Montecito, California - The San Ysidro Ranch,
a five-star resort near Santa Barbara where President John F.
Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline honeymooned, has been severely
damaged by the deadly mudslides in Southern California this
week.
Officials have yet to fully assess the damage at the ranch,
which sits on 500 acres in the foothills of the Los Padres
National Forest.
Triggered by heavy rains, the massive mudslides in southern
California struck before dawn on Tuesday this week, killing at
least 18 people.
Mud and debris cascaded down hillsides that had been
stripped of trees and shrubs last month by wildfires, including
the Thomas Fire, the largest blaze in the state's
history.
After surviving the fire, the ranch was not so lucky during
the mudslides.
"It looks like a war zone. It looks like the place just got
bombed," U.S. Congressman Salud Carbajal, a Democrat
representing Santa Barbara County, told Reuters while visiting
the site on Friday.
The resort was not accepting reservations until at least
August, according to Cheyanna Rudd, a booking agent for an
outside company used by San Ysidro, but Maxine Rutledge, the
resort manager, disputed the timeline.
She declined to provide further details on when the property
would reopen and said owner Ty Warner, the "Beanie Babies"
billionaire who bought the place in 2000, did not have an
immediate comment.
The San Ysidro Ranch, replete with Persian rugs, Italian
linen bedding and oak floors, sits in the Montecito foothills.
Franciscan monks stayed on the property in the late 1700s
and it served as a citrus ranch in the 1800s before opening to
guests in 1893, according to a history on the ranch's website.
The Academy awarding-winning actor Ronald Colman took over
the ranch in the 1930s and it became a haunt of Hollywood stars
from Audrey Hepburn to Groucho Marx.
Damage from recent mudslides is shown surrounding San Ysidro Ranch in Montecito, California. Picture: Alex Dobuzinskis/Reuters
Actors Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier married there and
John F. Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline honeymooned there before
he became U.S. president.
Resort employees were evacuated ahead of the mudslides and
Rutledge said it will be at least one or two weeks until staff
can return.
The water and mud overflowed a creek behind the resort's
cottages and ravaged a residential area of Montecito on its way
to the beach, Santa Barbara County fire spokesman Mike Eliason
told Reuters on Friday.
The resort had avoided major damage during the Thomas Fire
last month as firefighters stopped the fire several hundred
yards away, Eliason said, but the ranch has been closed to
guests since before Christmas.