Every day at five oclock sharp, when the whistle blew at Lajitas, the porch at the trading post became the spot for Big Bend happy hour. In June 2003, Texas Golfer sent a writer to stay at Lajitas for what would be a cover story for the monthly magazine. They died. 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). What emerged was part roadside attraction, motel, RV park and
natural gas transportation company Energy Transfer Partners. slashed prices on the hotel rooms and began charging $29 a night at the
As an Amazon Associate, Lone Star Travel Guide earns from qualifying purchases. Lajitas General Store and Deli Thirsty Goat Saloon Pizza Menu Thirsty Goat Menu To make dinner reservations in The Candelilla restaurant, call 432-424-5032 Candelilla Cafe Offering an Interesting Twist on Traditional Tex Mex Cuisine Candelilla Caf Hours of Operation 7 am - 10 pm Daily 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. Im a sports expert and lover. 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 crossing was described as a smooth, rock bottom, and was best between Del Rio and El Paso. There were weeks of discussion leading up to the 13-1 Council vote on September 5, 2017, ending with it being taken down and stored. Guests can cancel their reservations up to 72 hours prior to arrival for a full refund. Copyright (c) 2007, The Dallas Morning News. He bought a CD from her and promised
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. When I asked him what would happen if his dream didnt work, he said, Well, at least me and my friends will have a really nice golf course to play. (Smith declined to be interviewed for this article, and Texas Monthly happens to be one of his unsecured creditors, owed $35,000 for unpaid advertising.). Fly Direct to Lajitas from Dallas or Houston. The Big Bend is named for the vast curve of the Rio Grande in remote southwest Texas. On Monday, the sculpture completed a 600-mile journey to Black Jacks Crossing near the border, about a dozen miles from Terlingua. [9] And frankly, I dont think Smith even knows. [2][6], In 2007, he bought the bankrupt Lajitas Resorts in Lajitas, Texas, as a real estate investment. The population of Lajitas plummeted to only four when Terlingua's quicksilver mines closed. He said his condition was a recent development. ), 7+ Great Girls Trips in Texas (Weekend Getaway Ideas! These days, Clay Henry can be found (stuffed) at Starlight Theatre in Terlingua, but Clay Henrys descendants continued to act as mayorat least until his grandson met a gnarly fate. Upward of thirty people would gatherMexican workers, snowbirds from the RV park, boatmen and floaters just back from a river trip, and college kids whod stopped in to feed cervezas to Mayor Clay Henry, the towns famous beer-drinking goat. [12] Before that, Lajitas had a school with 50 students in 1912. are more than six.". 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. View all View all photos (863) Mischer never made much money off the place and held onto it mostly out of love. 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. [9] It is located on the Rio Grande, bordering Mexico,[10] between Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park. Kelcy Lee Warren (born November 9, 1955)[1] is an American billionaire and the chairman and chief executive officer of Energy Transfer Partners.[2][3][4][5][6]. They want to hike, raft, and go get a beer on the porch in Terlingua. 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. NewsMcClatchy-Tribune Regional News. Checks were cashed and loans were made, and Ivey accepted payment in dollars, pesos, or by barter. LAJITAS HISTORY - Visit Big Bend Reviewed October 12, 2021 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. The elevation of the course is 3500 feet. It was closed temporarily in 1910, reopened in 1916, and closed permanently in 1939. Unable to find her, Mr. Warren wandered about with a look of
and were blown away by the immense beauty of the course. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. For groups of 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. "It didn't feel right. Andbig bonus for ussome rooms are pet friendly. The region was sparsely inhabited for thousands of years by semi nomadic peoples related to the Patarabueyes and Jumanos tribes before the Spanish arrived. Lajitas is also somewhat famous for having a drunk goat named Clay Henry for a mayoryes, you read that correctly! 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. Dallas' Robert E. Lee Statue Has Landed at Black Jack's Crossing Near On Friday, Mr. Warren sealed a $13.5 million deal to buy the
Ms. Ryan told Mr. Warren she remembers years ago when the bar
Lajitas Golf Resort is a 103 room resort with the number one public 18-hole golf course in Texas, spa, restaurant, saloon, 3 swimming pools, and a guest activity menu that includes shooting sports, equestrian riding, Subaru rentals, stargazer dinners on site, and guided jeep and ATV trips with local vendors. Still, in a larger sense the buyer and his intentions dont really matter. Who Owns Lajitas Golf Resort | Find Out Here Now Marlins David Tinsley has been a Lajitas weekender since falling in love with the region on his first river trip through Santa Elena Canyon, in 1974. The name Lajitas is Spanish for little flat rocks and refers to the Boquillas limestone of the area. Yes guests are welcome to bring their pets to the resort. 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.. Brings new meaning to the phrase Sunday Funday. Id hold out a brown paper sack that theyd put their guns in, and Id put their groceries in that sack and hand it back to them when they were leaving. The trading post was also the only chance for gas in the area, and it wasnt unusual to see a pilot like Tinsley taxi his plane down the highway to the pumps to refuel. Dallas, Texas 75201. Lajitas Golf Resort is open Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat, Sun. http://www.dallasnews.com. On the banks of the Rio Grande between Big Bend national and
But the place could be friendlier to residents on this side of the river. Seven or eight hours in a car gives you a sense of how far this is from civilization. His state-of-the-art gray water filtration system created a wetlands area on the golf course that, along with a 64-acre sanctuary on the river, brought birds to the region not commonly found in the desert. Now", "Castles in the ire: the minted moguls snapping up Ireland's stately homes", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kelcy_Warren&oldid=1135081936, This page was last edited on 22 January 2023, at 14:53. "This thing is so beautiful, and there's nobody here.". when Houston real estate developer Walter Mischer Sr. first conceived a
"Now I've got to go back to a different world," he said. In 2000, when the property went up for auction, Mr. Smith
It was closed temporarily in 1910, reopened in 1916, and closed permanently in 1939. The highest recorded temperature at the resort is 120 degrees Fahrenheit. I even ran the rafting business out my back door, Ivey said. Working at Lajitas Golf Resort | Glassdoor A crossing into Mexico, closed years ago, once ferried tourists
Commerce was interrupted by Pancho Villa and his bandits, bringing John J. Pershing and his troops to establish a cavalry post there in 1916. The biggest attractions that draw visitors to Lajitas, of course, are Big Bend Ranch State Park to the west and Big Bend National Park to the east. I was doctor, vet, lawyer, marriage counselor, pharmacist, and an importer of wax. in denim with a pink bandana around her neck and gray hair loosely
H. W. McGuirk, the leading citizen of Lajitas from 1902 to 1917, operated the Lajitas Trading Post, farmed, and helped manage the Terlingua Mining Company. By the early 80s, Lajitas on the Rio Grande had a 9 hole golf course, two lodging units, several condos, and was a local center of economic activity in Brewster County. Yelp users havent asked any questions yet about. I think that's the biggest thing that's
It brings a satisfaction, not of beating the desert but of surviving it. Otherwise youre just buying dirt.. Still, when the sun sets each night, when the dry desert air turns gold and the clouds go from white to purple to orange to gone and a desert rat can put himself to sleep by counting stars, that hard life is worth it. 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. 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. McNairs group paid $132.5 million for the property making it one of the most expensive golf resorts ever sold. [10], The 90th Fighter Squadron of the United States Army Border Air Patrol had a sector that traveled to Lajitas from Eagle Pass. The store and saloon were operated by H.W. Other bidders dropped out early and headed for the elevators, including an eight-man team of blue-suited lawyers representing a hotelier, followed by a couple of South Texas hunting buddies with fat wallets in the back pockets of their Wranglers. Suite 2100 the Rio Grande. The ultimate fate of Lajitas wont be decided by any new owner. Yes the resort offers weddings and other special events. They talked about reopening the border crossing, reaching out
The latest auction of Lajitas was marked by considerably less drama than the last one. . Megan's Dog Adventures. Some links in this post may be affiliate links. The Big Bend is not the kind of place you want to drive through and look out your window at, Ivey continued. When I visited it in August and October, the trading post was dead. It had to be replaced. When Steve Smith bought the remote Big Bend town of Lajitas in 2000, he dreamed of building a lush, five-star retreat that would attract the likes of Tiger Woods and Tom Cruise . outdueled San Francisco hotelier Manou Mobedshahi in the town's saloon
[2][3][4][6] He has been the co-chairman and co-CEO of Energy Transfer Partners since 2007. McGuirk sold his landholdings around Lajitas to Thomas V. Skaggs, who continued farming. Farming along the floodplain caused an even further boom, causing Lajitas to build a store, a saloon, and a custom house in 1912. The 11th Bomb Squadron operated from Marfa Field along the Rio Grande to El Paso.[14]. Copyright 2023, D Magazine Partners, Inc. We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. 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. civilization. [13], In 2007, he co-founded an independent record label, Music Road Records, with Jimmy LaFave and Fred Remmert. In The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Pete and a coyote sit overlooking the Rio Grande near Lajitas. Before they were priced out of the RV park, snowbirds were staying for three- and four-month stretches to play $10-a-day golf, and they got to know all the resorts workers. 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. There was laughter from the table but not from the waitress. It's a place where many have long come to get away from material excess
About us. In Rexs time Lajitas consisted of the trading post and an old cavalry post that was used as a hunting lodge, and Rex met Mischer when he came out for deer and dove hunts. But there was no place for a Mexican jukebox in the new Lajitas. Dec. 22, 2007 - LAJITAS, Texas -- Not even $100 million,
Instead, he paid dearly to learn an age-old lesson: The desert always wins. he wants to put it more in touch with surrounding Brewster County, with
In 2015, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas appointed Warren to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission. Dallas Robert E. Lee statue has a new home. Share. You cannot mess with that country. He loves it out west. And he managed to build and landscape some beautiful facilities. 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 . Scott Beasley, whose company WSB Resorts and Clubs manages Lajitas among other businesses and properties, said he is committed to having the resort show a profit in 2017 - if not sooner. Whether you want to go horseback riding, golfing, hiking, or rafting on the Rio Grande, Lajitas Resort can put something together for you. Warren drove friends down to the banks of the Rio Grande looking for
Lajitas Golf Resort is an unexpected and fascinating oasis in the middle of the vast desert that makes up much of Big Bend Countryand today, Lajitas Golf Resort is nearly simultaneous with the town of Lajitas, TX. In any event, last summer Lajitas borrowed $12.5 million from a financial house in Connecticut. The deal was complete, except for a few papers that remained to be
Copyright 2016 (c) | VisitBigBend.com | All Rights Reserved | Brought to you by the Brewster County Tourism Council |. 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. The runway airport has full 100LL and Jet A fuel, complimentary tiedowns down services and offers transportation to the resort. , we came back to resort and spent time lounging in the pool. He also donated $103,000 to President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. Warren said Thursday looking about. Lajitas Resort: Why you better go now | Columns | elpasoinc.com Wild West-style complex in the area where Gen. John "Black Jack"
For more flight Lajitas resort avoids foreclosure with bankruptcy court filing The Lajitas property continued to change hands and in 1949 was bought by Rex Ivey, Jr., who hand-dug a well and installed a generator for the areas first electric lights. Projects were undertaken with designs drawn over lunch on place mats. UT Dallas is paying students to get vaccinated. Forrest Wilder writes about politics and the outdoors. Dallas sold the statue for $1.4 million in June after the City Council decided to auction it off. newspaper, go to
She also had no way of knowing about the rest of the nights events. said. You could get a six-pack of beer or a spark plug for a live chicken. reprints, email [emailprotected], call 800-374-7985 or
Patricia Sharpe writes a regular restaurant column, Pats Pick, for Texas Monthly. to come back with his 5-year-old son. [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. It is speculated that Cabeza de Vaca crossed the Rio Grande at Lajitas around 1530, and it is almost certain that Antonio de Espejos party did in 1588. Best Resorts and Rentals in Lajitas EXCLUSIVERent By Owner The soul stays young, and that youth glows in the eyes, as lined as they may be. lodge. McGuirk also funded the construction of a school. Beautiful views yes. See 1,059 traveler reviews, 860 candid photos, and great deals for Lajitas Golf Resort, ranked #1 of 1 hotel in Lajitas and rated 4 of 5 at Tripadvisor. 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. The lowest recorded temperature at the resort is 10 degrees Fahrenheit.