Shock as leading Doncaster businessman and Earl hotel owner dies in New Zealand

Graham Rhoden, owner of the city’s Earl of Doncaster Hotel and who also owned The Warehouse night club, has died in his sleep at the age of 77 while visiting his sister abroad.

Mr Rhoden transformed the rundown hotel in Bennetthorpe into a four star Art Deco styled leisure and accommodation complex, making it the city’s biggest independently owned hotel in the three decades he was in charge.

He also owned and ran the Warehouse rave venue on North Bridge, was owner of Doncaster Squash Club and built and co-founded Doncaster’s Cheswold Park Hospital, which treats people with mental health issues.

He was regularly listed as one of Doncaster’s most influential and prominent businessmen in the Doncaster Power List, a rundown of the city’s top 50 most powerful men and women.

And he was known around Doncaster for a string of cars bearing the distinctive number plate SPL 1F.

Tony Gearty, chief executive of Cheswold Park Hospital has led the tributes to Mr Rhoden, of Town Moor, describing his death as a “huge shock” and describing him as having “more friends than most of us have hot dinners in a lifetime.”

In a letter to staff, shared with the Free Press, he said: “Many of you will have known Graham Rhoden over many years, some before he built Cheswold Park hospital, which remains the largest family owned mental health hospital in the country.

“Graham’s passing will be a huge shock to many people as he was loved, admired, respected and occasionally feared.

"His original drive to build this hospital in 2005/6 on a scrap of waste land continued to be matched by his continuing daily interest in how it was doing and in making it into a hospital he was immensely proud of.

“Graham had more friends than most of us have hot dinners in a lifetime. His warmth and generosity towards many was inspirational to those of us who knew him well.

"Many of his friends were friends from him being a young man around Doncaster – I’ve always admired him for not changing his friends when he became successful.

"He never lived more than a mile from Doncaster town centre and was immensely proud of being from Doncaster.

“He was a man of numerous passions, skills, wit and interests in addition to the raft of business interests he had developed.

"From flying helicopters to motorbikes, to classic cars, to personally designing every room in the Earl, to private charitable works, to cycling and so much more.

“He opened the Warehouse rave club when raves were unheard of and created one of the most successful rave venues in the country – his contribution to music history.

"The club still operates successfully today.

"The Earl of Doncaster Hotel was his favourite project. Since he rescued the hotel from a receiver in April 1993, he has restored the style of the hotel to its original Art Déco style of the 1930’s.

"The restoration of the ballroom with its stell sprung dance floor, the re-imagining of every bedroom with individual designs, the extravagances of the meeting rooms and the amazing creations in the hotel’s lobby are all down to Graham’s personal vision and determination to give Doncaster back something stylish and to start to re-invigorate the Bennetthorpe back to its glory days.

"And then in 2005/6 he built a hospital and got the design of that amazingly perfect and created nearly 500 jobs in the town over the following five years.

“As a person, he was the original Peter Pan; always refusing to get old and refusing to stop doing the things younger people do.

"Over the last 11 years, I met Graham nearly every day for a coffee and a chat both about the hospital and the hotel and to put the world to rights!

“Much has changed over the last 11 years on lots of fronts but Graham’s passion for life and friends and his genuine interest in doing the right thing for those who worked in his businesses only got stronger.

Graham leaves his wife, Lynn, two daughters Andrea and Harriet and two grandchildren.

Added Mr Gearty: “They are understandably distraught and shocked at the suddenness of his passing. Their immense sadness will be alleviated by the number of memories he has given to so many local people over many years.

"When his body is returned from New Zealand we will all get our chance to pay our respects and raise several toasts in his honour.

“He was the most amazing man I’ve ever known, and I will miss him dearly, with immense sadness.”