The first phase of The Irvine Company’s Pelican Hill resort opens late next week with the debut of a pair of revamped golf courses and a restaurant.
After closing up more than two years ago, the Pelican Hill Golf Club,considered to be Orange County’s best public course,is putting the final touches on big renovations, in preparation for its Nov. 2 re-opening.
The two courses along Newport Coast were re-worked by their original designer, Tom Fazio. Among other projects, Fazio also has helped revamp Augusta National Golf Club, the country’s best-known course.
Pelican Hill’s two courses overlooking the coast have been lengthened by some 600 yards with new fairway grass put in place.
Small tweaks include changes to the first hole of the north course,to keep errant drives away from hotel villas and bungalows going up,and improved watering for the fairways.
Also opening the same day: Pelican Grill, the first of three restaurants and two cafes planned at the resort.
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Villa Emo: Bren used this Italian architecture as inspiration for resort |
The golf course takes up about 320 acres of the 500-acre Pelican Hill resort. The opening of the second and final phase of the resort in late 2008 is set to include all of Pelican Hill’s high-end hotel rooms, resort facilities and the remaining restaurants.
Pelican Hill is entitled for about 1,100 rooms, but the Irvine Co. is keeping the totals lower, with 204 bungalows and 128 villas.
“We wanted to keep it intimate and comfortable,” said Brad Neal, vice president of architecture for the Irvine Co.
All the rooms will open at the same time, and they’ll all be for rent, said Chris Marsh, senior vice president of development for the Irvine Co. Early plans had called for some of the units to be sold as timeshares.
These will be “the largest rooms in the market,” Neal said last week, at an event sponsored by the Orange County chapter of the Commercial Real Estate Women Network. Typical rooms run about 850 square feet. Suites are double that size.
The villas run larger, with as many as four bedrooms and amenities like butlers.
The company hasn’t announced rates for the rooms yet.
It will “be every bit as expensive as you would imagine it to be, I’m sure” Marsh said.
Pelican Hill is offering introductory rates of $235 a round for golf; below the old $250 weekend rate, but above the old weekday rate of $175.
Elsewhere in OC, Monarch Beach Golf Links has rates running as high as $225 per round in November.
If Pelican Hill’s golf re-opening has Fazio’s fingerprints all over them, then the remainder of the resort’s development is very much a work of Irvine Co. Chairman Donald Bren.
Bren considers Pelican Hill to be the crown jewel in the Newport Beach-based company’s holdings. It’s no surprise then that he’s played a hands-on role in the project’s development, according to those familiar with the project.
Bren’s been involved in big-picture issues such as the resort’s Renaissance-inspired architectural style to smaller details like table settings at the restaurants and uniforms for waiters and maids.
Where other resorts in the area reflect Spanish-style architecture, Pelican Hill has a decidedly Italian vibe, in part due to Bren’s fondness for Andrea Palladio, the 16th century architect.
The resort most resembles Palladio’s Villa Emo, an Italian villa near Venice built in 1559. That’s one of Bren’s favorite estates, according to Neal.
The Andrea Restaurante, one of the upscale restaurants planned for the resort, is named in the architect’s honor.
Palladio’s architecture will be seen in the hotel rooms themselves. Mock-ups of rooms were built to scale in an Irvine warehouse. The company is making a point of adding casual, contemporary furniture to keep the rooms from looking too formal, Neal said.
