The five-star El Encanto resort in Santa Barbara, a Hollywood getaway for more than a century where rooms cost north of $1,000 a night, has been sold to Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen for $82.2 million.
Mateen bought the historic hotel in one of the city’s exclusive hillside neighborhoods with his brother Tyler and Culver Capital.
The 7-acre estate with terraced gardens and views of the Pacific Oceans was purchased from Belmond, the hospitality brand owned by luxury retailer LVMH, marking the sale of LVMH’s only hotel in the United States.
The new owners plan to spend as much as $40 million to upgrade the 90-room resort that boasts its Old Hollywood guests included Clark Gable, Hedy Lamarr and Carole Lombard.
“It has a lot of California’s rich history and could be one of the nicest hotels in the U.S.,” Mateen said. “The bones and the structure are irreplaceable.”
Images from the pool deck at the El Encanto resort in Santa Barbara.
(Mike Kelley)
The Mateens have been on an investment spree, buying high-profile properties in Southern California locations where it’s hard to develop new projects. Last month they paid $69 million for retail property near the legendary TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard: the Hollywood Galaxy shopping center the the historic Petersen Building next door that was once a Cadillac dealership.
Last year the Mateens and their partner Pouya Abdi bought Wilshire Rodeo Plaza, a five-story office building at Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. They are in the process of signing new retail tenants for the building and planning a rooftop restaurant.
The Mateens also bought the HHLA entertainment center in Westchester near Playa Vista last year and are refurbishing it. Among its new tenants will be Meow Wolf, an immersive entertainment firm.
Mateen is known for being a co-founder of popular dating app Tinder but is also a solo venture capitalist through his JAM Fund. He and his brother have a strategy to invest in their hometown of Los Angeles during a cooling commercial real estate market because they expect the region to bounce back in the years ahead.
Images from the El Encanto resort in Santa Barbara.
(Mike Kelley)
El Encanto will remain open during renovations, which will take about three years during the low seasons for the hotel, the buyers said. First up is a makeover of the grounds overseen by the Los Angeles firm of architect Mark Rios, who is also creating botanical gardens at the $5-billion One Beverly Hills condominium and hotel complex in Beverly Hills.
For the grounds at El Encanto, “we want to turn it into a mystical garden,” said Garrett Cayton, principal of Culver Capital, the Culver City-based investment office for the Cayton family.
The hotel, which opened in 1918, will be operated as a boutique property that will not be affiliated with a hotel chain.
“We want to control what’s on the menu and how the staff are working,” Tyler Mateen said
The new owners may replace a few rooms with retail offerings such as a coffee shop and perhaps create a membership club on top of the main building in space now used as a conference room.
The El Encanto has a five-star rating from Forbes Travel Guide.
Hotel sales in California have slowed in recent months due to high interest rates and “a big disconnect” between buyers’ and sellers’ price expectations, Newport Beach hospitality consultant Alan Reay said.
With institutional investors on the sidelines, upmarket properties in coastal communities where it’s difficult to build new hotels are often going to buyers with deep pockets who intend to hold them for many years, Reay said.
That’s the plan for El Encanto, Cayton said.
“We want the experience and end result to be amazing,” he said. The resort “is something that we’re going to hold in our families forever.”
