Scottish mansion of late Cypriot hotelier tycoon vandalised

A Scottish team of urban explorers has posted a video and a plea online to save the contents of an empty mansion belonging to the late Cypriot tycoon, hotelier, Sir Reo Stakis.

According to Scotland’s Daily Record newspaper, the group called ‘Abandoned Scotland’ came across the mansion during their explorations and found that although it was boarded up, someone, probably local kids had gained access, and that family photographs and mementos were strewn across the floors and furniture of the home.

Abandoned Scotland posted a video on their TikTok account that shows pictures of his former restaurants and hotels, as well as photographs of him with what appears to be his children and close family strewn around.

They said that someone had set fires, “smashed it up” and vandalised it “beyond recognition”, according to the Daily Record, and issued a plea that the mementos be rescued before they were completely destroyed.

Sir Reo died in 2001 aged 88.

Born Argyros Anastasis in Kato Drys in 1913, he had left for the UK in 1928, aged 14.

He started selling his mother’s handmade lace door-to-door and gradually headed north, settling in Glasgow.

By the 1940s, Reo Stakis was involved in his first restaurant, the Victory in Glasgow, whose affordable prices began to change the way Scottish people dined out. By the 1960s, he had a chain of 30 restaurants and hotels throughout Scotland.

In 1962, he bought the run-down Dunblane Hydro Hotel, which he returned to profit within six months. Stakis was to make his home in the grounds of that hotel.

Stakis opened Scotland’s first casino, the Chevalier, in 1964 and gradually added several other casinos to the Stakis group. However, his flagship hotel, The Grosvenor, was destroyed by fire in 1978.

He was knighted in 1988. His empire was sold to the Hilton Group for £1.2 billion in 1999.

Stakis died in Stirling on August 28, 2001. He was survived by two sons and four daughters and is buried in Dunblane cemetery.