It’s all about well-being at new health spa
David H. Murdock is looking forward to a long life.
The billionaire chief executive of Dole Food Co. and the Castle & Cooke development company first put his stamp on Southern California two decades ago with construction of the luxurious Sherwood Country Club in Ventura County, where celebrity homes sell upward of $25 million.
Today, Murdock will unveil a 20-acre facility in neighboring Westlake Village that includes a posh Four Seasons Hotel and the California WellBeing Institute, a world-class health spa and resort.
But this project is different. It is part of a golden-age crusade for the 83-year-old Murdock.
The death of his wife, Gabriele, in 1985 was a pivotal event for the steely-eyed businessman. Convinced that their high-fat, high-calorie diet of prime rib and potatoes contributed to her illness, Murdock became a vegetarian who eats fish and now boasts that he has the vitality of a 45-year-old.
“I tried my best for two years to save her life,” Murdock said recently, his face reddening as he sat in the elegant lobby of his new hotel. “But I couldn’t.”
The goal of the institute is to promote a healthy lifestyle and teach people which foods will aid longevity, said Murdock, who hopes to live well past the century mark.
By taking a “medical vacation” at his hotel, guests will get a snapshot of their current state of health and advice from professionals on how best to prevent illness. Murdock is targeting couples in their 40s, 50s and 60s, as well as business executives.
“People know more about taking care of their cat or their car than taking care of their body,” he said. “They order a hamburger and then make it a double hamburger and then add cheese, and they’ve just knocked two weeks off of their life.”
Murdock’s transformation into a health guru comes as the country’s baby boomer generation is not only aging and living longer but trying to redefine what it means to be old.
“There is a lot more interest in disease prevention and healthy lifestyles,” said Dr. Harrison Bloom, a geriatrician and senior associate at the International Longevity Center in New York City. “People are looking for ways to at least feel younger.”
For Murdock, it has been a late-in-life conversion. The son of a traveling salesman who didn’t complete high school, he was raised in a household where “if it wasn’t cooked in bacon grease, it didn’t taste good,” he said.
He started his business career by purchasing a 14-seat diner in Detroit, moving on to commercial and residential real estate deals in Phoenix, North Carolina and Los Angeles.
In the early 1980s, when Gabriele, his third wife, was diagnosed with cancer, “I bought every book I could buy on cancer,” he said.
After she died, Murdock became passionate about then-emerging evidence that linked dietary habits with heart disease, cancer and stroke.
He stopped eating cheese, red meat and saturated fats. He cut down on carbohydrates and sugar and started exercising regularly.
That same year, the financier acquired Castle & Cooke, a nearly bankrupt Hawaiian firm that owned Dole Foods. Dole’s role as the world’s largest producer of fruits and vegetables fit neatly into his emerging philosophy.
He devoted much of the next decade to turning around the companies and building the Lake Sherwood community in Ventura County. Murdock then turned his attention to health and fitness.
He founded the Dole Nutritional Institute and published an “Encyclopedia of Foods,” listing the nutritional content of fruits and vegetables, as well as diet advice and meal plans.
He banned cheeseburgers from the cafeteria at Dole’s international headquarters in Westlake Village. At 150 pounds, he often lectures visitors about the dangers of being overweight.
Westlake Village Mayor Susan McSweeney remembers the sermon she got when she met Murdock earlier this year.
“After 15 minutes of telling me how the wrong foods are the cause of disease, he gave me his ‘Encyclopedia of Foods’ and sent me on my way,” said McSweeney, who began following his tips and has lost 50 pounds.
The mayor and her council colleagues were less sure about Murdock’s choice of where to locate his health resort.
Set just across the street from his Dole headquarters, the 270-room hotel and 40,000-square-foot spa is immediately adjacent to the Ventura Freeway.
“A lot of people said that’s crazy. Who’s going to pay those prices to stay next to a freeway?” McSweeney said.
Murdock solved the problem by bringing in 100 sequoia trees, planting them as a towering screen next to the freeway’s sound wall. Next, he installed a mammoth waterfall that all but drowns out the sounds of cars whizzing by.
The resort bears the top-of-the-line quality Murdock insists on for all of his developments, from its lush gardens and European-inspired furnishings to colorful rock slabs from Italian quarries.
He recruited Andrew Conrad, a cell biologist and co-founder of LabCorp’s National Genetics Institute, to develop sophisticated medical screening panels for the WellBeing Institute.
Patients receive one-on-one sessions from a staff of seven physicians, who recommend various tests based on family history and lifestyle. Such personal attention doesn’t come cheap.
The standard “longevity” package, which includes three days of tests, nutrition counseling and lifestyle advice, costs $2,800 -- and that doesn’t include the price of the hotel.
Conrad, who previously worked in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said he has developed a way to test cellular damage to DNA. Patients can use this information to make lifestyle changes that will benefit them, he said.
“The health community focuses on people when they are already sick,” Conrad said. “This is all about prevention.”
But Bloom, the geriatrician, cautioned that patients shouldn’t be led to believe they can avoid illness by taking a battery of tests. Genetics often plays a big role in who lives to a ripe old age, he said.
“The idea that more prevention is better is only true if screening tests are indicated,” said Bloom, who’s also a professor in the geriatrics department at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “You have to be real careful about promoting something that may not be real helpful.”
Murdock acknowledges that most people can’t afford the posh treatment offered by his institute. But he plans to spread his message by publishing other books on nutrition and health, and nudging fast-food operators to offer more fruits and vegetables.
He’s also behind a $1-billion biotechnology research center underway in Kannapolis, N.C. He has pledged $150 million of his own fortune for a laboratory that will conduct nutrition-related research.
“We’re not playing with tiddlywinks,” he said with a smile.
With advances in science and biotechnology, Murdock said he envisions a time when people will live as long as 125, or even 150 years. As for his own longevity?
“I intend to be leading the way,” he said.
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