An affiliate of the Hyatt Hotels Corp. has acquired the Ventana Big Sur resort for $148 million, or $2.5 million per key, which is a record for a North American resort.
The seller was Geolo Capital, the private equity investment arm of the John Pritzker family office, and its joint-venture partner Wanxiang America Real Estate. They acquired the resort in 2015.
"We saw substantial unrealized value in controlling 59 of Big Sur's 100 available full-service guestrooms and understood the potential to raise average daily rates following a comprehensive renovation, rebrand and repositioning," said John Pritzker, Geolo founding partner and director, in prepared remarks.
Recommended For You
Ventana Big Sur will continue to have the Alila brand, which Geolo acquired in 2014, attached to Ventana in 2017, and sold to Hyatt in 2018.
Among the changes Geolo put in place were a focus on experiential programming as well as a $23 million renovation.
Geolo's six-year ownership of Ventana had its challenges, namely two major wildfires, three record-breaking mudslides and the Covid-19 pandemic. However at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, Geolo saw the opportunity of marketing the resort's remote location and re-opened as an all-inclusive property.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
