The old trading post also remained operational. The resort is currently owned by EPGolf LLC. Lajitas Golf Resort and Spa 100 Main St, Terlingua, TX 79852 Hotel Amenities Property Details Built in 2003 101 rooms in 26 buildings Designated smoking areas Hotel Services Concierge and tour/ticket information 24-hour business center 6000 square feet of conference space Convenience store and gift shop Luggage storage Laundry facilities During droughts, people will live on water saved in rooftop rain-catchment systems, showering and flushing the toilet once a week. Lajitas is on the western edge of Big Bend National Park in southwestern Brewster County. "Black Jacks Crossing", designed by PGA Hall of Fame golfer, Lanny Wadkins. Andbig bonus for ussome rooms are pet friendly. He also donated $103,000 to President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. old-world bar, 92 luxury rooms and Mayor Clay Henry, a beer-drinking Over one million acres of public land including Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park offer hiking, camping, river running, horse riding, mountain bicycling, birding, jeep touring, and abundant sightseeing opportunities on paved and improved roads. And a federal judge approved the sale of Lajitas earlier this Ive heard he spent between $80 million and $100 million, but I dont know, said one of the creditors attorneys, who asked not to be identified while the bankruptcy was pending. Keep in mind that the second is a somewhat further drive due to the fact that youll need to take a roundabout route to get thereits not nearly as accessible as it looks on a map! 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Yes there are several natural hot springs located on the resort property. We offer world class golf on our award The piece was made in 1935, well after the end of the Civil War, and depicts Lee on his horse alongside another Confederate soldier. She said the exclusivity of the resort was like The vision on the porch was of rooms priced at $150 a night and an RV park that is open to snowbirds, that will tolerate the occasional rattletrap trailer. Earlier this year, Mr. Smith's dream officially ended in The Lajitas Golf Resort and Spa is a 20,000-acre golf resort business in Lajitas owned by Texas businessman Kelcy Warren, who bought the resort from previous owner Steve Smith while the business was going through financial distress. bankruptcy. However given [], 2023All Sports FAQAll rights reserved, Powered byWPDesigned with the Customizr theme. He received a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1978.[8][3][6]. Commerce was interrupted by Pancho Villa and his bandits, bringing John J. Pershing and his troops to establish a cavalry post there in 1916. Here, youll find everything from the award-winning golf course to the unassuming general store, from several restaurants to heaps of excursions, that make up many of the best things to do in Lajitas, Texas. for your away-from-it-all adventure. A private buyer shipped it to a Lajitas golf course owned by oil and gas billionaire Kelcy Warren almost exactly two years since the Confederate . You leave someplace nice, fly fifty minutes, and expect to arrive someplace nice. Jos R. Ralat is Texas Monthlys taco editor, writing about tacos and Mexican food. He then sold the land to Thomas V. Skaggs, who became successful in the Lajitas Wax Company, which sold candelilla wax. At the time of the 2010 census, the population of Lajitas was 75. Lajitas Golf Resort is open Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun. [2], Due to the remoteness of the resort, Lajitas is served by the Lajitas International Airport, a private airport with a 6,503ft (1,982m) concrete runway. The private owner is Addison-based attorney Ronald Holmes of Holmes Firm PC, a friend of the course who was down in Terlingua for Thursdays dedication. and Mike Montgomery. Built in 1912, it was just a beaten-up, dirt-floor adobe, with a front porch constructed of railroad ties and rails drug from Terlinguas languishing quicksilver mines, and shade provided from a willow-leaf awning held in place by goat-pen wire. said Thursday aboard his private jet, flying over the desert and Davis It was closed temporarily in 1910, reopened in 1916, and closed permanently in 1939. [8], He lives in Preston Hollow, Dallas[5] on an 8+ acre estate on Park Lane valued at more than $30 million. The deal was complete, except for a few papers that remained to be Nothing unusual about that or about the fact that a couple of the men were somewhat flirty with the waitress, an attractive young woman whod been living in the area for about a year. Twelve miles east, on the Terlingua Ghost Town porchthe stretch of cement in front of the come-and-go storefronts where locals gather each evening to watch the Chisos Mountains change colors in the sunsetSmiths Ultimate Hideout, as his marketers called Lajitas, was already being derided as the Ultimate High Doubt. But unlike their city friends who made annual pilgrimages to Big Bend and worried that the new Lajitas would ruin the area, the beer drinkers on the porch watched Smith spend and felt a surprising amount of concern for him. Mr. Leslie on Friday The course was designed by Lanny Wadkins. If it didnt work out, Smith would just hire somebody else to start over. After dinner some of our group went back to the resort, but my tour guide on the trip, the Lajitas general manager whod been assigned to babysit me, wanted a nightcap. question. Dallas, Texas 75201. bankrupt resort and give Lajitas another life. In 1986 he sold his Huntsville-based restaurant chain, Tinsleys Chicken and Rolls, and made millions, and he used part of that haul to put a house on the river just upstream from Lajitas. models. month to Mr. Warren, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Dallas-based Double check when in the area for the correct local time when visiting. Lajitas is also somewhat famous for having a drunk goat named Clay Henry for a mayoryes, you read that correctly! [23], In 2010, he bought the 3,500-acre BootJack Ranch near Pagosa Springs, Colorado, for $46.5 million. would have millionaires mixing with landscape workers and artists and His whole model was based on the idea that he could somehow tame the desert, refashion it to suit his plan, and it was just a matter of time before his vision became known as Smiths Folly. Good, 21701 FM 170 Lajitas, Texas 79852 He gave generously to local fire and EMS departments. Plus: FC Dallas in the playoffs and Dak Prescott's long-awaited return. [17], The Kelcy Warren Foundation supports the Caddo Lake Institution, an organization with the mission of protecting the ecological, cultural and economic integrity of Caddo Lake and its associated wetlands and watershed. Bring on the Shiplap. I only had two rules: no fighting and no spitting, at least not in the store. Smith and a group of hastily scraped-together investors. slashed prices on the hotel rooms and began charging $29 a night at the And he managed to build and landscape some beautiful facilities. Black Jack's Crossing That's who I want to be and I can't," he He bought a CD from her and promised If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. After Hours Scheduling. Was he actually planning on repopulating Big Bend with the superrich dust-averse? And frankly, I dont think Smith even knows. Hundreds of trees, including pears and plums that had no business being in the desert, were ordered before there was a plan to plant them and then planted before there was a way to water them. It looked much the same when Ivey took over the trading post in 1980. In any event, last summer Lajitas borrowed $12.5 million from a financial house in Connecticut. But the desert has always had a way of withering material ambition. Nearly every living thing a desert dweller encountersbe it plant, bug, or beastis capable of drawing blood. McGuirk petitioned for it to be re-established when it was built sometime before 1901. lavished $100 million to turn the property into an exclusive refuge for Fast forward another few decades, though, and Lajitas, TX experienced a curious twist of fate: a corporation from Houston bought the entire town, restored most of the buildings, and turned it into a resort for golfers and visitors exploring Big Bend Country. McNairs group paid $132.5 million for the property making it one of the most expensive golf resorts ever sold. From 1996 to 2000, Warren served as a director of Crosstex Energy, Inc. and from 1993 to 1996, he served as president, chief operating officer and a director of Cornerstone Natural Gas, Inc. Warren has more than 25 years of business experience in the energy industry. But there was insight to be gleaned in the law firms lobby. Warren drove friends down to the banks of the Rio Grande looking for If youre on a mountain out there and a cold front comes in, you could freeze and die, he said. Lajitas resort avoids foreclosure with bankruptcy court filing. For All rights reserved. When I met him for a quick lunch in Alpine in October, his memories of the old store grew the conversation to two hours. City documents identified Holmes, but he hadnt hinted at what hed do with his new hunk of Alexander Phimister Proctor-made metal. The population of Lajitas plummeted to only four when Terlingua's quicksilver mines closed. NYSE:ETP, By Paul Meyer, The Dallas Morning Black Jack's Crossing at Lajitas Golf Resort. Projects were undertaken with designs drawn over lunch on place mats. He gave her $100 more, then walked out of the place as if everything was fine. [2], In the 1970s the community had one telephone, and newspapers were delivered one day later than their normal dates. For the 23 years prior to that, Lajitas had been the property of Houston business giant Walter Mischer, whod turned it into a modest resort with an Old West boardwalk, a nine-hole golf course, ninety cheap hotel rooms, and an RV park for winter Texans, all of it anchored by a 65-year-old ramshackle adobe trading post so vital to the regions commerce and society that some called it the Courthouse of South County. I was writing a story that would run in the May 2002 issue of Texas Monthly on Smiths vision for Lajitas: the creation of a world-class, five-star golf resort and an exclusive development for multimillion-dollar vacation homes. The community boomed when quicksilver was discovered 11 miles from the community at the end of the decade. "misery ground into the walls. Young as he was, that was surprising, so when he returned, I asked him how somebody with such a hard time getting around wound up in a job as physically demanding as carpentry. the rich, with an 18-hole bentgrass golf course, upscale restaurants, They died. Dallas Robert E. Lee statue has a new home. The people in Lajitas now know nothing about the place or its past at all. Lajitas is mentioned extensively in Red Dirt/Texas Country artist Wade Bowen's song "Day of the Dead" recorded in October 2017. I formerly head the sports department at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. But he also waves his cowboy hat over his head and yells yeehaw like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove whenever he flies it into the Trans-Pecos. Dennis smiled and said something that hinted roughly at the wonders of clean canvases, bottomless toolboxes, and endless lumber supplies, and then excused himself to go to the restroom. Its previous owner, Austin multimillionaire Steve Smith, The outing had been arranged in part to show me the way the new folks in Lajitas were being accepted in the community. Candidates give an average difficulty score of 2.5 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) for their job interview at Lajitas Golf Resort. Grass that was seeded on the golf course couldnt survive on the brackish well water. 750 North St.Paul St. But after about three quick drinks, she started talking about how the kids she grew up with all called her a traitor for working for Smith. was Mr. Warren's first On Friday morning, after eating breakfast and making sure the Guests can cancel their reservations up to 72 hours prior to arrival for a full refund. So when you meet someone who lives in Terlingua or Study Butte or Lajitasthat area known in local shorthand as South Countyyou might not be able to tell if hes thirty or sixty. I have stayed here several times before I knew who the owner was. The first white settlers came to the area in the mid-1800s. On his first day there he got an audience with Smith and a tour of the resort, the scale of which left him impressed. One of the biggest selling points of Lajitas Golf Resort for many, though, is its location right next door to Big Bend Ranch State Park. We also have an email out to Warren. Unincorporated community in Texas, United States, "Old Cemetery In Lajitas, Texas, A Tiny Town That Abuts Big Bend National Park In Southwestern Brewster County, On A Bluff Overlooking The Rio Grande River In The Northern Part Of The Chihuahuan Desert", "Mayor Clay Henry III: A Word About the Mayor", "Clay Henry - Famous Beer-Drinking Dead Goat", "LAJITAS, TEXAS (414950), Period of Record Monthly Climate Summary", "Lajitas Resort: Why you better go now - El Paso Inc.: Publishers Column", "Death: Frank Q. Dobbs, producer, director and writer for television and movies", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lajitas,_Texas&oldid=1140605444, Unincorporated communities in Brewster County, Texas, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Source: Western Regional Climate Center, Desert Research Institute, This page was last edited on 20 February 2023, at 21:47. The original Lajitas church and cemetery are still in town and are among the best places to visit in Lajitas. empty and spiritual. For the American football player, see, "Executive Profile - Energy Transfer Partners - Kelcy L. Warren", "List of Public Companies Worldwide, Letter - Businessweek", "Inside Kelcy Warren's Dallas Mansion - WSJ", "College of Engineering at The University of Texas at Arlington", "Kelcy Warren emerges as one of Dallas' bold new philanthropists", "These Billionaires Received Taxpayer-Funded Stimulus Checks During the Pandemic", "The New Forbes Philanthropy Score: How We Ranked Each Forbes 400 Billionaire Based On Their Giving", "John Fogerty, Lyle Lovett, Bruce Hornsby, Jimmy LaFave put on a killer show on Kelcy Warren's ranch in the Texas Hill Country", "Why Kelcy Warren Named a Park For His Son", "Million-Dollar Donors in the 2016 Presidential Race", "Dakota Access pipeline company and Donald Trump have close financial ties", "The Texas Electric Grid Failure Was a Warm-up", "Stealth billionaire lays claim to Woodall Rodgers park naming rights", "Lajitas Resort: Why you better go now - El Paso Inc.: Publishers Column", "REVEALED: One of world's wealthiest men buys Kilkenny mansion for 12.6m - Kilkenny Now - Your City. in denim with a pink bandana around her neck and gray hair loosely It closed temporarily in 1910 and reopened six years later. He started his career working for the Lone Star Gas Company. ambition. Can College Sports Get More Absurd Than SMU Joining the Pac-12? Still, Dennis struck me as an odd person to be championing the resorts willingness to act without a game plan. nine-hole golf course, in addition to the thousands of acres of Bill grew up in that Lajitas, in the late fifties and sixties, attending school in Alpine but spending his weekends, holidays, and summers down by the river. the handmade home of Collie Ryan. The resort's unique destination is rich in Old West history. Now, we all know people who wouldnt blink at a $33 breakfast. The second day was to be spent on the Ambush, the only course Smith ended up building. [1] His father worked as a field hand for Sun Pipeline, a company now owned by Warren. "First let me shake your hand for asking that," Ms. Ryan said, Then, this summer, after resort revenues failed to live up to the terms of the loan, the lender posted the property for foreclosure, and Lajitas filed for Chapter 11 protection. Always found it to be poorly maintained, with poor food service. Additionally, there were no televisions, the latter a rarity among communities in the decade. Your News. If you talk to the people who live in South County, youll quickly sense the difference between them and the kinds of people Smith meant to attract, and it is not one of money but philosophy. This indicates he was in the lowest 20% of billionaires rated. Rumors from the summer started to resurface. If you click through a link on Lone Star Travel Guide, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. His ambition grew ever more glorious by the day: eight hundred residential lots of two acres or less, some selling for as much as $1 million, undeveloped; two championship golf courses, not desert-style, with grass growing only on greens and tees, but with a lush wall-to-wall carpet that would need a million gallons of water a day to stay green in summer months; an RV park with $100,000 slips for $500,000 motor homes; a 36,000-square-foot spa; four fancy restaurants; an amphitheater seating three thousand; an equestrian center; a hunting club.