also why it probably would never be created by government. If the individuals enjoying the place would be unwilling to pay, why would it be a better deal to force taxpayers to foot the bill? Eventually I suppose it will be run by a kind of ongoing foundation. Some people will become “members” and they will have fund raising drives. The rich guy will have footed the bill for the big capital expense of building the place, so they will just have to fill the gap between the amount of money they can make in revenue and the amount they need to keep it going.
Chrissy and I had a buffet lunch at a restaurant in the middle of the park. It has the most beautiful buffet, in terms of setup, that we had ever seen. We ate under palm trees in a heavenly setting. I recommend that. Another think I liked was the quiet. They still did things with hand tools (see above). I didn’t see any leaf blowers.
I think we have similar model with San Simeon, built on the California coast by ridiculously rich William Randolph Hearst, or the Biltmore place in the mountains of North Carolina. These were built in out-of-the-way places of significant beauty by rich guys and are now open to the public.
I suppose revenues will increase for Inhotim if they build a better road to the place. BTW – this is the map on how to get there. My advice is don’t even try that yellow road. You just cannot get there from anywhere.
I have more pictures than I wanted to post of process. They are included here.
