Joyce McNeill Wright – Longevity in life and tourism

When she hits the 100-year-old milestone this Friday, Negril’s iconic hotelier Joyce McNeill Wright, will simultaneously celebrate 35 years of the ­establishment of the award-­winning Rondel Village hotel, which she co-founded.

Born on April 3, 1920 in Kingston to Eustace Augustus McNeill and Blanche Louise Fletcher, not only does McNeill Wright hold the distinction of being Jamaica’s oldest living hotelier, but she is among Jamaica’s most physically elite and one of the island’s best examples of extreme longevity.

While many people struggle to get to age 70, the Immaculate Conception High School old girl sailed past that milestone without even breaking a sweat, and, 20 years later, broke the 90-year mark in fine style at a party at the hotel in 2010, where she announced in her typical humorous fashion that “old age is a good thing’ which she “recommends to everybody”.

Were it not for COVID-19, her 100th birthday party, which had been planned for Friday night, would certainly have been another grand affair.

Her hospitality and tourism story in Negril began in 1985, and proved to be a long and illustrious sojourn, kick-started with the co-founding of Rondel Village along with her son, John, a civil engineer. She was fully involved in the hotel since inception and held the positions of general manager from 1985 to 1990 and managing director 1990 to 1992, and was board chairman from1992, where she continued to steer the operations of the hotel until December 2012 when she officially retired.

This was, however, preceded by a restaurant named ‘Bird in Hand, which she, along with her brother Ken and his wife Valerie, started at Tangerine Place in Kingston, and successfully operated for several years.

McNeill Wright’s life journey has spanned England where she studied physiotherapy and also met her late husband, Claude; and Sierra Leone, where she relocated along with him, before returning to Jamaica at the time of the island’s Independence from Britain.

Upon establishing Rondel Village in 1985, McNeill Wright looped her daughters Frances and the late Carolyn Wright into the hospitality fold to market the property, with the latter later joining the team as general manager and company director in 1990.

BACKBONE OF HOTEL

She has been described as being the backbone of Rondel Village, which through her entrepreneurial skills, guidance and encouragement of her children, enabled the ­longevity of the boutique hotel.

One example of her perseverance came to the fore, during the perilous years spanning 1995 to 1997 when the Jamaican economy and tourism were in decline. McNeill Wright jumped into action, encouraging her fellow directors to establish a Timeshare programme which was instrumental in keeping the resort afloat in those tough economic times. Having weathered that storm, five years later Rondel Village was placed in expansion mode, with the addition of 24 rooms built atop the eight existing villas on the beachside of the property.

McNeill Wright has always maintained a philanthropic spirit over the decades. She, among other things, jump-started the hotel’s weekly contribution of soup every Thursday to feed 100 homeless people at St Anthony’s Kitchen in Negril, and established community donation programmes of used linens to the Savanna-la-Mar Infirmary and Hospital, and has conducted fundraising efforts to support the Negril Branch Library.

Three years ago she published her book titled My Life, Family and Friends, which chronicled her early beginnings growing up on a large banana plantation in St Catherine, with her siblings, her father’s sojourn in politics and her mother’s keen ­entrepreneurial spirit, from where she also ­developed her own business acumen. That book was dedicated to her children Celina, Frances, Carolyn and John; her seven grandchildren, as well as her seven great-grandchildren.

At the cusp of 100, Wright still finds a bit of time to tend to her vegetable garden at the back of the hotel property which features tomatoes, pak choi, sweet pepper, callaloo, cabbage, cucumber, hot peppers and lettuce produce from which are used by the hotel’s restaurant. She told Hospitality Jamaica last weekend that she was still able-bodied and can walk around, but gets a lot of rest.

“I still do it (gardening), but not as much as I used to … . I don’t do much. I sleep a lot,” she said.

John, her only son and youngest child, spoke glowingly of his mother, whom he said was very strict in the early days, but very supportive and a true hotelier who always had the community’s ­interest at heart.

“She was a natural entrepreneur. She was always looking for business ventures,” he explained. “When the idea (Rondel Village) came up and we started, she was already 65 and most people would have been looking to retire. But, once I had the idea, she said that she would take out her savings and go behind me.”

“She is a very forward-thinking person, because even from then, she probably realised that it would have been a good business that could support the entire family. She was always a family person, so she was always thinking of all of us. Although both of us started it, she sent for Carolyn, and later Celina, so, eventually, all of us got involved,” he added.

One of the remarkable things about has mother, which endeared her to the staff who worked for her was her caring nature, ­approachability and interest in their well-being.

“I remember one year we didn’t have enough money to give Christmas bonus and she just went into her account and said: ‘Christmas bonus is something that we said we would do’. Up to this day, she is always thinking of the ways in which she can help the people in the community,” he said.