New St. Regis Owner Knows OC’s Center; Warren’s Confession

KSL Capital Partners LLC, which acquired the St. Regis Monarch Beach on undisclosed terms last week, isn’t new to OC’s club scene. The Denver-based private equity firm also owns ClubCorp., which operates the Center Club at the Segerstrom Center … Michael Mina of the Stonehill Tavern at the St. Regis said that a sale had been expected for so long—there were three prior near misses—that KSL’s entrance seemed sudden … Another sudden entrance took place at Montage Laguna Beach, where a woman managed to drive her car through the lobby and into the bar in the wee hours of one morning last week. There were no injuries to guests, workers or the woman, who apparently tried to flee after getting a medical check at Mission Hospital Laguna Beach but was apprehended and arrested, according to Stunewslaguna.com … The Ritz-Carlton kept a relatively low profile amid all the action on the local resorts scene, which all but overshadowed the OK it got from the Dana Point City Council on an expansion of its conference facilities … Where was Big Canyon resident and Sacramento Kings partner Raj Bhathal when his team took its chances on last week’s NBA draft lottery in New York? A late switch in his schedule put him up north for the Sacramento City Council’s May 20 vote—same day as the lottery—in favor of public funding to cover nearly half of the projected $450 million price tag of a 500,000-SF downtown arena for the Kings … Here’s an OC link that will add some flavor to the grand opening of Center Place, an infill development of five single-family homes in Costa Mesa by Ron Simon’s RSI Homes. The project has risen across Placentia Avenue from the original location of Wing Lam’s Wahoo’s Fish Tacos, which will cater the May 28 event … Marriott International added some oomph to Bob Olson’s bio last week, naming his R.D. Olson its Developer of the Year. Olson has made it look easy in recent years, completing the first two new hotels in Tustin in more than 15 years and getting started on another in the Irvine Spectrum, among other projects. Marriott noted that Olson also has taken on projects in “high barrier markets”—he was the first to do a Courtyard from the ground up in Hawaii, and navigated the entitlement process for another project in NIMBY-heavy Santa Barbara … Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren and fellow keynoter Matthew Kelly helped the Orange Catholic Foundation pack the ballroom for its annual Conference on Business & Ethics at the Irvine Marriott last week, raising nearly $400,000 to help Catholic school kids with tuition. That’s close to a third of the total the annual event raised over the prior 10 years combined … Warren gave a stem winder on Moses as an exemplar of ethics, and then put the Catholic crowd on familiar ground with a confession—seems he’s a bit nervous lately about a trip to the Vatican, where he’ll be one of two speakers from the U.S. at a conference on marriage and family in November … It looked as though Human Options raised nearly $1 million by the time it had exhausted its options at its recent Serious Fun event at the Balboa Bay Resort. Then honorary chairs Julia and Stephanie Argyros went off-the-cuff with another $1 million for a big finish to an evening that honored the Sonenshine family’s longtime support of programs for women and children affected by domestic violence. The gift from the Argyroses will go specifically to therapeutic programs for children.