Roger David Coster was born in New York on September 3, 1943. He was raised in Haiti at the Grand Hotel Oloffson. His father Roger Eli Coster was a world-famous photographer of Russian-French descent and an avid art collector who as a refugee settled in Haiti after the second-world-war. He owned and operated a gingerbread palace hotel on the hills overlooking Port-Au-Prince in partnership with his beautiful, American educated, Haitian-born wife Laura Cadet. The Oloffson at the time was a glamorous international playground for movie stars and writers. Young Roger’s passion for hospitality was kindled there, as celebrities such as Graham Greene, Sir John Gielgud, Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote vacationed in the tropical paradise.
With the rise of dictator Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier to power the family had to flee in the middle of the night and abandon their home and business. They first settled in the neighboring island of Puerto Rico where Roger later attended the university. In time, his desire to broaden his horizons propelled him to move to Europe, where he attended the University Of Rome, Italy. When he made his final career choice he picked hospitality, graduating hotel school at Glion sur Montreux, Switzerland. His hotel management skills were first put to the test in Israel. Roger initially found his way to Israel to escape the draft and the Vietnam War; he later discovered great affinity to the people of that dynamic country. He settled there connecting to his Jewish roots, on his father’s side of the family.
As a new immigrant and an Israeli citizen Roger volunteered for the Israeli Army and served both as an enlisted soldier and an army reservist. He was a civilian volunteer during the Six Day War and a uniformed member of infantry stationed in the Sinai desert during the Yom Kippur war. He always said the years in Israel were very good. Roger was the youngest hotel manager of that country when at 28 he was put in charge of the Neptune Hotel in Eilat, creating a glamorous international playground in that southernmost resort town. Politicians and army generals mingled with beauty queens as movie stars Gregory Peck & Liza Minnelli, designer Ted Lapidus and director Norman Jewison, made the Neptune in Eilat their favorite home away from home. Roger met his former wife Rona in Israel and while life was immensely exciting and fulfilling it was also very turbulent at times. Leaving the tensions of the Middle East behind, the couple headed to the Caribbean, Aruba in particular in search of a more peaceful life.
Roger spent the late seventies and most of the eighties exploring his Caribbean heritage when he joined Divi Hotels, then a fledging small company headquartered in Aruba. Over the years, thanks to his relentless drive and abundant talent the company spun into an empire doing business on seven different islands among them Bonaire, Cayman Brac, Barbados, St. Martin and Aruba. Roger ran both Operations and Development for the successful chain and enjoyed an excellent career as a much-loved and appreciated leader in the growing Caribbean tourist industry. His prime love was Aruba and stories abound of his energy and dedication. Those who worked for Divi & Tamarijn Beach Resorts and later at the Alhambra Casino fondly recall that he never took “No” for an answer and that he was filled with creative ideas, making the people who worked at the resorts and the guests who stayed there truly feel like members of one happy family.
He was at his best in times of crisis. He called the Governor of the Netherlands Antilles and had the Royal Dutch Marines ferry Ice to Aruba during a Web breakdown. Then he went to his friend Betico Croes and facilitated the relationship with a US engineering company, to help get Web back in gear. He appeared on Tele Aruba one night mid-busy winter season when a Boeing 747 had an engine failure at the airport and asked the people of Aruba to come pick up and host 505 stranded tourists in their homes. At the height of Lago closing disaster he courageously started building the Alhambra Casino. Together with Albo and Henk Bijen they delivered the complex in under 12 weeks, ushering in employment and a new Barefoot Elegance era.
Roger personally crisscrossed the world with the Aruba Tourism Authority soliciting business for the island. Externally, he helped introduce Aruba to the world while internally he contributed to the creation of the island’s image and our island’s brand. In the late eighties, he won the “Golden Helm Award,” an international tourism recognition for The Hotelier of the Year and on the island of Aruba the Secretaries Association surprised him by voting him BOTY, Boss of the Year.
In 1988 Roger undertook a complete life change by embracing sobriety. While he partially withdrew from public life he still helped develop and position restaurants in Divi Village, Casa del Mar, Aruba Beach Club, Royal Plaza and Costa Linda. In recent years, he was a partner in the Waterfront Crabhouse, Seaport Marketplace, a premium seafood restaurant which he helped conceive and run for 15 years.
His prime interest was however launching the concept of sobriety and recovery on the island. Over the past decade and a half he sent dozens of people overseas for treatment, mostly to the Hazelden Foundation, in Pleasant Valley, Minnesota.
Mid-nineties he created the Fellowship House, a sanctuary of recovery, a much-needed halfway house for adults in early recovery.
As a proud member of the recovery community he helped break through the denial of alcoholism as a disease. He served as a role model that people can change, and that there is hope for the alcoholic. Roger helped lift the veil of shame off the disease and encouraged dialogue and open communications at schools and civic organizations.
While the halfway house later closed for lack of funds, the Fellowship Clinic to this day continues to provide out-patient treatment. It is widely acknowledged that Roger Coster was a major force in the growth of the 12-step movement here and that 12-step thinking is now part of the island’s social and philosophical fabric, much thanks to him.
In 2004, Roger was acknowledged by the Board of Directors of the Hazelden Foundation for his tireless work on behalf of addicts which he considers his life’s work.
In October of 2003, Roger encountered a medical challenge which he successfully overcame. Later in November of 2003 a yellowing complexion beside a significant weight loss preceded the discovery of a Klatskin tumor, a vicious, non treatable kind of cancer also known as cholangiocarcinoma, a bile duct malignancy. He was given three months and he lasted fourteen, embracing his disease and learning to live life to the fullest, with it. He dealt heroically with the
deterioration of his health up to the last minute.
Roger is succeeded by his son, David, a third generation hotelier, and by his wife Ismene, his mother Laura living in Aruba and his brother Robert, in the Dominical Republic. His friends Rona, Oswaldo, Ewald, Sue, Victor, Humphrey, Astrid, Griffith, Celeste, Danny, George, Hans and his many acquaintances, neighbors and business colleagues will miss his immense wisdom and original thinking. He died peacefully at his home in Alto Vista with his wife and friends by his side on February 21, 2005. May he rest in peace. Roger will be buried at the Jewish cemetery in Oranjestad, where his father also rests.
He is pictured here with his beloved son David at the onset of his disease last year.
