He also opened the Hydro Majestic Hotel in the Blue Mountains, a hydropathic resort with Swiss doctors and spa water from Baden in Germany.

In 1870, Foy's father moved to Melbourne where he set up a drapery shop in Smith Street, Collingwood.

Mark Foy's Fair, a sale usually staged twice a year, became a highly anticipated event on the Sydney shopping calendar.

[6] In the same year he married Elizabeth Dominica Tweedie who was the head of the Dressmaking Department in his Oxford Street Store.

[10] In response, Foy organised an opposition regatta which he financed himself and advertised it as a spectacle which could be enjoyed by all members of the public regardless of their social background.

In 1898, as Commodore of the Yacht Club, he took his 22 foot boat Irex to England to participate in Australia’s first International Race.

[12] In 1905 he was interviewed by a reporter and he said that at that time he had fourteen cars in his stable – two Daimlers, two Panhards, seven De Dions, one Liberia, one Firefly and one Oldsmobile.

Other famous patrons were Sherlock Holmes' creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Rajah of Pudukkutai with his Australian-born wife, the former Molly Fink.

Mark Foy used two of his Daimlers to take his guests to Jenolan Caves and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his family went on one of these tours.

Mark Foy died in November 1950 at the age of 85 and was buried in South Head Cemetery in Vaucluse.