This time around, they won’t need a liquor license.
The owners of The Ruse, a posh bed-and-breakfast in Healdsburg, tried repeatedly to turn it into a private recreation park and swim club, with pickleball, bocce, a vast putting green and outdoor pavilion with a bar area and lounge serving beer, wine and spirits.
When a Healdsburg official nixed those plans in September 2022, noting they did not comply with zoning laws, the owners appealed to the Planning Commission.
And lost, 6-0.
Now those owners, including brothers Jonathan and Patrick Wilhelm, whose family built the luxury Mayacama Golf Club, are back with a new plan for the property.
At its meeting Tuesday, the Healdsburg Planning Commission will consider The Ruse’s application for a conditional use permit “to a allow a 13-bed substance abuse treatment facility” at the same site, 891 Grove St.
Staff have recommended approval of that permit.
The proposal submitted to Healdsburg by The Ruse Treatment, LLC, explained that the facility will target an “elite clientele” comprised of “affluent male and female professionals, offering a discreet, personalized recovery experience in a serene resort style estate.”
The “non-12-step, holistic program” will offer private suites and “gourmet dining” while integrating “evidence-based therapies like CBT and EMDR” — cognitive behavioral therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing – “with extensive one-on-one counseling and holistic practices such as yoga, meditation and acupuncture.”
Clients can receive “medically supervised detox, dual-diagnosis care, and customized aftercare,” along with golf therapy, “a unique experiential offering” using that sport “to promote mindfulness, stress relief, and peer connection, blending physical activity with therapeutic reflection to support sobriety,” according to the proposal.
Having placed his mother “in several different facilities for addiction treatment,” said Patrick Wilhelm in a text, “where some were more successful than others, I realize how great of an asset this will be for our Healdsburg community.”
Asked if The Ruse Treatment, LLC, could be profitable, with its relatively small number of beds, he replied, “Profit and loss is never a question on the beginning of a project, the WHY is the most important. The WHY is all we care about.”
In 2020, an ownership group including the Wilhelm brothers and longtime Silicon Valley executive Craig Ramsey bought the Honor Mansion, as it had long been known, for $5 million, then spent an additional $14 million on renovations.
The Ruse soon unveiled ambitious plans to transform that sleepy bed-and-breakfast into what critics described as a private club that intended to serve hard alcohol and host large events.
But those plans came to naught. Yes, the city does allow “private parks and recreational swim clubs” in residential areas, Healdsburg Community Development Director Scott Duiven informed Wilhelm in a Sept. 16, 2022 email.
The Ruse, however, “is more accurately characterized” as a “private club, fraternal lodge and meeting hall,” which is not permitted in a residential area, Duiven wrote.
For that and other reasons, he rejected the company’s application for a conditional use permit.
In its latest, proposed incarnation, The Ruse Treatment general manager Keith Greenberg informed Healdsburg city officials, the facility will be a high-end care destination comparable to such luxury rehab centers as Cliffside Malibu, and Seasons in Malibu.
A 30-day program at those facilities can cost up to $80,000 — or more, if you insist on a suite. Both take insurance.
Greenberg did not reply to an email or text asking if The Ruse Treatment will accept insurance.
Some of The Ruse’s neighbors are alarmed and put off by the proposed facility’s emphasis on luxury and the affluence of its “elite clientele.”
Jasmin Pringle, who lives near The Ruse, has been clean and sober for nearly four years. Now 47, she said, she’s been in and out of rehab “since I was 17.”
While she celebrates “anyone who’s getting their life together, removing themselves from a life addiction,” she questions The Ruse Treatment’s “posh, non-12-step” approach.
“It’s so important in early recovery to abandon the entitlement we live in when we’re in our addiction,” she said.
Early recovery is “a humbling process that comes with doing the work that’s required, admitting our addiction and powerlessness over our disease.”
That process is not about “being catered to,” she said.
According to Greenberg’s LinkedIn profile, he is CEO of Angels Light Addiction Specialists, formed in 2019.
In 2015, a federal judge in the Southern District of Florida held Greenberg in contempt of court, and ordered him to prison for his failure to “comply” with a 2002 judgment against him and in favor of the Securities and Exchange Commission, in the amount of $5,915,346.
That judgment was imposed after the court found that Greenberg had violated the Securities Act and Securities Exchange Act by failing to disclose a prior conviction to a company he had co-founded, U.S. Diagnostics.
By 2010, said the court document, “Greenberg had paid nothing,” despite living an “extravagant lifestyle.” In 2013, the SEC moved to have him held in contempt of court.
It’s not clear what that prior conviction was for. While Greenberg did not respond to a list of questions from The Press Democrat, he told the Pennsylvania New Castle News in August 2024 that the conviction was for “a non-violent mistake he made when he was 28,” which has “followed him all of his life.”
Asked if Greenberg’s past troubles with the law might harm The Ruse Treatment’s chances of securing its permit in Healdsburg, Duiven, the development director, explained in an email that “The City’s review is focused on the application and not the applicant. In this case, the application is for a Conditional Use Permit which runs with the land, not the operator. Meaning that, if a CUP is granted it would stay with the property even if the operator changes in the future.”
It’s not clear what will happen at Tuesday’s meeting of the Planning Commission.
The commissioners could approve the application outright. They could offer approval, subject to The Ruse meeting certain conditions.
The hearing could be continued, or the application could be rejected outright.
Should that happen, The Ruse could appeal the commission’s decision to Healdsburg’s City Council. Because that possibility exists, all five council members declined to comment for this story.
Council Member Ariel Kelley, who lives close to The Ruse, added that she would recuse herself, in case of an appeal, to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.
You can reach Staff Writer Austin Murphy at austin.murphy@pressdemocrat.com or on Twitter @ausmurph88.