Dee Borsella makes pajamas. She draws up patterns, cuts the fabric and sewsher creations right in the back of her Carmel store. People come from all overto purchase her custom bedtime ensembles. She has her regulars from NewYork, LA and even London. But she likes it best when people are walking by andhappen to spy a pretty set in the window. She loves to talk sleepwear. Andthat’s all she would ever talk about, if she had the chance.
But for the past six years, the first thing people say when they step throughthe threshold of Ruffle Me To Sleep is: “What’s with the hole in the ground?” “It’s become …” she pauses mid-thought for a moment as she readies to close,“more than a distraction, a fixture? It’s, ‘What’s going on across the street?What’s going on across the street?’”
The giant hole in the ground, officially known as Ulrika Plaza, is a would-bemixed-use redevelopment project on the corner of 5th and Dolores. Theproject is slated to expand and anchor a busy corridor right off Carmel’s maindrag, Ocean Avenue.
But the plans that have stalled over many years and for many reasons — mostof them having to do with the strict planning, permitting and buildingguidelines set forth by the city of Carmel — are coming to fruition. And thetide has turned in favor of filling in the gaping hole in the center of Carmel,affectionately called “The Pit” by locals.
“It’s been a mess for years, and finally, they’ve approved it,” Baqir Hazin ofCarmel Fine Rugs, also located on Dolores across from The Pit, told SFGATE. “Ihope the building will make things much nicer. Carmel didn’t used to be likethis. A building like this — it will be different.”
Enter a billionaire heir from Monaco
The project proposal, unanimously approved on Aug. 9 by Carmel’s Planning
Commission after three years of back-and-forth with the developer, includes
14 shops with more than 9,000 square feet of retail space, along with a dozen
one- and two-bedroom apartments.
The buildings are designed to adhere to Carmel’s 30-foot height limit and to
the architectural lineage of Carmel, as something of a greatest hits of the
town’s traditional styles. The renderings feature a mishmash of Contemporary
Craftsman, Spanish Colonial Revival and Tudor Revival styles. Final approvals
and permits, along with a groundbreaking date, have not yet been set, but
according to developer Esperanza Carmel’s website, “We are now able to
proceed to the next stage of the planning process.”
For some, it’s a relief that anything is getting close to being built after the
project stalled out as a hole in the ground in 2019 under a previous owner.
“The original developer was a local person, and they had this big plan, and they
weren’t developers so they kind of outdid themselves,” Borsella told SFGATE
from the floor of her showroom on a recent Saturday afternoon. “So right
before COVID, it went kind of bust.”
For others, the development is a harbinger of more to come — more wealth,
more traffic, more exposure — for the town of about 3,100 that, according to
Borsella, is already “completely full on most weekends, all seasons —
weekdays, too.”
For others still, the project’s pending green light is a sign that Carmel has been
discovered by the wealthiest of the wealthy. And the ushering in of this new
era of billionaire control may be the scariest of all.
The force behind the project is a real estate development firm called
Esperanza Carmel. Esperanza is owned by Monaco-born Patrice Pastor, 50,
one of the heirs to a real estate empire started by his great-grandfather Jean-
Baptiste Pastor.
If the Pastor family name rings a bell, it’s because they’ve made international
headlines along the way. In 2014, Patrice’s aunt, Hélène Pastor was gunned
down execution-style in Nice, France. Months earlier, her son Gildo, who,
among other ventures, co-founded an electric car racing team with Leonardo
DiCaprio, had a massive stroke at age 47 that initially left him “partially
paralyzed and initially unable to speak,” according to a 2014 article in Vanity
Fair about Hélène’s murder.
Is Carmel about to get
‘pastorized’?
Pastor made his own headlines as an enemy of Monaco’s Prince Albert II, the
son of Prince Rainier III and Princess Grace, after losing out on several highprofile
contracts with the state.
“Patrice Pastor has been described as the only man in Monaco more influential
than its ruler,” Air Mail, a magazine founded in 2019 by former Vanity Fair editor
Graydon Carter, wrote of the high-profile developer in May. “He is a canny,
outspoken developer with statement glasses and leonine hair, who has long
controlled Monaco’s property market and thus, in essence, most of Monaco
itself.”
In the article, Pastor is characterized by rivals as competitive, wanting “to win
contracts ‘not for the money … but to crush everyone.’ Those who are
converted to his side are ominously said to have been ‘pastorized.’”
Earlier this year, a leaked email between Albert’s advisers, on a website called
“Dossiers du Rocher,” revealed contempt for Pastor in Albert’s inner circle.
Air Mail printed an excerpt from one of the leaked emails regarding Pastor’s
practices: “That octopus Pastor is everywhere! He has gotten his hooks into
Monaco. He has gone mad; he has no limits!”
“For decades, his father, Victor Pastor, was essentially the developer-in-chief
for the entire principality,” Air Mail reported. “But in 2014, the contract for the
gargantuan Esplanade des Pêcheurs development near the waterfront was
awarded to the Caroli group, with Prince Albert’s tacit endorsement. Pastor
immediately launched a legal challenge to the process, but it was this, allege
his opponents, and the loss of several other lucrative contracts, that saw
Pastor begin to mastermind the Dossiers du Rocher as an act of revenge.”
‘I want to make it look like a little
European village’
Carmel shopkeeper Borsella, who used to occupy a storefront in the building
that stood where The Pit now does, said she was evicted in 2017, just before
the initial construction started.
She said she didn’t mind that happening because she was lucky to be able to
find a space across the way. Staring at construction site while the city
wrangled with a scion of an international real estate operation, however, has
not been as pleasant.
“Mr. Pastor claims that he was asked to purchase the property. I can’t say if it’s
true or not, but he did. And he tried to put his own stamp on the thing,”
Borsella said, producing a rendering of the original project, a flat-fronted
modern-style building. “This is what the original project was going to look like.
Many many many many people got very upset. And this was all approved. A lot
of people got upset because it looked so modern. Well, it looks contemporary.
So, then Pastor came and said, ‘I want to make it look like a little European
village.’ And that took a long time for us to get this approval.”
One of the alleged many who took exception to the development’s original
plans is Karyl Hall. As a reaction to the original design, Hall helped start the
Carmel Preservation Association, whose statement of purpose declares,
“‘Modern style architecture’ has been infiltrating our commercial and
residential community to the dismay of most of its citizens. It is incompatible
with the residential ‘Village Forest’ character and charm of Carmel-by-the-
Sea.”
“Oh yes, we started the preservation association because those [original]
plans [for The Pit] had been approved by the planning commission,” Hall told
SFGATE. “I called it the ‘Ice Box’ if that gives you any idea. It was straight lines,
modern, and not fitting in Carmel character at all. It didn’t have any
embellishments or attractiveness. A modern building that could be Anywhere
USA which would be fine in other places but not in Carmel.”
Does that mean Hall approves of Pastor’s current project plans for Ulrika Plaza?
“Absolutely,” she said. “From the start, it was inclusive.”
Hall said Pastor and Esperanza Carmel held a community forum in the spring
of 2020 as soon as they acquired the property and continued to survey
community members until a final plan was settled on. “They listened,” she said.
As a result, she said the citizenry “filled the room” when it came to planning
commission meetings.
“Our movement was to show the planning commission the residents are
behind this and to stop denying it,” she said.
Borsella said she was also able to share her thoughts with the Esperanza
group, namely with Chris Mitchell, managing director of Esperanza Carmel and
Pastor’s right hand in Carmel, because they’ve asked for opinions.
“I’m here and I talk about it every single day. It’s in my face. So, I gave them my
opinion,” she said. “I want something to be done. Some people have misread
my sound bites and think that I don’t want this project, and that’s not true.”
Council members request review
But the overriding concern of Borsella and others is the precedent the Ulrika
Plaza project sets in motion: one of a billionaire “doing what he wants,” she
said.
“The city council — and I was there at that meeting — I was there when they
said we’re going to give him a few concessions,” Borsella explained, noting that
the city council went against the city’s code specifically for the courtyard area
of the project. “One of the concessions is the pathway he wants to build
between this street and the next street. Our code, the code says [the path]
has to be 48 inches wide, he’s keeping it 42 inches. They’re altering our code
for this.”
While Borsella admitted the concession for a pathway running through the
Ulrika Plaza project courtyard may be small in scope and scale, it’s the ability
of Pastor and the Esperanza group to come in and receive exemptions to city
regulations that might be cause for concern. She might not be alone in this line
of thinking. On Aug. 4, the Carmel Pine Cone reported that city
Councilmembers Alissandra Dramov and Karen Ferlito expressed concerns
with Pastor and Esperanza group’s proposal on another redevelopment project
on Dolores Street happening simultaneously with Ulrika Plaza.
The pair of council members called into question a recent “yes” vote by the
town’s Historic Resources Board on the project’s plan to “move a small section
of a decorative concrete wall on the south side of the buildings so he can
construct his mixed-use project, which also calls for apartments, retail space
and underground parking.”
“I would like to request the council’s right to review the recent decision by the
historic resources board to allow the relocation of the concrete wall at the
historic property on Dolores 2SE of Seventh,” both councilmembers wrote in
identical emails sent to Carmel’s mayor Dave Potter on July 27, the Pine Cone
reported.
The newspaper noted that requests like this are unusual because the city
council usually defers to its lower boards and committees.
SFGATE reached out to Dramov and Ferlito to ask about the nature of their
objection to the relocation of the wall on the project at 7th Avenue and
Dolores Street and to ask whether any of their concern extends to other
current Pastor projects, including Ulrika Plaza, but did not hear back by press
time. Carmel City Council is set to review the project at the site of the
Northern California Savings & Loan Complex on Tuesday, Sept. 12.
Carmel Preservation Association co-founder Hall said she recognizes the fact
that Pastor has multiple significant redevelopment projects going on at the
same time in Carmel and admits that his bankroll and influence might be
cause for concern for some.
“If I didn’t know him I’d feel that way, I’d be worried,” she said. “Because I do
know him and know what kind of person he is and what he’s done so far — we
are the luckiest people in the world to have him come in. He cares about
Carmel and cares that Carmel keep its character.
“He has the money to come in and do what nobody else can do.”
‘A blessing to this town’
Dale Byrne, founder, and president of Carmel Cares, a local nonprofit
organization tasked with “keeping Carmel-by-the-Sea a beautiful, safe, and
inviting place through volunteer maintenance and improvement projects” said
he’s also in favor of the Ulrika Plaza project as well as Pastor’s other endeavors
in Carmel. When asked whether he thought that a new era of billionaire
involvement and influence in Carmel is a slippery slope, Byrne said he can see
both sides of the issue.
“Of course, it’s a valid concern,” he told SFGATE. “But Larry Ellison could also
come in here and start buying everything, but he wouldn’t have the passion
and love that Patrice does. This is a long-term investment. He does the same
type of projects in the UK and Monaco — complete restorations from a
historical perspective. He intends to spend a lot of time here down the road.
“Patrice is a blessing to this town.
