New North California High-End Addiction Treatment Venture

by Greg Gibson January 1, 2014

Addiction Treatment Industry Newswire

01/01/2014 -ATIN – In a big story on the high-end to kick off the New Year, one of the most successful California pioneers of the contemporary luxury treatment market is re-entering the addictions business with a hotel conversion play in Sonoma County north of San Francisco. As the founder of Bayside Marin – a center that was among the very first to bring the unique-to-California Malibu Six-Bed Model north to the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area – Perry Litchfield is trying to make lightening strike twice, his new venture being at an idyllic hotel in the Bodega Harbor resort area.

Case Study

After having sold Bayside Marin in 2007 to the then highly acquisitive CRC Health Corp in a brilliant quick in-and-out – a case study in the high-end, we believe, of a well executed business plan followed by an equally well executed and planned exit and realization on investment – Litchfield waited out the typical five-year non-compete and has now formally applied to local planning authorities for a ruling that would allow for operation of a 32-bed addiction treatment facility. Of course, NIMBY has reared its head in the form of an objection and an appeal by a couple of area residents seeking to block approval of Litchfield’s plans. Litchfield told the local press he does not anticipate the appeal will be successful and hopes to have the new center open by summer, but he admits that could be an optimistic schedule given the uncertainties surrounding official approval processes and time required for acquisition of state licensure.

Foreclosure Acquisition

An attorney with a practice focus in mediation, a fast growing sector of the legal profession that seeks to bypass expensive courtroom battles, Litchfield even before the founding of Bayside Marin in 2004 was acquiring expertise in real estate management and speculation in Marin County, a tony enclave across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco anchored by the famously scenic town of Sausalito, where significant competition in the high-end treatment business emerged several years after Litchfield founded Bayside. Like so many cash-rich treatment players, Litchfield took advantage of a real estate market in taters to acquire a distressed property inexpensively. He bought the Sonoma Coast Villa & Spa, a boutique 18-room resort on an expansive 60-acres in literally one of the most scenic marine areas to be found anywhere. The purchase was done three years ago in foreclosure and since Litchfield has operated the property in an agreement in which the sellers continued to manage the high-end resort.