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Those Who Cruise the Country in Million-dollar Motorcoaches Will Have Country Club
Near Palm Springs to Call Home
By John Waters Jr., The Business Press, Ontario, Calif.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News 

Jul. 1--Rancho Heights LLC broke ground June 24 in the city of Coachella on the valley's newest country club, called The Vineyards. Instead of condominiums, The Vineyards will have 512 pads for luxury motorcoaches. 

Each basic pad includes a "casita," or small house, with a bath, bedroom and office and a garage large enough for one car and a golf cart, said Walter Luce, managing member of Rancho Heights LLC, the company that owns The Vineyards. 

Some floor plans include a fireplace, pool or spa, full kitchen, tile floors and granite counter tops. Some even permit motorcoach owners to add an outdoor room. 

People who cruise the country in million-dollar motorcoaches like to think of themselves as living a vagabond lifestyle, said Luce, who described The Vineyards as "a gated country club community for the discerning vagabond." 

"Motor homes began years ago with the small trailer home you'd drag around behind your pickup truck," Luce said. "When you needed a bigger trailer, you got a bigger truck. As the trucks got bigger, the trailers got bigger. Now, people are buying buses." 

Before building the country club in Coachella for transient baby boomers, Luce and his associates toured the rest of the valley to prove what they already sensed: Many of the valley's RV resort had little room for really large motorcoaches -- meanwhile, the number of large coaches continued to grow. 

"When we began planning for this project two years ago, our research indicated that the market for the high-end motorcoach facility was virtually untapped," said Jim Jamosic, project manager for The Vineyards. "We had an opportunity to take the local market up a notch from what was available at other parks around the valley." 

RV resorts along Ramon Road, Date Palm Drive and Highway 111 are completely full all of the time," Luce said. 

"People were paying to park their motorcoaches at parks and then purchasing a condo so they could be near their coaches," he said. 

The Vineyard's developers found a property in Coachella ideally suited to their plans conveniently located near 25,000 square feet of maintenance space at the newly built Love's Truck stop. 

"The land was [located] right, too," Luce said. "The west valley is getting so congested and building has moved up the mountains, and that makes the east valley the place to be." 

The 9-hole golf course, a par 35 designed by Peerless Golf Inc., is about 3,000 yards long. Four large lakes, which include two fishing piers, are connected by streams. 

Like the pads, the golf course is owned by the residents. The Vineyards is not a timeshare or a members club, Luce said. It is built to accommodate buslike motorcoaches that can cost more than $1 million," Luce said. 

"These motorcoaches are not like the ones you used to drag behind a pickup. They can cost $500,000 and up," Luce said. "Whoopi Goldberg has one and golfer John Daly has one that cost him $1.3 million, Luce said. "They come with big screen TVs, satellite dishes and are wired for computers and have telescoping sides that make them huge when they pull up and park." 

Prices for pads at The Vineyards start at $199,900 and top out at $350,000 for golf course lots. Construction of the park should be complete by October or November, Luce said. A number of lots have been presold. 

-----To see more of The Business Press, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.thebizpress.com 

(c) 2002, The Business Press, Ontario, Calif. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News. 


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