I wake up at 5:30am and stretch for 30 minutes. We eat something vegan and organic for breakfast, followed by an hour-long hike where we hear words like “verticality.” If he needs a snack, he can get 6 almonds. Not seven. Don’t eat too much.
In the afternoon, soak your body in water chilled to 55 degrees to cool yourself down. The throbbing sound in your body is not a hangover. There is no effect of alcohol. It could be because you hiked 10 miles yesterday, or it could be because you hiked 12 miles the day before. Or maybe it’s because of your daily allotment of 1,400 calories. For all this you will pay thousands of dollars.
This is luxury wellness in 2024. Some destination spas and luxury resorts are closer to Navy SEAL preparation, or at least basic training, than a five-star resort.
The group’s standard-bearer is the ranch, a 200-acre wilderness and trail in the Santa Monica Mountains in Malibu, California. The ranch has been with him for 14 years and at one time he has helped 25 people de-stress, detox, and eliminate general insomnia. Anxiety in life.
“It’s unlike any other place,” said Gillian Steele, 69, who serves on the board of the New York Historical Society and has visited the ranch nine times. She says the ranch is “more than just a one-week experience. It’s stylish and pushes you. You get to meet some of the most interesting people and get your own girlfriend week at the same time.”
In late April, Ranch will open a second location, this time in New York’s Hudson Valley.
“For years, our guests have been saying, ‘We want something to open on the East Coast,'” said Sue Glascock, who owns the ranch with her husband, Alex, both 60. . “We’ve been working on this idea for a long time.”
They eventually found a lakefront mansion on 200 acres of woods and trails adjacent to a state park in the town of Sloatsburg, New York, near the New Jersey border. The house is a 40,000-square-foot stone mansion formerly known as the Table Rock Mansion, founded by J.P. Morgan in 1902. (It was a wedding gift to his daughter and his new son-in-law, great-grandson of Alexander Hamilton, and later became the property of the nuns.)
“It’s an hour from Manhattan, so it’s just incredible to me,” Glasscock said.
to the mountain
I met the Glasscox family for lunch at their home in Ranch Malibu. In front of him are his three bowls of warm cabbage soup topped with crunchy kale and microgreens. In the background was the entire Santa Monica Mountains, with the Pacific Ocean glistening just beyond. I couldn’t help but feel healthier, calmer, and more sustainable just by being there.
“We don’t think of ourselves as a spa. We never have,” Glasscock said. “To be honest, I don’t like the word wellness.” Before opening the ranch, the couple bought and renovated a house and designed a garden.
The natural world of both Southern California and the Hudson Valley is the ranch’s most important amenity. “What we do is not trendy,” Glasscock said. “The key is being in nature. Eating food from your garden, drinking more water, getting more sleep, taking time away from your devices. And you’re playing. .”
She said play has been proven to help people live longer and is something adults don’t do enough of. The new location offers sledding in the winter on a hill in the backyard. “The ranch is basically like a camp for adults,” she said.
But adult camping isn’t cheap. Lunch Malibu is a minimum of 6 nights and 7 days, and depending on the package he can cost more than $9,000 per week. Room rates at Ranch Hudson Valley range from $2,575 per person (3 nights, double occupancy, low season) to $6,900 per person (4 nights, single occupancy, high season). With high prices comes exclusivity.
“It’s tough,” Glasscock said. He said part of the impetus for opening in the Hudson Valley was to give people the option of coming for three days. “Obviously this reduces costs, but it still gives people time to reconnect with nature.”
From weight loss to longevity
As wellness becomes more mainstream, places like Ranch are playing a pivotal role in redefining destination spas.
“For the past 10 to 20 years, spas in the United States have focused on weight loss and correcting bad habits such as alcohol, coffee, smoking, and eating too much meat and sugar,” said the founding editor of Allure magazine. Linda Wells says. She is the editor of Air Mail Look, a beauty and health newsletter (to which I also contributed). “But that experience boiled down to weighing in on the first day and the day of departure and receiving a report card at the end saying I had lost pounds and inches. Weight loss and flat abs were the goal, not health. And obviously not long-lived.”
But wellness has evolved. Even in light of recent controversies, one of his most popular podcasts on Spotify remains “Huberman Lab.” On this show, neurobiologists from Stanford University discuss cold exposure, sleep hygiene, and circadian rhythms. And more and more spas are offering a host of high-tech, medicalized programs.
Other expensive destination spas have also adopted a bootcamp approach. There’s Golden Door in California, Mii Amo in Arizona, and Miraval and Canyon Ranch, both of which have several outposts. These all combine spa treatments, exercise programs, special diets, and the promise of a reset to a healthier lifestyle. But Ranch is unique in its simplicity. There are vegan cooking classes, energy healing sessions, infrared saunas, and more, but don’t expect Botox or filler injections.
“I’m not against those things,” Ms. Glasscock said. “It’s just not in our spirit.”
The ranch is also very luxurious and intentionally communal. Arrival and departure dates are set based on weekly packages, so guests see the same faces all week. Activities, including daily hikes, are done in groups. There is only one dining table, so all meals will be eaten with other guests.
“I was expecting to bow my head and meditate, and that was not the case at all,” said the director of a real estate investment company who lives in Southern California and started his first ranch 10 years ago. said visitor Gillian Spark. to get divorced. “We communicate with other people, we hike together, we eat at the same table. We literally go through the peaks and valleys, but for the same reason: to feel good, look good, and want to be better. So there you are.”
“We’re covering important aspects of health, wellness and longevity, and we want everyone to be immersed in all of that for a week or three days,” Glasscock said. “Most people want a silver bullet, but there is no such thing.”
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