Planning a tennis academy project - some basic questions

[Catfish]

As some of you may know, my main business is running a tennis academy. I have an opportunity now to establish another academy in the Caribbean area. This is a major project and the whole thing needs to be built from scratch. A company would have to be established for this locally. The project would include buying some land, building the sports facilities and facilities for accommodation, restaurant, office, a fitness center etc.
I have a basic business plan including a marketing model, to which more details will be added shortly. The total initial investment would be app. 1.5 Million US. I will invest some money of my own, and I have one potential investor for app. 20% of the total investment, plus some other people that might be interested.
I would certainly know how to do something like this in my home country. But the local legal structures are similar to the US in the place where the company would be, so assuming you would have to set something like this up in the US, here are some questions:

1. What kind of legal entity would you set up for this?
2. Assuming that you do not want to / could not finance this through a bank, how would you raise the remaining funds? Venture capital, private investors, shareholder model?
3. Any suggestions as to where I could find capital for such a project? Anyone who has experience dealing with venture capital and can give some advice here?
4. How would you make sure that you could keep a certain level of control over the project, even if your own share were significantly lower than a controlling 51%?