High-end home goods retailer RH, formerly Restoration Hardware, is planning to continue its expansion into highly amenitized real estate with 850 acres it bought in Napa this summer for $25 million, according to CEO Gary Friedman.
The San Francisco Business Times reported on the deal after an earnings call with the RH CEO where he said the recent buy would become a guest house, residences and a winery, with possible plans for an organic farm.
“We’ll build an experience the world has never seen,” Friedman said on the call.
The site is the largest contiguous tract in Napa Valley, according to a JLL announcement from 2019, the first time 2000 Soda Springs Road had been offered in 40 years. Owners Richard and David Ehrenberger were originally asking $50 million for the property but settled for half that price, or about $30,000 per acre.
The site still contains ruins of the 19th-century resort that offered its “healing” spring water to visitors seeking a country respite beginning in the 1850s and bottled its “Napa Soda” to sell to San Francisco saloons through the end of the century. Mineral spring resorts went out of style in the early 1900s and the resort closed after World War I, suffering several subsequent fires after it was abandoned. The stone shell of its 75-foot-tall rotunda, opened for a formal ball in the late 1870s, is one of the highlights of the property, as are its 80-foot waterfall and 27 mineral springs.
RH has already announced its RH Residences, fully furnished and highly amenitized luxury homes and apartments, and recently opened its first RH Guesthouse in New York, a “hospitality experience” with only nine guest rooms, as well as Friedman’s own 2,600-square-foot top-floor abode, which is also occasionally available for overnight stays. They are both examples of how the upscale home store is expanding its offerings to become more of a total lifestyle brand. The New York Guesthouse has a rooftop infinity pool and two restaurants and is located near RH’s NYC design gallery. It also opened a five-story design gallery on Pier 70 in San Francisco this spring, and has others in Miami, Boston and Chicago.
In addition to confirming the Napa buy, Friedman also indicated on the call that RH was “close to closing” on an “incredible property somewhere in Europe” but couldn’t reveal any further details.
—Emily Landes
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