It was when the bottom fell out of the US real estate market in the early 1990s, that Joseph Bernstein first got the idea to open a luxury golf course in Israel.
It wasn't an overnight revelation, more of a gradual process of discovery. Bernstein, an Israeli who had immigrated to America as a child, had been involved in a number of large real estate developments in New York through his company, Americas Partners, including the $500 million development Americas Tower, the US headquarters of Bank Hapoalim and world headquarters of PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
When the market tanked in 1991, he decided to forget about work for a while and take up golf. He spent the next year devoting himself to the sport. He traveled widely in pursuit of his new interest and one day found himself teeing off on Israel's only golf course at Caesarea.
