Resort at ‘Snakewall’ Proposed for Del Mar

The man who holds the biggest chunk of this town’s undeveloped real estate is proposing construction of a 500-room resort hotel on it. To make sure he won’t be offending his neighbors, James E. Smith has offered to pay for city elections to determine whether Del Mar residents like his idea and just what sort of design they favor.

Smith owns 20 acres of a hill at the north end of Del Mar overlooking the Del Mar Race Track and state fairgrounds. His holdings are surrounded by a high, thick cement wall that winds down the steep hillside and gives the place its nickname--The Snakewall.

Del Mar city planners have proposed that Smith’s wooded estate and hilltop vistas be designated to remain much they are today--undeveloped--or as a sports center or nature preserve or some other semi-public purpose. Smith countered with his hotel proposal, noting that the venture would provide the city at least $750,000 a year that the other proposals would not.

Smith proposes placing the issues of the hotel and its design to a citywide non-binding vote--a time-honored Del Mar tradition --and has volunteered to pay the estimated $10,000 cost of the election.

Late Monday night, the City Council put off until March 18 a discussion of the ballot language for the project.

Smith confirmed that he plans to develop the hotel “as a sort of country club in which residents will be members of a sort.’

By virtue of living in the small seaside community, Del Mar residents would have full run of the Snakewall grounds and would receive hotel services--food, drinks, rooms--at half the rate charged out-of-town visitors.

A few residents have spoken out against Smith’s proposal to put the hotel issue to a citywide vote, pointing out that the property that Smith purchased seven years ago for about $1.25 million would escalate in value to more than $10 million if the zoning were changed from residential (one house per acre) to visitor-commercial (VC) to allow construction of a 500-room hotel.

Others, some of whom live along San Dieguito Drive, which would be the main access to Smith’s proposed “world-class, five-star” hotel, protest that the hotel would draw 650 cars a day to the narrow road. One resident termed Smith’s offer “a bribe” to obtain needed hotel zoning.

In his written presentation to the city, Smith included several photographs of an Acapulco hotel built in tiers on a steep hillside that is similar in topography to Smith’s property.

In previous proposals, Smith has tried to sell the property to the city (but the price was too high for the city) and to become partners with the city in a venture to build a high-rise hotel.

“This town was built around a hotel,” Smith said, referring to the Stratford Inn, later renamed the Del Mar Hotel, where Hollywood stars and other notables stayed during racing season until it was torn down in the mid-1960s.

But what if the citizens or the city officials again thwart Smith’s plans to develop his hillside?

“If I had half the money that William Randolph Hearst had, or even 1% of it, I might just build up the wall to 12 feet or so and say to hell with the rest of Del Mar,” Smith said. “But, I would rather open up the property and invite everyone in.”