Oprah Winfrey, Madonna, Kate Winslet, Jane Fonda and Bill Moyers have all stayed at the famous hotel. Rancho La Puerta health resort and spa, an exquisite collection of mountainside lodges, pavilions, pools and gardens on 4,000 acres in Baja California, Mexico.
But the property’s biggest star is Deborah Shkely, who founded the ranch with her husband in 1940 and now, at 102, is the embodiment of everything the property strives to provide: health, longevity and peace of mind.
“The morning I turned 100, I was lying in bed thinking, ‘Yeah, I’m 100. What’s changed?’ I couldn’t think of anything,” Szekely says. Luck, recently sat for an interview in her hotel room in New York, where she had flown from her home in San Diego to speak at two different wellness conferences. “I’ve had a wonderful life, and when it ends, it ends. But I like it,” she says. “I really, really don’t take on worries that I can’t do anything about. Otherwise I would be an old woman! But where I can do something, I do something.”
The Brooklyn native has accomplished a dizzying amount of things in her life, including opening and operating Rancho La Puerta and golden door, a luxury Japanese spa resort in San Diego (which she sold in 1998). At 60, she ran for Congress and was president Inter-American Fund; at the age of 80 she fulfilled a long-time dream and founded New Americans Museum and Immigration Learning Center in San Diego.
All are extensions of her formative years, rooted in the values of healthy living, vegetarianism and sustainability promoted by her mother, a Jewish Austrian immigrant and “health nut” who was a nurse and vice president of the New York Vegetarian Society. who put her family on a fruit diet. In 1934, she made a bold decision that would change their lives forever.
“It was the Depression. And my father was very depressed,” recalls Shkeli, née Scheinman, who was 12 years old when her mother caught him looking at his life insurance policy and feared he would commit suicide.
“My mom came to dinner one day and said, ‘We’re leaving in 16 days.’ And my brother and I and my father looked at her and my father said, “Where to?” “Tahiti”. And we asked, “Where is it?” and she said, “I don’t know. But here are the tickets.” She chose the location for the fresh air and fresh fruit—both of which were in short supply in New York during the Great Depression—and soon they all boarded a steamship and spent several weeks traveling by sea to their new place. house.
“And from then on we had a different life,” says the centenarian, adding that she remembers “a lot” of the few years they spent in Tahiti, living a rustic lifestyle in a grass hut, and that she still “ She thinks in French most of the time” due to the fact that she was in school at the time.
There, the family met another health-conscious man: Edmond Shkeli, also known as “The Professor,” a Romanian immigrant and aspiring health guru known for his writings and lectures on philosophy and ancient religions, exercise and the value of fresh, organic vegetables. Eventually they all returned to the US and Deborah’s family attended his summer “health camps”. It was then that Deborah decided to work for him and she and Edmond fell in love. They got married when he was 34 and she was only 17.
“I did it to get away,” she explains. “He was the head of the British International Society for Health and Education and was going to England. And I thought: “I’ll go to England, and if it works out, good.” If not, I’m free. I can go to France. And it worked. That’s why I stayed.”
Founding of Rancho La Puerta
The new couple, looking for a place to start a health camp together, found their way to Baja, partly so Edmond could get around the fact that he did not have immigration papers allowing him to remain in the United States. There they settled. on a huge plot of land at the foot of Mount Kuchumaa, wrote to friends with invitations to come and stay on this land.
“For $17.50 a week,” she says, “you could bring your own tent.” She added that this happened because “my husband was well known.”
They built their own permanent tents, soon replaced by huts built from discarded army packing crates, and then added vegetable gardens, exercise classes, a canteen with mostly raw vegan food (today the menu is pescatarian), and a printing press for Edmond’s books. . Advertisements in Los Angeles attracted Hollywood audiences, as did “The Golden Door,” which Deborah created in 1958 after visiting Japan a dozen times in one year for inspiration.
The couple had two children and today the resort is run by her daughter Sarah Livia Brightwood, who has planted thousands of trees on the property.
“She’s the boss,” Deborah says. “She makes the decisions… I don’t interfere.” (One of her grandchildren is professional surfer– is on the board; the other is a recent graduate of the University of Southern California with honors.)
Today, Rancho La Puerta, which she calls “the ranch,” is a “small town” with 400 employees. It charges guests $5,100 and up per person for weekly packages and is replete with 20 full-time fitness instructors, 11 gyms, a cooking school, an organic farm, three spas, programs including group hikes and workshops, and peaceful nature trails for a stroll, and there wasn’t a single golf cart in sight. Of the 10,000 acres, only about 300 are actively used by guests, part of a conscious effort to minimize the footprint.
“We’re not growing,” says Deborah. “We are smaller than we were by design.”
Deborah comes to the hotel three days a week and still holds weekly question-and-answer sessions with her guests in the always-packed house, often answering questions about how she managed to live such a long and healthy life. People want to know what kind of water she drinks (a question that makes her laugh) and what her skin care routine is, to which she replies, “Soap and water.” How she tells it Luck, “These are not my classes. The fact that I don’t worry is more important than water. I’ve really accepted what I can and can’t do.”
But really: what is her secret?
Her healthy lifestyle, including never eating red meat and still walking a mile a day even after breaking her hip twice (she now uses a wheeled walker), has certainly been a contributing factor to her longevity . But Deborah knows there’s more: Her father lived to 81, and her mother died of cancer when she was 60. Edmond died at age 70 (after they separated), although due to his refusal to undergo surgery for an umbilical hernia. “He died of a strangulated hernia as soon as he got to the hospital,” she says. She outlived her brother. And then came the biggest loss of her life: the death of her son (which she refuses to go into detail about).
But when it comes to the fact that I’ve outlived so many people, Deborah says, “I don’t think about it. You just accept.”
She tends to have much younger friends, which helps. “I’ve always had younger friends because of the conversations, the theater, the plays we go to, the activities we do, you know? They are over 40,” she says. “It’s fun.”
Her advice to those striving for longevity is to keep the body and mind active and to read widely, as she does, favoring ninth-century Japanese mysteries. “I like Buddhism,” she says. “I call myself a Jewish Zen Buddhist.”
But an active mind, according to Deborah, does not include thinking.
“The thing is, I don’t allow negative thoughts. We are in control of the situation. And we can say, “I don’t want to go there.” Just don’t go. I don’t,” she says. “I mean, the world is a terrible place and terrible things happen in it all the time… But I’m trying to help as many people as possible live healthier lives.”
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