The 57-room Colony Palms Hotel in Palm Springs, a prominent hotel with an interesting history of mobsters and Hollywood stars, has been sold for $15 million, according to a statement.
The hotel was acquired by real estate developer Michael Rosenfeld and his Woodridge Capital Partners in a joint venture with an affiliate of Oaktree Capital Management, according to a company statement.
The seller was Pacifica Colony Palms, which bought the property in 2004 and spent $15 million updating it. It became part of the new tourism strategy to attract visitors to the desert resort city.
Britten Shuford of Pacifica Capital Group said they were able to operate under a cost structure that added up to profitability and did it in "a very short period of time," according to the statement.
Colony Palms Hotel was a popular getaway for such famous movie stars like Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, Carol Lombard, Kirk Douglas, Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Howard Hughes and even Ronald Reagan.
The hotel remained a celebrity magnet under later owners including actress Amanda Leeds Howard and boxing champion Jack Dempsey
It was built in 1936 by Al Wertheimer, a reputed member of Detroit's Purple Gang, which specialized in bootlegging and other criminal pursuits.
The Colonial House, as the hotel was then called, had an underground speak-easy and a brothel reached via a secret staircase behind a pantry cupboard.
