Monarch Beach Luxury Hotel : $300-Million Resort Gets County Approval

A $300-million luxury resort in Laguna Niguel was unanimously approved by the county Planning Commission Tuesday in a decision the developers say will bring Orange County a worldwide reputation as a vacation spot.

The project is a joint venture between Orange County’s Stein-Brief Inc. and the Hemmeter Corp., a Hawaiian-based company that has built several opulent island resorts that are known for their exotic flower gardens, rock waterfalls and luxurious recreational facilities.

The Laguna Niguel site, called Monarch Beach, covers about 200 acres on a bluff overlooking the ocean. It will include a championship golf course, about 1,126 hotel rooms with rates ranging from about $170 to $1,500 a night and a main building--the Casa Grande--modeled after the Hearst Castle at San Simeon.

The resort will also have an opera theater, a water ride through a Japanese garden, an ice rink for performances and recreational skating, multilevel pools with slides and a tram that connects all the facilities, including a beach house on the ocean.

Even though his speech was technical and his audience a group of specialists, architect Paul Ma’s description of the project to the Planning Commission left some of the members wide-eyed.

There was, for example, his description of one of several restaurants at the hotel: “This is a 125-seat facility in the middle of a one-acre lily pond, gardens surrounding it rising to the plants on our terraced guest rooms and to the top where a continuous flowered trellis will surround the edge.

“We’ll have great sculptures with fountains across the gardens of the golf course. And, looking across our finishing 18th hole in front of you is an approach shot between two geysers to an island green.”

The project does not need any further county approval unless the commission’s decision is appealed to the Board of Supervisors.

If the decision is not appealed within 15 days, it will be brought to the California Coastal Commission for its approval. The developers hope to start construction in mid-1988 and tentatively plan to open the facility in early 1991.

At the public hearing before the Planning Commission, which began last week and was continued until Tuesday, the majority of community representatives spoke in favor of the project, although there was some community opposition from nearby residents concerned about traffic.

Stein-Brief Inc. had already received approval to build a more concentrated commercial and hotel development on the same site but abandoned that plan when it was approached by Hemmeter Corp. with an offer to jointly develop the Monarch Beach resort.

Tom Robinson, president of Hemmeter Development Corp., said at last week’s meeting that the current proposal will produce about 22% less traffic overall than the previous Stein-Brief plan. Nevertheless, the meeting was continued for a week so that county transportation staff members could provide more details on the traffic impact.

Tuesday, Commissioner Thomas Moody, who represents the Laguna Niguel area, said he was satisfied that the traffic increase caused by the development would not be significant.

New Attention

“To me, that is the crux of the issue and the reason I voted against the first (Stein-Brief) plan,” he said. “But I am satisfied.”

Commissioner C. Douglas Leavenworth said after the meeting that the project should bring new attention to Orange County.

“I think from the standpoint of real quality, it’s a whole new deal,” he said. “It’s going to be a real asset to the county.”

The project is located inland from Coast Highway between Laguna Niguel and Dana Point, an area that is fast becoming a center for luxury hotels.

Just down the coast is the Ritz-Carlton, also developed by Stein-Brief, which pioneered the feasibility of more hotels in a county where some experts are forecasting a glut. The 393-room Ritz-Carlton is now a successful hotel for national and international business travelers.

Also south of the Monarch Beach site is the Dana Point Resort, which opened in September.

Seven other major luxury hotels are planned for the area, and proponents of the development expect coastal Orange County to compete someday with the world’s best “destination resorts” like Hawaii and the Mediterranean coast.

“It’s only natural that success will breed success,” Robinson said. “I think our being there will be an impetus to others.”