Braemar Agrees To Sell Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort & Spa

Monty Bennett’s hospitality network is preparing to sell a Colorado resort, notching another sale in the company’s liquidation plan.

Dallas-based Braemar Hotels and Resorts, a creation of Bennett’s Ashford Hospitality Trust, has agreed to sell the 193-room Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort & Spa in Beaver Creek, Colorado, to Apres Owner LLC for $176 million, the Dallas Business Journal reported. The price amounts to about $912,000 per key, and the sale includes a $6.5 million non-refundable deposit, according to an April 30 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Bennett founded Ashford Hospitality Trust in 1968. The company allocated its luxury properties to Braemar, formerly known as Ashford Hospitality Prime, as a spinoff real estate investment trust in 2013, the publication reported. Bennett is chairman of the board for Braemar, as well as chairman and CEO for Ashford Incorporated, a separate company that advises both Braemar and AHT.

Braemar put its 14-property portfolio up for sale last August. It announced in April that it plans to sell six hotels soon to pay down mortgage debt, including the Embassy Suites by Hilton near the Galleria in Dallas, according to the outlet.

Ashford also recently sold the Hilton St. Petersburg Bayfront and the Hilton Palm Beach Gardens PGA Boulevard in Florida, La Posada de Santa Fe in New Mexico and the Hilton Alexandria Old Town in Virginia, generating $252.5 million, the publication reported. Ashford sold at least one of these properties at a loss: It bought the Hilton Alexandria Old Town for $111 million from Lodging Property Trust in 2018 and sold it back to the same company this spring for $58 million.

Braemar reported $93.4 million in cash and cash equivalents, $55.4 million in restricted cash, $1.8 billion in total assets and $1.1 billion in loan debt this week.

Ashford has been shopping for properties as well. It offered $32 million for the former CPS Energy Headquarters in San Antonio last summer, intending to turn the distressed building into an Autograph Collection Hotel.

-Isaiah Mitchell