Unfinished Dana Point Hotel Apparently Sold . . .
The Dana Point Royce Resort Hotel, a luxury hotel under development at a cost of $50 million by Southmark Pacific Corp. and Dana Point Associates, is in escrow and may be sold before its scheduled September opening, according to Southmark officials.
Buyers of the Mediterranean style, 350-room hotel on a 12-acre bluff top overlooking Dana Point Harbor are believed to be members of the Slatkin family, the feuding in-laws of Ivan F. Boesky, the well-known speculator who has been the focus of an insider stock trading scandal.
Rita Prelvitz, marketing and public relations director for Pasadena-based Southmark Pacific, confirmed that the hotel is in escrow but declined to identify the buyers or disclose the price or other terms of the sale. Dana Point Associates, a partnership of San Diego-based developers James Diethrich and James Youngblood, refused to comment.
Prelvitz said it is unusual for Southmark Pacific, a wholly owned subsidiary of Southmark Corp., a highly diverse real estate-based financial services firm in Dallas, to sell a project so soon after its development. But she said Southmark suddenly received an unsolicited offer “out of left field” that it decided to take.
Sources close to the transaction indicated that the buyers are “the Slatkin brothers,” Edward and Thomas, who are the sons of Burton Slatkin, Boesky’s brother-in-law.
The brothers are the chief executives of the Beverly Hills-based Edward Thomas Cos. Burton Slatkin would not talk about the Royce deal. “I am sorry but I can’t give you any information about it at this point,” he said.
He described Edward Thomas Companies as a 6-year-old organization run by his sons that owns and operates five hotels, which he would not identify. He said that his sons also are shareholders in the San Diego-based Northview Corp., which owns and operates Vagabond and Beverly Heritage hotels. And he said they recently shared in the $136 million in proceeds from the sale of the landmark Beverly Hills Hotel.
Before the sale of the Beverly Hills Hotel to oilman Marvin Davis, about 52% of that hotel’s stock had been controlled by Seema Boesky of New York, Ivan F. Boesky’s wife, and the remaining 48% of the hotel’s stock was owned by her sister, Muriel Slatkin, the latter’s estranged husband and their two sons.
The Slatkins have filed a lawsuit against Ivan Boesky in which they have accused him of using hotel funds in his stock speculation activities. Boesky denied the charge.
Last November Boesky agreed to pay the Securities and Exchange Commission $100 million in illicit profits and fines to settle insider trading charges. He also pleaded guilty to one criminal charge.
