In early 1964, Playboy was riding high on the success of its nascent network of clubs in cities as far-flung as Chicago, New York, Phoenix, Baltimore, Cincinnati and New Orleans—a veritable galaxy of nighttime hot spots. Business was better than good: The company’s net sales and revenue topped $30 million, and executives continued to dream big. It was time for an international club, one that would add something new to the Playboy mix: overnight accommodations. For the first Playboy hotel, they turned their eyes southward.

Jamaica had less than two years earlier transitioned from British rule to independence, and its young government was hungry for foreign investment. The gears started turning in Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s mind, and in January 1964 the company paid $2.75 million for a beachfront property on the island’s north coast. More than $1 million went into renovations to bring the resort up to Playboy standards. Bunnies were flown in from the U.S. to train locals in the art of the Bunny dip, perch and stance; it was Hefner’s goal to eventually have a majority-Jamaican staff. (He also wanted to be sure they were taken care of, and the company boasted that “new health and welfare benefits, which the club provides its employees, represent a first in the Jamaica hotel industry.”)

The resulting slice of luxury, nestled in the lush Caribbean rain forest outside Ocho Rios, was christened the Playboy Club-Hotel and opened to great fanfare in January 1965. The company flew in a stable of lucky journalists for the official weeklong launch. Jamaican prime minister Alexander Bustamante attended opening night, as did official representatives of Queen Elizabeth II.

With more than 200 rooms—160 air-conditioned units in the main building and 44 lanai rooms on the beach—the resort was set up to handle crowds. Guests were spoiled for choice of activity: Snorkeling, scuba diving, boating, waterskiing and fishing (in a cove known as Bunny Bay) were on offer. There was horseback riding, tennis and shuffleboard. Cruises in a glass-bottom boat; tours to the nearby Dunn’s River Falls—a 600-foot-tall cataract—and the luscious Fern Gully; ­dollar-bet pari-mutuel goat races…and for those who preferred indoor recreation, a full room-service menu.

Alongside regular vacationers, corporations including 3M and General Electric booked time at the resort—as did “the entire officer complement of the USS Fearless,” according to VIP magazine. Attendance was surely goosed by full-page ads in PLAYBOY, which in 1965 had a circulation of 3.5 million.

The warm reception for the Jamaica outpost kicked the company’s confidence into overdrive. In the late 1960s and early 1970s several huge hotel complexes went up: in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin (360 rooms), Chicago (400 rooms), Miami Beach (500 rooms) and Great Gorge, New Jersey (700 rooms). Initially the Jamaica and Wisconsin locations did well, but not the others, and it became clear that, for all its glamour, the empire was overextended. As executive Victor Lownes later recalled, “I only wish Jamaica had flopped. If Jamaica had flopped, they wouldn’t have made all those other big mistakes.”

By the mid-1970s the island’s fortunes had shifted as well, the political situation increasingly unstable. In March 1977, the resort was shuttered, bringing to a close Playboy’s dozen years of tropical paradise. Still, with all due respect to Lownes, the club saga is a reminder that Playboy would be nothing without big dreams.