| Agassi's Idaho Resort |
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The once bratty boy prodigy—whose father hung a tennis ball over his crib, who became number one in the world at 18 and the first true rock star in tennis, who married and divorced a Hollywood actress and then fell in love with and wed a tennis legend—hasn’t picked up a racket in weeks. And he doesn’t plan to anytime soon. With the game behind him, Agassi, 37, is redirecting his famous work ethic into a new career in real estate development. He’s starting with two properties: a tennis-themed villa resort in Costa Rica and a lavish hotel at Idaho’s Tamarack, the first all-season resort built in the U.S. in 23 years, which has drawn increasing acclaim since opening its slopes in 2004. The Idaho project is Agassi’s most daunting ambition since setting out to win all four Grand Slam events in tennis. When it opens in late 2010, the palatial Fairmont at Tamarack aims to be the Gem State’s first five-star hotel.The decision to become a hotelier evolved from casual conversations Agassi had with his business partners before settling into his chalet. His lifestyle could be branded and marketed—as could Idaho’s remote paradise in the Payette River Mountains. The hotel would be the center of his Shangri-La. Agassi speaks religiously of “the process” that this—like all worthy goals—entails. His living room, covered in cloth swatches, paint samples, and design books, conveys the depths of this devotion, as well as what he calls his “sort of autistic attention to detail.” Daily betterment, he insists, is the real goal. It’s not only an appropriate fixation for the son of an Iranian immigrant Olympic boxer hell-bent on raising a tennis star; it also makes having a serious talk with Andre Agassi feel a bit like taking a self-help seminar. After finishing our beers, we stand and stare out the wall-size window of the penthouse. I follow Agassi’s gaze toward the soon-to-be broken ground below, where the Fairmont Tamarack will stand two years hence. I see a conifer-covered knoll, cordoned and laden with snow, framed by Lake Cascade to the southeast and the Payettes beyond. Agassi sees something bigger, something through which he will create another, more personal legacy. “This,” he says, gesturing out at the green and white and blue, “is more important than what I did with the game. We’re creating a platform for life here.” During his playing days, Andre Agassi was famous for his return of serve, a reactive weapon that was equal parts reflex and read. He was the best at telling where Boris Becker, for example, was going to place the ball—the German stuck his tongue out in the direction it would go, just slightly. Becker, not realizing this, once told reporters it was as if Agassi could read his mind. “I actually shared [how I did it] with Boris over a night out in the Oktoberfest, in Germany,” says Agassi. “He said he’d sleep better.” Agassi’s anticipation is uncanny. |
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