Posh Healdsburg B&B wants to convert to ultra-luxury detox center – The Press Democrat
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High-end Healdsburg B&B wants to convert to…
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Posh Healdsburg bed-and-breakfast seeks to rebrand as substance abuse center for ‘elite clientele’
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The Ruse bed-and-breakfast in Healdsburg. Photo taken Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2022. (Kent Porter / The Press Democrat file)
By Austin Murphy | [email protected] | The Press DemocratUPDATED: September 21, 2025 at 12:22 PM PDTThis time around, they won’t need a liquor license.
The owners of The Ruse, a posh bed and breakfast in Healdsburg, tried repeatedly to turn it into a private recreation park and swim club, with pickleball, bocce, a vast putting green and outdoor pavilion with a bar area and lounge serving beer, wine and spirits.
When a Healdsburg official nixed those plans in September 2022, noting they did not comply with zoning laws, the owners appealed to the Planning Commission.
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Now those owners, including brothers Jonathan and Patrick Wilhelm, whose family built the luxury Mayacama Golf Club, are back with a new plan for the property.
At its meeting Tuesday, the Healdsburg Planning Commission will consider The Ruse’s application for a conditional use permit “to a allow a 13-bed substance abuse treatment facility” at the same site, 891 Grove St.
Staff have recommended approval of that permit.
The proposal submitted to Healdsburg by The Ruse Treatment, LLC, explained that the facility will target an “elite clientele” comprised of “affluent male and female professionals, offering a discreet, personalized recovery experience in a serene resort style estate.”
The “non-12-step, holistic program” will offer private suites and “gourmet dining” while integrating “evidence-based therapies like CBT and EMDR” – cognitive behavioral therapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing – “with extensive one-on-one counseling and holistic practices such as yoga, meditation and acupuncture.”
Clients can receive “medically supervised detox, dual-diagnosis care, and customized aftercare,” along with golf therapy, “a unique experiential offering” using that sport “to promote mindfulness, stress relief, and peer connection, blending physical activity with therapeutic reflection to support sobriety,” according to the proposal.
Having placed his mother “in several different facilities for addiction treatment,” said Patrick Wilhelm in a text, “where some were more successful than others, I realize how great of an asset this will be for our Healdsburg community.”
Asked if The Ruse Treatment, LLC, could be profitable, with its relatively small number of beds, he replied, “Profit and loss is never a question on the beginning of a project, the WHY is the most important. The WHY is all we care about.”
In 2020, an ownership group including the Wilhelm brothers and longtime Silicon Valley executive Craig Ramsey bought the Honor Mansion, as it had long been known, for $5 million, then spent an additional $14 million on renovations.
The Ruse soon unveiled ambitious plans to transform that sleepy bed and breakfast into what critics described as a private club that intended to serve hard alcohol and host large events.
But those plans came to naught. Yes, the city does allow “private parks and recreational swim clubs” in residential areas, Healdsburg Community Development Director Scott Duiven informed Wilhelm in a Sept. 16, 2022 email.
The Ruse, however, “is more accurately characterized” as a “private club, fraternal lodge and meeting hall,” which is not permitted in a residential area, Duiven wrote.
For that and other reasons, he rejected the company’s application for a conditional use permit.
In its latest, proposed incarnation, The Ruse Treatment general manager Keith Greenberg informed Healdsburg city officials that the facility will be a high-end care destination comparable to such luxury rehab centers as Cliffside Malibu and Seasons in Malibu.
A 30-day program at those facilities can cost up to $80,000 – or more, if you insist on a suite. Both take insurance.
Greenberg did not reply to an email or text asking if The Ruse Treatment will accept insurance.
Some of The Ruse’s neighbors are alarmed and put off by the proposed facility’s emphasis on luxury and the affluence of its “elite clientele.”
Jasmin Pringle, who lives near The Ruse, has been clean and sober for nearly four years. Now 47, she said that she’s been in and out of rehab “since I was 17.”
While she celebrates “anyone who’s getting their life together, removing themselves from a life addiction,” she questions The Ruse Treatment’s “posh, non-12-step” approach.
“It’s so important in early recovery to abandon the entitlement we live in when we’re in our addiction,” she said.
Early recovery is “a humbling process that comes with doing the work that’s required, admitting our addiction and powerlessness over our disease.”
That process is not about “being catered to,” she said.
According to Greenberg’s LinkedIn profile, he is CEO of Angels Light Addiction Specialists, formed in 2019.
In 2015, a federal judge in the Southern District of Florida held Greenberg in contempt of court, and ordered him to prison for his failure to “comply” with a 2002 jud