A 120-year-old rural resort in north Sonoma County has sold for $20 million.
Guernville-based Isaac LLC, an affiliate of agent Michael Clark, sold the 15-acre Dawn Ranch Lodge at 16467 Hwy. 116 in Guerneville to San Francisco-based Tidewater Capital and Bridgeton Holdings, a private real estate firm based in New York, the San Francisco Business Times reported.
The wooden lodge, perched on the Russian River, has 55 cottages, three bungalows and a restaurant, with extensive grounds for weddings and other events, about an hour drive from San Francisco.
Amenities include wine country tours, canoeing and kayaking, and trips to the nearby Sonoma coast.
At a price per key of $348,793, the deal fetched at least 40 percent more than the $231,032 average for Northern Californian deals, as tracked by Atlas Hospitality, and 90 percent above the median key price of $131,707, according to the business journal.
Pandemic trends in capital and hospitality contributed to a record year for hotel sales last year, particularly in the Bay Area.
Wine Country saw at least two deals north of $2 million per room last year, including Irvine-based Sunstone Hotel Investors purchase of the 85-room Four Seasons Napa Valley resort for $175 million and the 130-room Montage Healdsburg for $265 million, among the highest key prices ever paid in the U.S.
Drive-to hotels and resorts in the Bay Area have been some of the hospitality market’s best performing properties, sought after as long-term investments and for their repositioning potential.
Dawn Ranch, with no in-room TVs or phones, can accommodate 500-person weddings and has been featured as a choice venue in magazines from Martha Stewart Weddings to Glamour. Its grounds also feature about 30 so-called “glamping” sites.
Established in 1905 after Theodosia Button Murphy bought the then-orchard site, Dawn Ranch was built into a hospitality property and run for decades by the Murphy family until it was sold in 1978, when it became known as Fife’s Resort.
Isaac LLC bought the rsort in 2001 for $3,025,000, according to records from Property Shark, and rebranded the property as Dawn Ranch Lodge in 2005.
Dawn Ranch Resort “will be positioned as one of the top lodging properties in the market,” Akash Sharma, president of Bridgeton, said in a statement. “We are excited to realize the full potential of the resort through thoughtful design and management.”
[San Francisco Business Times] – Dana Bartholomew