Dana Point Hotel Rooms to Have Views of Ocean

An early August opening is scheduled for the $50-million, 350-room Dana Point Royce Resort Hotel under construction on one of the last remaining coastal bluffs above the Dana Point Marina in Dana Point.

The hotel, on a 12-acre site in the Lantern Bay community, was designed by the Los Angeles office of Howard Needles Tammen & Bergendoff in a style blending elements of 19th-Century grand hotels, such as the Hotel Del Coronado with the New England architecture favored in the Dana Point area.

Southmark Pacific Corp., James Diethrich and James Youngblood comprise the general partnership developing the project, with Pasadena-based Southmark Pacific the owner and managing partner.

Servico Management Corp., a Southmark Pacific affiliate that operates 59 luxury hotels in 21 states and the Canadian province of British Columbia, will operate the hotel, according to Paul Giuntini, president of Southmark Pacific.

Designed in three- and four-story elements with four guest wings, the hotel will feature ocean views for all rooms. Amenities will include three tennis courts, two swimming pools, a learning center structure on a lecture hall format and an entertainment lounge and restaurant with floor-to-ceiling glass walls.

Conference facilities will include a 3,000-square-foot reception area adjacent to the 10,000-square-foot ballroom. A health center with saunas, steam baths, exercise and game rooms is planned as a special amenity, Giuntini said.

The hotel is directly above the 2,500-slip Dana Point Marina, one of the largest marinas on the Pacific Ocean.

Interior and space planning design is by Lee-Rovtar Associates, Santa Monica, and the general contractor is PCL Construction Services Inc., Irvine.

Southmark Pacific, formerly called Penn Phillips Properties Inc., was founded by M. Penn Phillips, Giuntini’s grandfather, more than 50 years ago. The family company became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Southmark Corp., Dallas, in 1981.

In addition to the corporate headquarters in Pasadena, Southmark Pacific has offices in Santa Monica, Orange County and Roseville, near Sacramento.

In Santa Monica, Southmark Pacific is continuing the development of the 500,000-square-foot Colorado Place, purchased from Welton Becket Associates.

The project will include the 300-room Colorado Place Hotel. The firm also owns the 21-story 100 Wilshire office tower in Santa Monica, the former headquarters of General Telephone.

The company is renovating and upgrading three Sheraton hotels in Vancouver, Canada.

In Orange County, Southmark Pacific acquired the remaining lots of the 2,500-acre Anaheim Hills planned development from Texaco in 1984. The firm is joint venturing the construction and sale of more than 800 single-family houses in Anaheim Hills.

Other developments include 4,500 acres for a planned community in Roseville, a suburb of Sacramento. Giuntini sees Roseville as the “next Silicon Valley.”

The firm owns 42,500 acres of recreational land obtained through the acquisition of Carlsberg Leisure Industries. California developments include Stallion Springs, California Pines and Big River.