A recent feature in the Wall Street Journal says that “America’s ‘Most Luxurious Ski Town’ is Tearing Itself Apart.”
And much of the news surrounding the troubles in that town – Telluride, Colo. – is taking place in Newport Beach.
That’s the home office of Chuck Horning, head of commercial real estate investor Newport Federal. While news involving Horning has been scarce in OC the past 20 or so years, he’s made a name for himself at the ski resort.
Horning, “who skied in jeans, buys his shirts at Costco and cuts his own hair,” paid a reported $45 million to take control of the Telluride Ski & Golf resort in 2003.
Over the years, the WSJ reported, “Horning’s unconventional style alienated some,” with a lack of investment in the resort, and a string of poor personnel decisions among grievances locals cited in the story.
“Chuck is a real-estate investor, you know, so he tries to spend the least amount of money,” quipped one Telluride business owner and critic of Horning in the story, where locals bemoaned their town lagging behind rivals like Vail and Jackson Hole.
Horning refuted the accusations in the WSJ report, saying that he saved the resort from going bankrupt when he bought it, and that he has invested heavily into the property in the following years.
A $127 million bid to buy 51% of the resort, led by area elected officials on behalf of other investors, was recently rebuffed by Horning.
“I’m never selling,” Horning, 82, told the WSJ.
Any follower of Palmer Luckey’s social media feeds knows the 33-year-old behind Oculus, Anduril Industries, and, most recently, Erebor Bank, doesn’t shy away from online arguments.
In the past few weeks, Luckey has taken on Sen. Elizabeth Warren after she called the Lido Island resident a ‘Silicon Valley billionaire,’ a label he rejected, along with other critiques she aimed at Erebor. Prior sparring partners have included Mark Cuban and foreign leaders.
No surprise then that Luckey’s spent some time honing his debating skills; that’s one factoid mentioned in a New York Times feature last week – “The Pentagon’s Favorite Tech Guy Is This Hawaiian Shirt-Wearing Founder.”
The NYT noted in the feature that the home-schooled Luckey met his longtime girlfriend, and now wife, Nicole, at a debate camp when he was 15.
The story also credits Luckey with pushing the Department of Defense to change its name to the Department of War.
Read more about Luckey’s Hawaiian shirts, cargo shorts and Anduril’s latest raise in Kevin Costelloe’s Front Page story.
“Maybe America Needs Some New Cities,” headlined a February feature in the New York Times, which noted that it might sound “a bit kooky to promise a whole city from scratch. But it has been done before.”
The subject of that story: Irvine, which has grown to become OC’s second-largest city with over 325,000 residents, and whose “per capita income far outranks any other large city in the county.”
“What makes Irvine unique is that unlike most of its neighbors, it also has a dense base of employment that includes a university, manufacturing and high-rise office buildings — in other words, it is a true city,” the NYT said.
