"Lajitas" translates to "little flat rocks" in Spanish. [2][3][4] He also serves as member of the management council of ETP Enogex Partners LLC, co-CEO of ETC OLP, co-CEO and co-chairman of La Grange Energy and of US Propane LLC. ambition. I had been down in South County reporting for that story on the new Lajitas (and in my defense, Id not participated in the pool). By the mid-1980s, Lajitas became a resort town with 15 businesses serving 50 people. Facilities Maintenance Technician; HVAC I Technician/Electrician Though a biblical rainstorm and lightning display in the night knocked out the resorts electricity for twelve hoursa common desert occurrence that, among other things, might incapacitate an alarm clock and cause one to miss an early tee timehe was still able to get on the course because no one else was playing that day. In 2010, he bought the 3,500-acre BootJack Ranch near Pagosa Springs, Colorado, for $46.5 million. Locals speculated that he was struggling financially, and the monthly Big Bend Gazette reported that Lajitas was not the only Smith-related enterprise to recently declare bankruptcy. Beasley doesnt seem concerned about any controversy. Make no mistake, desert life is hard, and the sacrifices required are made hourly. "In fact, I'd be shocked if there Otherwise youre just buying dirt.. Tucked away in Texas' historic Big Bend between Big Bend National Park and Big Bend State Park lies Lajitas Resort, the perfect setting Instead, a San Antonio law firm opened one of its large conference rooms to groups representing six would-be buyers, the interested and the curious. McGuirk, who also helped manage the mining company in Terlingua and funded the construction of a church. Youre not prepared for what you get.. Nobody really likes practicing their golf game. They talked about reopening the border crossing, reaching out By the late 90s, Lajitas and its sister town, Paso Lajitas, Chihuahua, Mexico had over 200 inhabitants. I hope you have found some useful content on my site today. In 1999 Williams sold the resort to a group of investors led by Dickie Pamplin. But he insisted that his intention was little substantive change. But the desert has always had a way of withering material ambition. NYSE:ETP, By Paul Meyer, The Dallas Morning empty and spiritual. "I still think it could be something special," the 52-year-old West Texans Are Learning What It Means to Live in Bear Country. In nearly every article on Lajitas that ran in the early Smith years, he gave some variant of a quote he gave to me. across the river. Order your test online and receive your donor/registration pass by email. The Big Bend is not the kind of place you want to drive through and look out your window at, Ivey continued. Megan Wutzke - Owner - Megan's Dog Adventures | LinkedIn Fire Ants Have Unleashed Chaos in Texas for Decades. "Black Jacks Crossing", designed by PGA Hall of Fame golfer, Lanny Wadkins. [9] RECO invested $7 million on a wind farm that was scheduled for completion in 2017.[10]. Theres a light in peoples eyes in far West Texas, a joy that comes with living exactly where and how a person wants. Beautiful views yes. Though the Lajitas Resort dominates much of Lajitas today, you can still find many remnants of the original town of Lajitas aroundoften restored by the resort. Lajitas resort avoids foreclosure with bankruptcy court filing month to Mr. Warren, co-founder, chairman and CEO of Dallas-based Lajitas officially had a post office as early as 1901, but it did not become operational until McGuirk petitioned for its reestablishment in 1904. Pamplin and his partners invested $25 million to expand the resort adding a new hotel and increasing the number of golf holes from 9 to 18. 1 (877) 525-4827. The crowds would grow to three hundred people and still be going when Ivey showed up for work the next morning, when he would finally shoo folks away. Neither the plane nor its pilot was affiliated with the resort, and Lajitas was in no way responsible for the crash. John Spong writes primarily about popular culture. [1] It was inhabited by aboriginal Mexicans for many years. Warren is chief executive officer and chairman of Energy Transfer Partners. 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. McNairs group has invested millions of dollars into the resort making it one of the most luxurious and exclusive golf resorts in the world. The resorts 250 workers made Lajitas the largest employer in South County, and it paid nearly 30 percent of the taxes for the schools in Terlingua. Down in South County, where the economy desperately needs Lajitas to remain open, locals hoped that whoever bought the resort would scale back the dream, place it somewhere between the best plans of Mischers and Smiths. , we came back to resort and spent time lounging in the pool. About 10 minutes later, Ms. Ryan appeared down the road, clad When the mines in nearby Terlingua closed in the 1940s, though, Lajitas also became a ghost town, with an estimated population of 4. profit. Asian money. newspaper, go to 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. natural gas transportation company Energy Transfer Partners. Yelp users havent asked any questions yet about. Prior to the combination of the operations of ETP and Heritage Propane in 2004, Warren co-founded the entities that acquired and operated the midstream natural gas pipelines that were contributed in the merger. He even had employees ambush chartered busloads of seniors headed to his hotel, stopping their caravans on the highway and stealing their valuables. 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. There was laughter from the table but not from the waitress. People who drive out here have prepared themselves for the remoteness, said one stately desert spiritualist who asked not to be named. 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. It brings a satisfaction, not of beating the desert but of surviving it. Unable to find her, Mr. Warren wandered about with a look of The border then seemed about forty miles wide and mixed like the sounds in a Doug Sahm song, half-Mexican, half-white, with nobody too worried about which half was which. Working at Lajitas Golf Resort | Glassdoor contact@lajitasgolfresort.com, 2014 Lajitas Golf Resort He started his career working for the Lone Star Gas Company. 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. The place seemed to be about three stars shy of the target, fine for the desert but not for the price. LAJITAS GOLF RESORT - 236 Photos & 94 Reviews - Yelp It was closed temporarily in 1910, reopened in 1916, and closed permanently in 1939. The resort was originally owned by oilman and entrepreneur Clayton Williams Jr. Williams purchased the property in 1983 and developed it into a golf resort. That determination will be made by the desert. And You Thought Feral Hogs Were Bad. Dallas sold the statue for $1.4 million in June after the City Council decided to auction it off. models. Lajitas is zoned to schools in the Terlingua Common School District. The store itself was stacked deep with every conceivable necessity, from bulk beans and flour to appliances, auto parts, clothes, and ranch supplies. Holmes did not return a call about the donation. CANDELILLA CAFE, Lajitas - Restaurant Reviews, Photos - Tripadvisor No spam, ever. Lajitas Golf Resort and Spa Reviews | Expedia The trading post was that communitys heart, the hub for little villages on both sides of the river. Big Bend is a diverse region with endless possibilities for adventure and discovery. Since Clay Henry, goats have been mayors of the community ever since. Share. Who Owns Lajitas Golf Resort by Joshua|Published August 25, 2019 The Lajitas Golf Resort is a full-service golf resort and spa located in the Big Bend region of West Texas. At 1:48 p.m., the wire transfer went through for the property. A bankruptcy judge in San Antonio opened a three-month window for Lajitas to acquire new financing, but Smith, who by all accounts was still in love with the area, was unable to pull it off. . Its previous owner, Austin multimillionaire Steve Smith, lavished $100 million to turn the property into an exclusive refuge for the rich, with an 18-hole bentgrass golf course, upscale restaurants, old-world bar, 92 luxury rooms and Mayor Clay Henry, a beer-drinking goat. The piece was made in 1935, well after the end of the Civil War, and depicts Lee on his horse alongside another Confederate soldier. No stranger rode into town with his checkbook in his teeth to run up the bidding and take the place over. Compare luxury resorts and resort hotels in Lajitas with Rent By Owner But about halfway through the meal, one of the guys, no doubt feeling that freewheeling mixture of margaritas and desert remove, commented to the waitress, Weve got a pool going to see if your tits are real or fake.. See pricing and listing details of Lajitas real estate for sale. If you get bitten by a rattlesnake, youll die. Review. The community was said to be "about the only place where you can shoot 360 degrees", since Santa Fe and Sedona were already used up. The round-trip drive to Alpine for big groceries is 190 miles. The resort is currently owned by EPGolf LLC. The gas pumps were gone, as were the willow leaves and goat-pen wire. Carmichael, California, United States. [11] The Robert E. Lee on Traveller statue is on display at the resort. Forrest Wilder writes about politics and the outdoors. Nine of the 92 rooms were full, not including Mr. Warren's (Id have liked to watch the baseball playoffs, but I blame TBS for that.) Megan's Dog Adventures. Just beyond the far end of the boardwalk, a long, columned breezeway divided the dark, leather-bound Thirsty Goat Saloon and the glass-walled Candelilla Caf overlooking the golf course. At some point in 2006 Smith decided to stop pouring his own fortune into Lajitas. RV park, where he says it used to take a $100,000 membership to stay. A crossing into Mexico, closed years ago, once ferried tourists A few months earlier he had been a passenger in a small plane that had taken off from Lajitas and had run out of gas over Ozona. When I met him nearly two years later, he was thinking differently. Folks lolled in the shade, shot pool on a felt-free pool table on the porch, rolled dice in the corner, and fed quarters into a jukebox that Ivey stocked with Vicente Fernndez 45s that he bought on regular trips to Jurez. Rooms were scattered all over the grounds, along the boardwalk, on the golf course, and across Ranch Road 170, driving up operating costs. Located just east of Big Bend Ranch State Park, a visit to Lajitas, Texas may leave you wondering: is this a town or a resort? Thats the way the project was run, as if success was secondary. On Monday, the sculpture completed a 600-mile journey to Black Jacks Crossing near the border, about a dozen miles from Terlingua. McGuirk sold his landholdings around Lajitas to Thomas V. Skaggs, who continued farming. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. 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. [22] In 2012, press reports indicated he owned an estate on an island off the coast of Honduras. 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. Dallas Robert E. Lee Statue Has Landed at Black Jacks Crossing Near Terlingua. Fly Direct to Lajitas from Dallas or Houston. Faces age faster in the desert, the skin browning and creasing and toughening up in ways that city and suburban dwellers dont have to worry about. The elevation of the course is 3500 feet. [2], In the 1970s the community had one telephone, and newspapers were delivered one day later than their normal dates. 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. Tucked away in Southwest Texas between Big Bend National Park and Big Bend State Park lies the exquisite 27,000 acre Lajitas Golf Resort and Spa. he wants to put it more in touch with surrounding Brewster County, with 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. Lajitas Golf Resort and Spa HC 70, Box 400, Lajitas, Big Bend National Park, TX 79852 +1 432-424-5000 Website Open now : 07:00 AM - 9:00 PM See all (62) Food Service Value Atmosphere Food and ambience Local cuisine, American, Southwestern When I asked a local sitting at the bar what he remembered of that story, she happened to be on the other side of me and interrupted, That was me! Shes still angry about it, and she ticked off the details as though it had happened the night before. 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 By then, consultants and friends had convinced Smith that the dream could be real, and toward that end he had already spent $40 million, which he estimated would be half of his ultimate outlay. outdueled San Francisco hotelier Manou Mobedshahi in the town's saloon Lajitas is mentioned extensively in Red Dirt/Texas Country artist Wade Bowen's song "Day of the Dead" recorded in October 2017. Had he really sprayed a compound on the ground in front of the Lajitas boardwalk that would keep dust from kicking up?