André Jordan is the founder of Quinta do Lago resort
Loulé Council has announced that a street in Vilamoura will be renamed after entrepreneur André Jordan, the founder of Quinta do Lago resort, on Friday, June 9 at 11.30am.
The street, previously known as Avenida Praia da Falésia and located near Lake Resort, will become known as Avenida Comendador André Jordan as a tribute to the man credited with being one of the founders of the luxury golf resort tourism concept in Portugal.
“This is a fair and very well-deserved tribute to a visionary man who contributed so much to catapult the Algarve as a tourism destination of excellence,” said Loulé mayor Vítor Aleixo, adding that Jordan helped establish the Algarve as a leading tourism destination.
André Jordan will also receive the ‘Key of Humanism’ as a sign of recognition from the local community.
Just last month, the 89-year-old entrepreneur received the Grand Cross of the Order of Commercial Merit directly from the hands of President of the Republic Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
As the council points out in a summary of his career, André Jordan was born on September 10, 1933, in Lviv (now a city in Ukraine but at the time a part of Poland). He left the country as a child when the threat of World War II and Nazi persecution intensified.
His family, who had lost everything in Poland, briefly passed through Portugal but settled in Brazil. There, Jordan began his career, first as a journalist and later in real estate, eventually moving to other countries such as Uruguay, Argentina, and the United States of America.
He returned in 1970 to Portugal, where he became best known for developing Quinta do Lago in Loulé, now recognised as one of the most famous golf and leisure developments in the world.
“Taking inspiration from American country clubs, Quinta do Lago was adapted to the characteristics of the Algarve landscape. The concept was new in Portugal, but Jordan believed in its bright future,” the council stresses.
With a career spanning over 50 years, he also created Belas Clube de Campo, a residential community with a golf course near Lisbon, and carried out “one of the most extraordinary revitalisation plans in the Vilamoura area, as well as the creation of the Vilamoura XXI Program, also in the Algarve,” it adds.
Jordan has been awarded an honorary doctorate by ISCTE and the University of the Algarve and served as Honorary Consul of Brazil in the Algarve for 17 years. In Portugal, he has been named a Grand Officer of the Order of Infante D. Henrique.
The Brazilian government has appointed him a Grand Officer of the Order of Rio Branco, and he is an honorary citizen of the cities of Rio de Janeiro and New York and has received the Gold Medal of Loulé (1998) and Sintra, as well as the Algarve Tourism Medal.
He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II and has received the National Tourism Award in the Career category. In 2014, he was considered one of the 12 most influential personalities in global tourism.
André Jordan has been involved in the founding of several important institutions in the business and cultural fields. He is the author of several books, with the most recent being “A Journey through Life.”
