Reclusive billionaire to reopen Montecito property, details a secret sfgate.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sfgate.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Ty Warner and Thomas Keller team up in Montecito amid controversy sfgate.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sfgate.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Ty Warner, 78, initially closed off the Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore Santa Barbara at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and has yet to announce a reopening date.
“The goal is to cover everybody,” Anticouni told the
Santa Barbara Independent. “If people want to bring their own action, Four Seasons might be confronted with another 150-plus employees who each have their own types of claims. It would be a logistics nightmare for Four Seasons.”
Anticouni plans to go to mediation with the Four Seasons at the end of April to retrieve the money if the hotel agrees to treat the case as a class-action lawsuit.
Typically, a court would determine the demanded fees for roughly a third of what the attorney obtains for a client, but due to the size of the case, Anticouni would accept half the amount, he said.
KEYT Photo
The Biltmore property, pictured here in November 2020, has been closed since last spring.
MONTECITO, Calif. - After shutting down last March when the coronavirus pandemic began, the Four Seasons Biltmore resort in Montecito will remain closed through at least 2022.
It s unclear when the beachside retreat will reopen, even as other Santa Barbara-area hotels prepare for a travel industry rebound this summer.
About 450 Biltmore employees remain furloughed after last March s closure. More than 250 of them are taking legal action against the hotel through local attorney Bruce Anticouni. While a lawsuit has not been filed, Anticouni says that Four Seasons has agreed to mediation on April 30 to attempt to resolve the legal dispute.