You will wake up at 5:30 in the morning and stretch for 30 minutes. You’ll eat something vegan and organic for breakfast followed by an hour-long hike where you’ll hear words like ‘vertical’. If you need a snack, you’ll get six almonds. Not seven — don’t be gluttonous.
In the afternoon, you will take a cold plunge, immersing yourself in water cooled to 55 degrees. The throbbing in your body isn’t a hangover — there’s no alcohol involved — it’s from the 10 miles you hiked yesterday, or it could be the 12 you hiked the day before. Or maybe it’s the 1,400 calories a day. For all this, you will pay thousands of dollars.
This is luxury wellness in 2024. Some destination spas and high-end retreats look more like Navy SEAL prep — or at least basic training — than five-star resorts.
The flagship of this group is the Ranch, 200 acres of nature and trails in the Santa Monica Mountains of Malibu, California. For 14 years, the Ranch has been helping 25 people at a time to soothe, detox and generally get rid of life’s anxieties.
“It’s like no other place,” said Gillian Steel, 69, who sits on the board of the New-York Historical Society and has been to the Ranch nine times. The Ranch, he said, “is not just a one-week experience. They manage to both be stylish while pushing you. You meet the most interesting people and have a week to yourself at the same time.”
In late April, the Ranch will open a second property, this time in New York’s Hudson Valley.
“For years, our guests have been saying, ‘Please open something on the East Coast,'” said Susan Glascock, who owns the Ranch with her husband, Alex, both 60 years old.
They eventually found a lakeside estate on 200 acres of woods and trails lined by state parks near the New Jersey border in Sloatsburg, New York. 1902 by JP Morgan. (It was a wedding present to his daughter and his new son-in-law, Alexander Hamilton’s great-grandson, and she later belonged to an order of nuns.)
“It’s an hour from Manhattan, which is crazy to me,” Ms. Glasscock said.
At the mountains
I met the Glasscocks for lunch at their Malibu Ranch home. In the foreground, three bowls of hot cabbage soup, with crunchy cabbage and microgreens. In the distance was the entire Santa Monica mountain range, and just beyond, a glistening line of the Pacific Ocean. It was hard not to feel healthier, calmer and more grounded just being there.
“We don’t think of ourselves as a spa – we never have,” Mr Glasscock said. “To be honest, I don’t like the word wellness.” Before opening the Ranch, the couple bought and renovated houses and designed gardens.
The natural world – both in Southern California and the Hudson Valley – is the most important amenity at the Ranch. “Nothing we do is modern,” Ms Glasscock said. “The thing is, you’re in nature. Eat food from the garden, drink more water, sleep more, take time away from your devices. And you play.”
Play, he said, is a proven aid to longevity and something adults don’t do enough of. At the new location, a hill in the backyard will give visitors the opportunity to sled in the winter. “The Ranch is basically like a camp for adults,” he said.
But adult camp doesn’t come cheap. Ranch Malibu has a six-night, seven-day minimum and can cost upwards of $9,000 per week, depending on the package. A stay at Hudson Valley Ranch will range from $2,575 per person (three nights, double occupancy, low season) to $6,900 per person (four nights, single occupancy, high season). With high prices comes exclusivity.
“It’s difficult,” Mr Glascock said. Part of the push to open in the Hudson Valley, he said, was to give people the option of coming for three days. “Obviously, this keeps costs down and still gives people time to reconnect with nature.”
From weight loss to longevity
As wellness has become mainstream, places like the Ranch have been instrumental in redefining destination spas.
“In the US for the past 10 or 20 years, destination spas have focused on weight loss and correcting bad habits such as alcohol, coffee, smoking and excessive consumption of meat and sugar,” said Linda Wells, the magazine’s founding editor. Allure and editor of Air Mail Look, a beauty and wellness newsletter (to which I have contributed). “But the experience boiled down to being weighed and measured on Day 1 and again on departure day, with a report card of pounds and inches lost at the end. Weight loss and flat abs were the goal, not health – and certainly not longevity.”
But wellness has evolved. Even in light of the recent controversy, one of the most popular podcasts on Spotify is still “Huberman Lab,” in which a Stanford University neurobiologist discusses cold exposure, sleep hygiene, and circadian rhythms. And a growing number of spas offer a range of high-tech programs, often medicalized.
Other expensive destination spas also take the boot camp approach. There’s Golden Door in California, Mii Amo in Arizona, and Miraval and Canyon Ranch, which both have quite a few outposts. All these combine spa treatments, exercise programs, special diets and the promise of a return to a healthier lifestyle. But the Ranch is unique in its simplicity. There are vegan cooking classes, energy healing sessions and infrared saunas, but don’t expect Botox or fillers.
“I’m not against these things,” said Mrs Glascock. “It’s just not in our ethos.”
The Ranch is also extremely luxurious and intentionally communal. Arrival and departure dates are set according to weekly packages, so guests see the same faces for a week. Activities — including day hikes — are done in groups. And there is only one dining table, so you eat all meals with the rest of the guests.
“I was expecting meditation, keep your head down, keep to yourself, but it’s not that at all,” said Jillian Spaak, a real estate investment manager who lives in Southern California and first went to the Ranch 10 years ago when she was to get a divorce. “You communicate with other people, you hike together and you all eat meals at the same table. You go through peaks and valleys — literally — and you’re all there for the same reason: to feel better, look better, be better. “
“We want to take what we think are the important aspects of health, wellness and longevity and immerse everyone in them for a week or three days,” Ms Glasscock said. “Most people want a silver bullet, but there is no such thing.”
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