Enter the Guilt-Free Zone

Celebrity sightings aren’t new at Rancho La Puerta, but a cooking school is.

By Judith Morgan

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THE WHITE-WALLED dining hall is my favorite place at the Ranch, and not just because of the food. Traditional, wood-beamed ceilings soar two stories above cool terra-cotta tile floors. A balcony is reached by a rustic stair that wraps around a log hearth, which crackles many mornings and evenings. Mexican folk dolls brighten the mantel. High-backed chairs are set at tables topped with orange cloths, small bursts of geraniums and napkins of red, purple and gold.

Breakfast and lunch are buffet-style, with an ever-popular salsa bar. Dinner is served, with open seating, at tables from two to 10. The mostly vegetarian Mexican- Mediterranean menu offers a choice of entrées, including fresh fish four or five times a week, brought from the port in Ensenada. On their last night, guests can now order a glass of fine wine from the vineyards of nearby Valle de Guadalupe.

By good fortune, I sit at a balcony table with Deborah Szekely, vibrant at 85 and just in from a whirlwind of international spa conferences and travels. She reminisces about her early days at the Ranch (“$17.50 a week and bring your own tent”) and at the smaller, pricier Golden Door spa, which she also founded, near Escondido.

I share a celeb-at-a-spa moment from a Couples Week at the Golden Door: In a morning class, a rather bulky fellow with an English accent threw himself on the floor mat beside me and began pulling weights down from a crossbar. Without warning, he let go, the dumbbells crashing near my ears. It turned out to be Keith Moon, the chaotic rock-band drummer for the Who. When I described this scene to another Door guest—a radiation oncologist from Rancho Santa Fe— she seemed impressed. Weeks passed before she admitted that she thought he was a big deal with the World Health Organization.

GUESTS COME to Rancho La Puerta for R&R, for reunions with college friends, for mother-and-daughter getaways, even for second honeymoons. The average age is 50-something. The largest numbers come from New York, followed by the San Francisco Bay area. A majority are repeaters. Because some of the 87 casitas—no two are exactly alike—can sleep as many as four, the Ranch can be full with 125 guests or hit capacity at 160. They are clustered in neighborhoods: Los Arboles, Las Flores, Los Pajaros, meaning trees, flowers, birds. Most mingling, however, occurs in the dining hall, in the lounges of the health and skin-care centers and in a slew of gyms, nestled in pines and live oaks.

Celebrities slip in for physical fine tuning and emotional replenishment— sometimes on their way to collect Hollywood trophies. Their names do not appear on guest lists. Privacy is honored by a mostly Mexican staff, proud of its decades of service.

Actor George Hamilton, who prefers Villa de Luna 7 or 14, is a hands-down favorite. “What a gentleman,” says Manuelita Ching, the Ranch concierge, whose father owned a Chinese restaurant in Tecate and whose mother came from Ecuador.

When the actor arrived one February, it rained for three days. (For the record, the climate is warm and dry, tempered by the proximity of the Pacific. Although winter showers happen, the Ranch boasts more than 340 days of sunshine a year.) “I told him, ‘I am so sorry,’ ” Manuelita remembers. “ ‘What about your tan?’ ” With a dazzling smile, Hamilton said, “Do not worry, Manuelita. I can take care of that.”

Staffers admire Brooke Shields for her long-lashed eye contact at breakfast beside the villa pool and for her thoughtful inquiries—by name—about the wellbeing of their families. Those who have heard Henry Kissinger’s voice echo in the dining hall do not forget it.

Conservative wit and master debater William F. Buckley Jr. has polished more than one book manuscript in the solitude of the Ranch. Author Gail Sheehy pursued interviews here for Passages, her 1974 blockbuster about characteristics of the aging process, and returns often. PBS journalist Bill Moyers and his wife and T.V.-show producer, Judith, enthrall guests with provocative after-dinner talks.