KELSEYVILLE — The sales agreement for the Konocti Harbor Resort has expired because of a lack of financing.
“We worked hard and are disappointed,” Grant Sedgwick, president of Resort Equities, LLC, said. “We didn”t make the decision lightly.”
Timing may have been an issue for the lack of finding financing, Sedgwick said.
“We just didn”t have enough confidence at this time,” he said. “It may be more easily done in the future than it was over the last six or seven months.”
The resort was purchased in 1959 and developed, originally, by the Local 38 Plumbers and Pipefitters Union in San Francisco to provide summer vacation opportunities for members and their families. The resort operated as a seasonal summer-only resort until CEO Greg Bennett”s arrival in 1990. Bennett”s vision and expertise brought about a metamorphosis for the resort . He implemented a concert program immediately, turning a small restaurant into what ultimately became a 1,000-seat showroom, and a dusty, overgrown softball field into a world-class musical amphitheater, while becoming one of the best concert venues in the country and featuring some of the biggest names in music including Aerosmith, Kenny Chesney, KISS, Nickelback, Robert Plant, Joan Jett, Kid Rock, Tim McGraw, Carrie Underwood, Ray Charles and Chrissie Hynde, to name only a few.
Resort Equities, LLC, planned to modify the use plan from lodging-only to a combination of lodging and vacation property offerings that included timeshare and other shared-ownership options.
The group also hoped to replace a number of obsolete buildings and substantially renovate all the others, along with re-establishing the popular concert programs in both the outdoor amphitheater and indoor dinner theater venues.
Plans also included rebuilding the marina and dock facilities that were destroyed in a storm with an expanded number of boat slips
According to Sedgwick, Resort Equities, LLC, had a good relationship with the current owner of the property, county officials and residents.
“I never met anybody in Lake County that didn”t wish us well,” he said.
J. W. Burch, IV is a staff reporter for Lake County Publishing. Reach him at 900-2022 or at jburch@record-bee.com.
