Sonnenblick-Eichner Company has arranged a $115 million first mortgage refinancing for a newly opened luxury waterfront hotel in Santa Cruz on behalf of Ensemble Investments, LLC. The non-recourse loan was originated by Madison Realty Capital, which structured the financing in collaboration with Newbond Holdings.
The refinancing is secured by La Bahia Hotel & Spa, a 155-key luxury resort property that opened in September 2025. Positioned along the Santa Cruz waterfront, the hotel is described as delivering a full complement of upscale resort amenities designed to serve both leisure and business travelers.
The new loan carries a five-year term and is structured on a floating-rate basis. As a first mortgage, the financing sits in a senior position in the hotel’s capital stack, providing long-term debt capital soon after the property’s opening.
According to Sonnenblick-Eichner principal David Sonnenblick, La Bahia Hotel & Spa benefits from a combination of unique positioning on the Santa Cruz waterfront and a limited pipeline of comparable luxury hotel inventory in Santa Cruz County. He noted that this scarcity of similar high-end hospitality offerings in the area creates a distinct competitive advantage for the property.
Sonnenblick highlighted that Madison Realty Capital, described as a seasoned hospitality lender, and Newbond Holdings were attracted to the hotel’s irreplaceable beachfront location and the substantial barriers to entry for new luxury supply in the immediate market. He added that the lending group sees potential for La Bahia to rank among the most successful beachfront hotels in Northern California.
The refinancing of La Bahia Hotel & Spa follows another recent transaction involving the same parties. Sonnenblick-Eichner, Madison Realty Capital and Newbond Holdings also recently completed a $110 million refinancing of Hotel Nia, a 250-room, full-service luxury property located in nearby Menlo Park. Taken together, the two transactions underscore continued availability of debt capital for well-positioned, upscale hospitality assets in select Northern California markets.
The La Bahia refinancing provides Ensemble Investments with long-term senior financing shortly after opening the resort, while lenders gain exposure to a newly built luxury beachfront property in a market characterized by high barriers to new development and limited direct competition in the upper-tier hospitality segment.
