The resort was founded in the early 1960s when a real estate developer, Irwin Molasky, from Las Vegas discovered an equestrian ranch in the coastal foothills of Southern California. Originally conceived as a residential resort offering activities and instruction for all ages, the 40 units were available to guests for $22 per night which included green fees, as well as access to tennis, horse stables and the pool.
Professional golf
La Costa served as a home to two notable PGA Tour events. For thirty years, the resort hosted the Mercedes Championships, from 1969 to 1998. That event left for Maui, Hawaii, when La Costa was selected to host the inaugural WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in 1999. It hosted that event for seven of eight years, until it moved to Arizona in 2007. In 2010 and 2012, the resort hosted the Kia Classic, an LPGA tour event with an estimated attendance of 43,000 in 2010.
Lawsuit over La Costa Resort & Spa article
In March 1975, Penthouse published an article headlined "La Costa: The Hundred-Million-Dollar Resort with Criminal Clientele," written by Jeff Gerth and Lowell Bergman. The article indicated that the La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad was developed by Mervyn Adelson and Irwin Molasky using loans from the TeamstersPension Fund and that the resort was a playground for organized crime figures. The owners, along with two officials of the resort, Morris B. "Moe" Dalitz and Allard Roen, filed a libel lawsuit for $522 million against the magazine and the writers. In 1982, a jury absolved the magazine of any liability against the lawsuit from the owners. The plaintiffs appealed, but in December 1985, before a new trial could begin, the two sides settled. Penthouse issued a statement that they did not mean to imply that Adelson and Molaskey are or were members of organized crime. In turn the plaintiffs issued a statement lauding Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione and his magazine for their "personal and professional awards." Total litigation costs were estimated to exceed $20 million. According to the San Diego Reader, Merv Adelson finally admitted to mob ties in an interview published in the March 2013 issue of Vanity Fair magazine.
Connection to other controversies
On May 8, 2007, WXYZ-TV in Detroit, Michigan, reported that now convicted and deposed mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick used $8,600 from a fund created for voter education, economic empowerment, and crime prevention, to take his family and a babysitter on a week-long vacation to the La Costa Resort and Spa. Tax and accounting experts found Kilpatrick's use of the fund also violated IRS regulations.
