Stanly Ranch cost roughly a quarter of a billion dollars to build. It opened in April 2022 at the bottom of Napa Valley with 712 acres, a 12,000-square-foot spa with a hyperbaric chamber, and rooms that went past $1,300 a night. Four years later, on March 27, 2026, it was sold on the steps of the Napa County courthouse for $195 million. That was about $48 million less than its owners owed. Blackstone bought the hotel, and the vineyard homes that were supposed to pay for the whole project were left out of the sale.
The story begins in 1856, when former congressman Edward Stanly bought land in Carneros, on the old Mexican land grant called El Rincón de los Carneros. In 1999, a plan to build a golf resort with homes there failed because the homes sat under the flight path of the Napa County Airport. In this video we follow the rest: a $235 million construction loan from Mack Real Estate Credit Strategies, home prices that the developers say were raised from $3.66M to $4.79M, a hotel sale worth up to $470M that they say the investors blocked, contractor liens, a wine-industry slump, the notice of default, and the court fight between Nichols Partnership and its own investors. Guests never stopped booking. The financing is what failed.
So what do you think: is Blackstone’s bet on AI-driven corporate travel to Napa going to pay off, or is Stanly Ranch heading for a second collapse? Would you pay $1,300 a night to stay there, yes or no? Tell me in the comments.
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