Welcome back! This week is a little more exciting than usual as we are fully opening Onera Wimberley in just a few days!
Exciting, I know. Especially after coming off of the success of our soft launch with friends and family these past weeks.
I would love to have you come experience this property in person, after hearing me talk so much about it these past few months. You can secure your spot at Onera Wimberley here.
This week, we're taking a brief detour from our usual topics of social media and direct bookings to delve into the Onera Wimberley story.
The highs, the lows and everything in between.
The Onera Wimberley Story
I’ve wanted to build a treehouse hotel in Wimberley even before creating Onera Fredericksburg, which opened back in 2021.
Just 45 minutes south of Austin, Wimberley is the ideal location for a landscape hotel with dramatic hill country views, a quaint town square, and renowned natural water features: Cypress Creek, Blue Hole, and Jacob's Well.
When the property on Buttercup Lane hit my Zillow inbox in March 2021, I was 90% sure it was “the one” before even visiting the site.
I had just undergone foot surgery and was still in a walking boot. My wife was 8 months pregnant and her mom was in town helping with the baby shower.
But they had to see this! We had to see this! After a year of searching, this was the site.
After hobbling up a caliche road, there was a small clearing in the hillside, where we could see the priceless views for my next landscape hotel.
Onera Fredericksburg wasn’t even half built yet, but I knew we had to get this Wimberley property locked up to be Onera’s 2nd location.
Then we met the 60-something year old couple who had lived there for decades. Lovely people who cared deeply about the property.
Initially they were just selling 5 acres of their 20 acre tract.
But, the wife mentioned some interest in selling their remaining 15 acres and moving up north to be closer to the grandkids.
Her husband seemed reluctantly on board. He had clearly poured his blood sweat and tears into this beautiful property, and it was hard for him to let go.
Though, he did admit the property was getting hard for him to care for in his elder years.
Ultimately, we agreed on a number, and actually brought our cost per acre way down by buying all 20 instead of just the 5.
On the original 5 acres, I had planned 10 or so units like we did at the original Onera Fredericksburg. All of a sudden we had the option of 20 acres and upwards of 30 units.
I thought there was a non-zero chance I was biting off more than I could chew, but then again, that’s also what I thought when I first built Onera Fredericksburg.
And that worked out extraordinarily well.
This opportunity seemed too perfectly aligned, and I went for it.
I will say, there’s a big leap between a small few million dollar 8 unit property and a 28 key landscape hotel and event space.
Wimberley was also much more challenging than Fredericksburg in terms of getting permits / entitlements.
The project took over a year of planning and $6M in value engineering to land at a viable budget.
Then, at the 5-yard line, the debt crisis hit. Our lender, who had assured us we were good to go for 12 months, suddenly pulled the rug out from underneath us.
All of a sudden, I was scrambling for debt as interest rates were skyrocketing, nearly all the local banks were at allocation, and no one was lending. A nightmare situation.
Ultimately we pulled through, largely with the help of the public REIT Summit who had purchased a majority interest in Onera Fredericksburg by then.
They wanted to acquire a second Onera location, so they helped back our senior bank debt and offered us mezzanine debt, with an option to purchase Onera Wimberley upon completion.
We thought we were done. Good to go! But no…
Turns out, a public company requires quite a bit of legal and compliance hoops to jump through before getting an intercreditor agreement done with the local bank.
After four months, we finally got it done and had our construction loan in hand in January 2023.
We had somehow landed the 747 in the Hudson.
I'm not sure what kept me and the team going, aside from the wondrous beauty of that hillside perched atop Buttercup Lane with the best sunset views in Wimberley.
With the help of our all star GC, our construction has always been on track in terms of time and budget since we broke ground in 2023.
And this week we are all set to share Onera Wimberley with the world!
But even our pre-launch came with its own set of challenges.
Our pre-launch for Onera Wimberley generated more excitement than even we were expecting.
The first influencer collab that went live generated over 1,100,000 views, skyrocketing our account to over 10,000 followers overnight.
Great, right?
Until our booking site crashed from the massive influx of traffic and we were left scrambling to figure out the fix before losing out on countless reservations.
Even after construction was complete, we entered into a whole new world of challenges to overcome.
And here we are, a few days from opening, with millions of pre-launch social media views and ready for the next chapter of the Onera Wimberley story.
Want to be the first to experience Onera Wimberley?
Early availability of both our Greenhouse and Spyglass units is dwindling down.
I wouldn’t recommend waiting too much longer to secure a spot if you want to be one of the first ones to experience these sunsets in person.
I’ll drop the booking link here again to save you some scrolling.
We also have an equally as impressive event center, dare I say the best in the Hill Country? If you happen to be looking for a location for an upcoming event, shoot me a reply.
We look forward to seeing your reaction to our one-of-one resort in person, see you soon!
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See you guys next week!
-Ben
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