Could we be seeing another Southern California hotel in trouble? The LA Times is reporting that the Borrego Ranch Resort & Spa, which re-opened last November under the Borrego Ranch name after a major renovation, might be closing down. Officials at the Borrego Ranch Resort & Spa and Montesoro Golf & Social Club have told employees the hotel could shut down as early as November 30. There is still a chance that the project may find additional investors or new funding and stay afloat. The LA Times quotes Sasha Itzikman, senior vice president for Borrego Ranch who says the company is looking for investors but is also open to a full sale. The Borrego Springs area in San Diego County has tried to style itself as a resort community similar to Palm Springs.

For now the resort remains open. It has 44 rooms and 19 casitas. The casitas range in size from one to four bedrooms and most have a wood-burning fireplace and private pool or spa and all include a wet bar, compact refrigerator and microwave. The spa offers massage, skin care, hair care, manicures and pedicures. The resort has an impressive amount of activities to keep you busy from golf and tennis to fitness classes, hikes, swimming and bicycle and horseback riding. There is also life-size chess, shuffleboard, bocce ball, a putting green, an archery range and championship croquet courses. The resort is currently offering the Borrego Ranch Experience starting at $295 per person, per night (2 night minimum, double occupancy required) which includes accommodations, a spa treatment of golf and all meals (excluding room service or alcohol).

It's tempting to think of Southern California as simply a land of sunshine and warm weather but venture a couple of hours inland from the coast and you find real seasons. Today's home is an expansive log cabin retreat in Big Bear Lake, California, a four season getaway for Southern California in the San Bernardino mountains at an elevation of about 7100 feet. As you can see in the listing pictures, this home gets seasonal weather including a picturesque coating of snow.

The beautiful lakefront home was built in 2000 and has four bedrooms. The great room faces the lake with a wall of windows and a large stone fireplace. The vacation destination includes a putting green, an outdoor fire pit with a barbecue and a long dock which has a ChrisCraft boat which is included in the purchase price. This home is listed at $2.095 million. Many more pictures are available at the property website.
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The Real Estalker revealed yesterday that a Malibu beach house belonging to Barry Manilow has hit the market. The four-bedroom home is a blocky contemporary with a matching one-bedroom guest house on the oceanfront. The most impressive part of this home is the two-story living room with big glass windows to exploit the ocean view. The Real Estalker reports that the home has already had a price cut from $12.6 million to $10.9 million but Manilow paid $3.85 million in 2002 so there is likely room for further price cuts here and it may need them.

The Real Estalker's commenters have been involved in some sharp discussion about the location and whether or not this is the most desirable place to have beachfront property in Malibu. The home is certainly bulwarked with an impressive amount of concrete to keep the sea at bay and there is not a lot of strolling beach available below the home. The home and the guest house are separated by a flagstone courtyard.

One of the Real Estalker's commenters posted the link for the virtual tour of the home so we've got some interior pictures. The home includes a media room, at least one office (another bedroom seems to be serving as an office as well) and a master suite with a fireplace and a bathroom that includes a spa tub set right against the window for a soak with a sunset view. The home is positioned cheek by jowl with other homes so you don't get much privacy with this one.
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Given the hard times facing the travel industry I'm surprised that more resorts haven't asked for a little help. The Los Angeles Times reports that the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, California recently got what amounts to an $8 million loan from the city by allowing Lowe Enterprises to defer payment of its hotel tax for several years.

We first heard about this resort way back in 2005. The lavish compound located on the spot of the old Marineland of the Pacific oceanarium will open later this month with three restaurants, a nine-hole golf course, a 360-room hotel and 20 bungalows. The complex also includes some pretty expensive real estate, 82 casitas and villas that range in price from $2 million to $4 million.

Terranea will be allowed to keep the 10 percent hotel tax customers pay in a deal that will allow the resort to receive $8 million or collect the taxes for 27 months, whichever comes first. The loan will be repaid by 2013 at the London interbank offered rate plus 8 percentage points. The city council made its decision Wednesday morning at a special meeting. Robert Lowe, chairman and chief executive of Lowe Enterprises, says that once the resort is up and running at full strength in a couple of years it should provide the city with $7 million to $8 million in taxes every year.

This isn't the first time we've seen a city step in to help a hotel in trouble, Portland, Oregon's Portland Development Commission agreed to accept delayed payments on taxpayer-funded loans to keep the developer of the Nines Hotel from defaulting on loans. The developer is still planning to repay its $16.9 million in city loans at the original interest rates once The Nines' business improves. The current expectation is that loan payments should start up again in 2011 if the economy improves along the current predicted trajectory.

With Southern California set for another storm it seems like ski season will last a bit longer. For those who get their winter jollies at Mammoth there is another new real estate option. Altis IV is one of the last slopeslide, ski-in/ski-out spots on Mammoth Mountain. Altis residences are located on a three plus acre site adjacent to Mammoth's Bridges Run. Each unit has two master bedrooms, a guest room with sitting area, four- and-a-half baths, and a media/entertainment room and is set into the slope for maximum view on all three levels.

The property is being built with an eye toward becoming LEED Silver certified by summer. Green features include using renewable wood and kitchen cabinets created from Forest Stewardship Council materials. There are just 24 homes and each is under 3,000 square feet. An additional amenity building includes a fitness center, owner's lounge and lobby. The residences are priced from the low $2 millions.

Other than Tiger Woods's much-awaited return to the PGA Tour this week, there's been little good news in the golf world of late. Iconic destinations such as Sea Island Resorts and TheGreenbrier have been undergoing well-documented struggles in the failing economy. A rare bright spot is the recent opening of the Resort at Pelican Hill, a spectacular cliff-side property in Southern California.

The 500-acre resort in Newport Coast, about an hour south of L.A., is designed in the style of an old Italian hill town. Terracotta-roofed villas and bungalows are terraced into the slopes high above the Pacific, shaded by imported olive trees. The bungalows feature limestone fireplaces, hand-hewn wood-beam ceilings and private terraces. Even more lavish are the two-, three- and four-bedroom villas that are as large as 3,000 square feet and situated in a gated enclave. Villa guests can avail themselves of butler service and access to a private clubhouse and pool. Refreshingly, this is purely a vacationer's resort--there are no home sites for sale.

The golf at Pelican Hill predates the now-encompassing resort by a decade and a half. It consists of two eighteen-hole Tom Fazio layouts that overlook the ocean. Originally designed in the early '90s--and sometimes criticized for failing to make the most of the natural setting--they were renovated by the architect two years ago to improve playability and better expose the seaside views.

The Southern California desert region is getting a new spa resort. Joseph DeNucci, former COO of the Miraval resort, is behind the Borrego Ranch Resort & Spa, which will open in November 2008. The $50 million resort is located in the Anza-Borrego Desert of Southern California and will offer a custom experience on 42 acres that includes a $25 million Tom Fazio-designed Signature Golf Course and Montesoro, a second home community. Borrego Ranch is located in Borrego Springs, 80 miles from San Diego and 150 miles from Los Angeles.

The ranch will feature 19 private casitas and 44 poolside rooms each with a service bar, sitting area with fireplace, marble bath with Cactus Tea bath amenities, coffee maker and private patio or balcony. The casitas range in size from one to four bedrooms and most have a wood-burning fireplace and private pool or spa and all include a wet bar, compact refrigerator and microwave. The spa offers massage, skin care, hair care, manicures and pedicures. The resort has an impressive amount of activities to keep you busy from golf and tennis to fitness classes, hikes, swimming and bicycle and horseback riding. There is also life-size chess, shuffleboard, bocce ball, a putting green, an archery range and championship croquet courses. Instead of being stuck to a strict spa schedule, guests can choose what interests them whether it's a romp through the desert or just some poolside time with a good book. Rates start around $300 per night.

Last week , I mentioned a condo auction in Anaheim, California now here comes another Southern California auction. On August 24 at the Hilton Long Beach, 39 condos at West Ocean Two ill be auctioned by Citi Property Investors as part of the tower's grand opening. The condos on Ocean Boulevard in downtown Long Beach are located in a high-rise that includes a large lobby, concierge service, exercise studio, swimming pool, media/club room, wine storage room, game room, guest suite, outdoor entertaining area and more. The starting bid for nine one-bedroom residences will be $275,000, the 25 two-bedrooms will have a $350,000 starting bid, and five three-bedrooms will start at $795,000. As Curbed LA reveals, condo documentation for the auction says that the one bedrooms were previously listed at $534,000 which seem fairly inflated.

[via Long Beach Press-Telegram]

Today's home has East Coast style with the luxury of West Coast weather. This compound is located in a colony of beach homes on Sand Point Road in the coastal community of Carpinteria, California. The five-bedroom estate includes both a main house and a guest house. The design takes the traditional Cape Cod style and lightens and brightens it with an exterior of bleached cedar shingles and an interior of large windows and white beams. The home is practically perfect (maybe the media room is a bit off but other than that, wow). Because it is Carpinteria though you'll pay through the nose for a home like this. It's listed at $32.5 million and doesn't even seem to have a pool.

For more prime properties and lush locations, see Luxury Homes and Mansions.

Today's home is a bit of old Hollywood tradition in Pacific Palisades, California. The home is now on Amalfi Drive but was built in 1924 with an address on Haldeman Road. At that time, the Uplifters Club owned Rustic Canyon where several members built homes. It is said that the home was designed by architect William Dodd, an Uplifters Club member who designed what is now the Rustic Canyon Recreation Center. The home was later bought by Hal Roach Studios, and became a Hollywood hangout for some of Hollywood's early big stars such as Harold Lloyd, Jean Harlow and Will Rogers. It was reputedly occupied by Stan Laurel of Laurel and Hardy during his divorces. The home is, as the listing admits, in need of a lot of work but it has, as they say, lovely bones. The property website says "restoration or wrecking ball?" Restoration, please! This home is listed at $5 million.

The lure of this one is all about the land, prime Southern California real estate. Middle Ranch was formerly Cecil B. DeMille's Paradise Ranch in Los Angeles and is now an equestrian park with lodge and club facilities that include a pool, tennis court and a commercial kitchen. The 119 acres also includes 200 concrete block stalls which are leased out, eight arena, a grass grand Prix field, horse trails, pastures and turnouts. The land also includes parcels of land earmarked for residential development. It is listed at $11.95 million. There are also an additional 185 acres available which can be used for residential development and which includes a pueblo-style home. The pictures on this one aren't great but like the Robert Taylor ranch, this land is a piece of the Los Angeles that used to be.

The Irvine Public Schools Foundation in California has announced their annual house raffle two months early so holiday shoppers can buy their gift list a chance to win a house and other valuable prizes. For $200 you have a chance to win two 2006 MINI Coopers, ten cash prizes, from $25,000 to $2,500, other prizes including jewelry, vacation packages and gift certificates. The big prize is a new $600,000 John Laing Homes townhome in the Village of Woodbury in Irvine, California. The home is a 1,706 square-foot, 2-story townhome with 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms and a 2-car attached garage. The raffle raises funds for the Irvine Unified School District. No more than 20,000 tickets will be sold.

The Ritz Carlton Laguna Nigel on the Southern California coast has just been sold for $330 million, or approximately $840,000 per room. This makes it the second most expensive hotel sale in terns of price per room, only surpassed by the sale of the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, which had a price tag of $1 million per room.

The 22 year old hotel has 393 rooms, including 38 suites, and was acquired by Strategic Hotels, who is hoping to increase their presence in the luxury hotel market in California. Strategic feels that not only is the beachfront property worth its high price, but that it is sure to increase in value over the next two decades given that space on the coast is both desirable and difficult to obtain. The hotel, prior to the sale, underwent a $40 million renovation that revamped the interior and improved their spa and fitness offerings.  Rooms start at $400 a night and ocean-front suites are available for more than $2,000 per night. They also offer a $750 per night Mercedes-Benz package, which includes the use of a car.

Tonight is the season finale - possibly the series finale - of Bravo's The Real Housewives of Orange County, a show set in the heart of Orange County, California, in a development called Coto de Caza. Since the show is ending, it's only fitting that our estate of the day is from the area. Coto de Caza is a large development with approximately 4,200 homes. It has a private golf club, with a course that has been rated one of the best in the country, a tennis club, an equestrian center and a nearly 500 acre wildlife park.  Homes start around $500,000 and go up to multi-million dollar estates. This Tudor-style equestrian estate is one of the multi-million dollar homes.

 

 

To help answer Deidre's question about not-yet-tried vodka flavors, Modern Spirits makes flavored "sipping vodkas" that are designed to win over even those who are not fans of straight spirits. Their products come in eight flavors, which include Black Truffle, Candied Ginger, Celery Peppercorn, Chocolate Orange and Tea. Celery Peppercorn is described as "the ultimate power drink," while the Black Truffle has scents of port, rich soil, pineapple and chocolate.

The vodkas are available online, as well as in select bars and restaurants in Southern California and Las Vegas. Available in both 375mL and 750mL, most bottles are priced at $24.99 for the smaller bottles and $37.99 for the larger, though the Black Truffle vodka retails at $29.99 and $49.99.