Houston Rockets Owner Tilman Fertitta Drops $650M on Cali Hotel

A Houston billionaire closed on a $650 million deal to buy a California hotel.
Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta purchased the 260-room ocean-view hotel Montage Laguna Beach in Orange County, Connect Commercial Real Estate reported. The $650 million purchase price is one of the highest ever paid for a California hotel.

The seller, Dajia Insurance Group, listed the hotel for $700 million, which calculates to more than $2.7 million per room. The $650 million sale price comes to about $2.5 million per room.

The 258-room craftsman-style Montage Laguna Beach spans 30 acres atop a seaside bluff. It has three restaurants, two pools and a 20,000-square-foot spa. Rooms cost between $1,240 and $11,200 a night, according to its website.

The Montage opened in 2003, and Strategic Hotels bought it in 2015 for $360 million – then the highest price paid per hotel room in California. The hotel was sold to the Anbang Insurance Company in 2016 before Dajia restructured that company and began looking to unload the hotels.

The Laguna Beach property is one of a trio of luxury hotels that Dajia had listed, along with Four Seasons resorts in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Scottsdale, Arizona. The three hotels were listed for a combined $1.3 billion.

Fertitta bought the Houston Rockets of the NBA for a record $2.2 billion in 2017. He also built the Post Oak Hotel in Uptown in 2018.

Forbes named him the “World’s Richest Restaurateur,” because he built his fortune from the restaurant company Landry’s. He’s worth $7.8 billion, according to Forbes. He owns 14 other hotel properties across the country, including the San Luis Resort in Galveston.

— Victoria Pruitt