“We’re looking for someone to carry the torch,” said longtime Guerneville resident and real estate agent Bob Young, who is co-listing the R3 Hotel.|
If the people who own and operate Guerneville’s R3 Hotel have their way, the party will continue long past their involvement in the iconic resort.
Lazy Bear pool parties, drag shows, celebrity pie throws, Easter bonnet contests: It’s all helped cement the resort’s place at the center of the Russian River’s LGBTQ+ universe.
But after the passing of managing partner Ray Allen five years ago, and the fact that his partner investors are “getting up there in age,” they’ve decided to put the downtown resort, bar and restaurant on the market.
They’re trusting there’s a buyer out there who will extend its legacy.
Guys who came of age when it was still a relatively new thing to live out, loud and proud hope a new generation will take up the mantle and ensure there remains a welcoming place for all.
“We’re looking for someone to carry the torch,” said longtime Guerneville resident and real estate agent Bob Young, who is co-listing the resort with a commercial real estate specialist in San Francisco.
The 23-room resort is listed at $4,564,000 and includes a pool with wide sun decks, a stage and entertainment venue, the restaurant and bar, and a high profile.
It’s a unique property, said Glenn Dixon, trustee of Allen’s estate and chief financial officer for the limited liability corporation that owns R3.
“There are many places ― Fort Lauderdale, P-town (Provincetown, Massachusetts), Fire Island ― where you can get all the same things, but not in one place and not in such a bucolic place as the Russian River,” Dixon said. “It’s unique in itself and it always has been.
“It’s iconic. It’s a legacy. It’s all of those things, and it’s important to keep it for our community. I really believe that.”
The R3 is one of two dozen gay-owned resorts and bars that in the 1980s and ‘90s put the lower river and west Sonoma County on the map as a gathering place for gay and lesbian individuals. Now it is one of just a few surviving enterprises still catering largely to the LGBTQ+ community, though its clientele is now almost 50-50, said Jeff Bridges, general manager and managing partner of the LLC.
It’s the only one with a bar and restaurant, in addition to lodging.
The number of gay-owned businesses “just kept shrinking and shrinking,” said Dixon, who still owns GayRussianRiver.com and ran the Highland Dell Lodge in Monte Rio in the 1980s and ‘90s before shifting into the wine and spirits industry.
The former Russian River Resort was renamed the R3 after Allen, who had sold it in 2004 and then helped buy it out of foreclosure in 2010. It has weathered floods, COVID and Allen’s death, while inventing new ways to bring in patrons.
In the meantime, it’s raised more than a $1 million for local causes and nonprofits through “down-home, funky events” like “celebrity bartender marathon,” “celebrity pie throw” and the Easter bonnet contest. The hokier the better, said Bridges, whose association with the resort goes back to 1990, when he first worked there.
“I’ve always been a firm believer that whatever a legitimate, thriving business in the community can do, it should do,” Bridges said.
The resort even bought a Jaws of Life for the community, at one point.
The resort also is a founding member of Lazy Bear Weekend, now Lazy Bear Week, which last year drew around 5,500 people to the area for a wide range of events around town. Profits go to clinics, schools and food banks, many of the same beneficiaries as R3’s fundraising efforts.
The R3 also helped create Women’s Weekend and Russian River Pride.
“We’re hoping someone steps forward and respects that,” said Young, who long owned the Coffee Bazaar in town and now splits his time between Guerneville and Cape Cod, where he’s a partner in another restaurant bar.
“The R3 is a beacon in this community,” said Bob Frederick, who spent a year as bartender at the Russian River Resort, before hiring on at the Rainbow Cattle Company bar on Main Street, where he’s now part-owner. “We’ve kind of thrived off each other.”
The late Peter Pender is credited with raising the rainbow flag over Guerneville when he bought the 15-acre Murphy’s Guest Ranch on the Russian River in 1977, called it Fife’s Resort and started the disco ball spinning.
“He’s the one that lit the match,” Bridges said.
Many of the old family-style resorts had fallen on hard times and were ripe for reinvestment and reinvention. They proved popular to visitors from San Francisco and beyond.
The R3, built in the 1940s, started life as Hetzel’s motor court and had been closed before it became part of the town’s cultural conversion in the 1980s. It has been gay-owned since, though not always without challenges.
Allen acquired it after owner Rich Wilson died in the mid-90s, Bridges said. A decade later, Allen was preparing to retire to Palm Springs and sold it to a new owner, Scott Mandell, in 2004, who forged through a flood the following year but eventually faced foreclosure.
Bridges, who had worked with Mandell, often visited Allen in Palm Springs, and they decided to get some friends together to buy and refurbish the resort, resulting in the ownership group that now includes 20 partners, mostly silent, Bridges said.
There’s some anxiety around selling it now―in losing control of the resort and its culture. Bridges recalled that when Allen first sold it in 2004, prospective buyers included a couple who wanted to turn it into a senior facility and someone else who wanted to raze it for a parking lot.
“It’s a big turning point,” said Bridges. “I’ve sent the last 34 years of my life at this place, so it’s kind of bittersweet to be honest with you.”
But the partners say they’re not in so big a hurry to unload it that they’ll sell it to just anyone.
People in the gay, lesbian and trans communities, Dixson said, need “a place that they can come and relax and be themselves, whether it's at the bar or staying overnight with us, or coming to the parties during the summer or a drag show or anything.”
“There has to be someone out there looking for this type of an opportunity. I know we can find someone like that.”
You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan (she/her) at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @MaryCallahanB.
