Luxury in Laguna -- but With Concessions to the Average Joe

After more than two decades of local debates and disputes, the $200-million Montage Resort & Spa in Laguna Beach opens Saturday, the third luxury hotel to crop up on the Orange County coast in less than two years.

The five-level resort, built on the 30-acre former site of a mobile home park, offers guests ocean, coast and sunset views from each of its 262 rooms, which start at $450 a night.

Industry observers say the southern Orange County coastline is finally beginning to live up to the boosters’ sobriquet of “California Riviera,” with the Montage joining the Ritz-Carlton in Dana Point; the recently opened St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort & Spa, also in Dana Point; and the new Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort & Spa. The Balboa Bay Club resort is under construction in Newport Beach.

The Riviera designation is further helped by the private and public yacht clubs in Newport Beach and the bays and harbors in Newport Beach and Huntington Beach with private docks, mega-yachts and multimillion-dollar homes.

Until recently, the 18-year-old Ritz-Carlton “really was the only world-class resort we had along the coast,” said Joan Gladstone, a Laguna Beach-based publicist. Now, “that term [California Riviera] has more credibility,” she said.

Developers of the resort had a hard time getting it built, however. Several proposals, starting in 1981, were rejected by residents, the City Council and the county Board of Supervisors.

Activists complained that the resort was too big and too ritzy for Laguna’s seaside-village character. Environmentalists said it would seriously harm the fragile coastline by attracting masses of visitors and producing urban runoff and sewage.

Supporters, however, pointed to the millions in tax revenue the project would bring to the city while boosting the image of Laguna Beach from a day-trip destination to a place for weekend getaways and major conventions.

“We need to have a hotel where visitors will shop in our shops, eat in our restaurants and buy art. Your typical day tourist doesn’t do that,” said Councilman Wayne Baglin. “This is something that actually enhances the health of our businesses.”

Emotions ran so high when voters were asked to decide the issue in 1999 that City Clerk Verna L. Rollinger had to be escorted by police when she brought the referendum petitions to the county registrar of voters office. It was approved by 55% of the voters.

But the plan that was approved had a lengthy list of conditions and amendments attached, including a requirement for view corridors and public access to the beach.

Environmentalists and community activists say the resort still poses problems, including a noisy ventilation system in the underground garage, inadequate parking and harmful runoff to the ocean.

But John Mansour, vice president of development for the Athens Group, which owns the resort, said the resort has a practical reason to prevent environmental problems. “Our goal is to keep that beach as clean as possible for the public and the guests. If the beaches are not as clean and pristine as we’d like, we will have negative guest experiences.”

City Manager Kenneth C. Frank said the resort has been a good neighbor so far. “Overall, we have a lot less problems with the project than we have with the typical residential developer who is building a single-family home,” he said.

A major reason city officials and coastal commissioners approved the project in 1999 was the amount of public access to beaches, coves and parks developers proposed. Plans call for a 7-acre public park along the entire length of a coastal bluff, access for the handicapped, a public restaurant, public restrooms and 70 public parking spaces.

The mobile home park, where Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz filmed “The Long, Long Trailer” in 1953 and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper penned much of her bestseller “From Under My Hat” in 1952, for decades had restricted access to the beach. It was where the working class could afford a lifestyle usually reserved for the rich. Owners closed the secluded park in 1997. Now, visitors will be able to stroll or jog along an uninterrupted stretch of beach about 1 1/2 miles long, from Victoria Beach to Aliso Beach in South Laguna.

When Laguna Beach Colony, the resort’s residential component of 14 single-family homes and 14 condominiums, is built and occupied, the total tax benefit to the city will be nearly $3.5 million a year and another $500,000 a year in property taxes to the school district, Frank said.

Even though it offers free access to the public, the resort is priced to cater to the wealthy. The architecture, which mimics the Craftsman style that helped define California residential architecture around the turn of the 20th century, is echoed inside with dark wood furnishings, period light fixtures and a collection of original artwork.

The Athens Group, a Phoenix-based firm that owns the resort, and Montage Hotels and Resorts, the operator, have pulled out the stops to pamper visitors.

The main entrance has an elegant, lodge-like feel and a panoramic view of the ocean. The rooms, which go for as much as $4,500 a night, have the standard luxury appointments such as marble baths, separate showers, 400-thread Egyptian cotton linen, plush bathrobes, goose down pillows and computer hookups.

The owners hired art consultant Julie Cline, who spent two years going to private estates, museums, galleries, rare-book dealers and antique shops to put together a collection of art and furniture for the resort, including 20 original oils that reflect the plein-air art movement with pieces by William Wendt, Edgar Payne and Jean Mannheim.

Montage founder and president Alan Fuerstman said his vision is that the resort become an “international destination. We are going to compete on a world scale. It’s not just a pretty place.”