Sanctuary Camelback Mountain's New Owners Are Saving Elements and Jade Bar for Last

"Our owners are local community leaders who bring a shared passion for this extraordinary destination," Laura McIver, managing director of Sanctuary Camelback Mountain Resort & Spa, said in the resort's September 14, 2026 announcement. She added that the owners' commitment means every dollar invested "directly enlists the care, character, and world-class service that our neighbors and loyal resort guests have cherished for decades."

That release put the 53-acre resort at 5700 E. McDonald Dr. under independent ownership. The owners are a joint partnership between Berger Holdings and RJ Hospitality, which the release calls two local firms with deep roots in the region. The release also laid out a multiyear renovation, and the order of the work matters to anyone in Paradise Valley who books a table at Elements or meets friends at Jade Bar. The guest rooms go first. The restaurants and the spa wait until 2028.

A club for the neighborhood, seventy years on

Sanctuary was a gathering place for locals long before it was a destination resort. According to the Salt River Stories local history project, the Paradise Valley Racquet Club officially opened on October 6, 1956, on the same 53 acres. Its founders were actors John Ireland and Joanne Dru, in partnership with Sydney Chaplin and tennis champion Don Budge. The club had five tennis courts, a pool, a dining room and a clubhouse.

Hiram Hudson Benedict designed that clubhouse. Salt River Stories describes him as a Frank Lloyd Wright protégé. The club hosted First Lady Lady Bird Johnson during the effort to preserve Camelback Mountain, along with matches featuring Pancho Gonzalez and Lew Hoad. It went bankrupt in 1962 after embezzlement charges, and Benedict's original clubhouse is the only structure from the club still standing.

Arizona Foothills Magazine traces what came next. In the 1960s the property was renamed the John Gardiner Tennis Ranch, and it went through several versions after that. In 2021 Gurney's Resorts acquired it and paired it with Gurney's Montauk Resort & Seawater Spa. Sanctuary opened as a resort in 2001, according to a 2025 profile in Frontdoors Media.

The September announcement leans on that history. It says the owners intend to keep the resort "a timeless local staple for the next half-century." The construction schedule shows what that commitment means in practice.

The order of the work

The renovation runs in phases. Each phase is tied to a season, and the whole sequence spans about three years.

1. By January 2026. A $7 million renovation covering 8,000 square feet of meeting and event space was complete. It included the Views Ballroom, Views Terrace, Paradise Views, the Lower Lawn and the Cholla meeting room, according to a January 20, 2026 release.
2. September 14, 2026. The resort announced independent local ownership and a "multi-million-dollar" capital plan. Phoenix Business Journal covered the planned renovation the next day.
3. Summer 2027. All 110 guest rooms and casitas get a full interior refresh, with a target completion date of September 2027. Hart+Howerton is the architect and designer of record.
4. 2028. Once the rooms are finished, the resort turns to its food and beverage outlets and Sanctuary Spa.

Overnight guests are the first to see the change. The spaces a Paradise Valley neighbor can use without booking a stay come last, and the announcement gives no dollar total for any phase. That puts this holiday season, and the next one, ahead of any work on Elements, Jade Bar or the 12,000-square-foot spa. The release does not say how any of those spaces will operate while construction is underway.

What Elements and Jade Bar serve now

A May 2026 report in Fabulous Arizona named Richard Wiggins as executive chef, Daniel Weber as executive sous chef and Said Nuri as director of food and beverage. The report says this team oversees the menus at both Elements and Jade Bar. The same report listed Elements as open daily for lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and dinner from 5 to 9 p.m., with dinner running half an hour later on Fridays and Saturdays. At lunch, Elements' menu lists the Elements cheeseburger and a turkey sandwich at $29 each, poke bowls from $30 to $36, and a tomato pasta at $32.

Jade Bar sits next to Elements, with a shaded patio and floor-to-ceiling windows that frame the views. À la carte sushi and nigiri are served daily from 3 to 10 p.m. On the happy hour menu, Arizona beers are $7, cocktails run $14 to $16, shishito peppers are $12 and tempura shrimp is $18. The happy hour page lists 3 to 6 p.m. daily. The resort's homepage also lists a 9 to 10 p.m. window, so confirm the late hour before you go.

This fall, Jade also runs a weeknight series called Fall Flavors of Jade. It is offered Sunday through Thursday, 5 to 9 p.m., and each night pairs a dish with a drink.

All prices are before tax and gratuity.

The holiday calendar, in date order

Sanctuary's Happenings page carries a full November and December. Several dates are still ahead as of this week. Prices below are as the resort lists them per person. The dinner and pie demo pages state their prices before tax and gratuity. The three wellness events have no price posted on the index.

Thanksgiving is listed as November 27 on the Happenings index but November 26 on the detailed 2026 dinner page. November 26, 2026 is the Thursday. Expect beef tenderloin, turkey roulade, scallops, branzino and a confit king trumpet mushroom entrée. The Cigar & Tequila Dinner pairs each course with Casa Dragones and includes three Ambassador Cigars. The menu includes wagyu carne asada, and the reception opens with a Casa Dragones Paloma. The Christmas menu offers dry-aged prime rib, Chilean seabass, duck breast and ravioli. On New Year's Eve, the Wagyu New York strip and stuffed pappardelle replace the prime rib and ravioli.

The tennis and pickleball courts also stay on the schedule, with private one-on-one clinics available. The resort that began with Don Budge and five courts still lists tennis among its amenities.

If the room phase finishes on its September 2027 target, the 2027 holiday season will fall between the two phases. The 110 casitas and suites would be new by then, and the 2028 work on Elements, Jade Bar and the spa would not yet have started.

Shawn Keeler follows how resort investment like Sanctuary's renovation changes the corridor along Camelback Mountain, block by block. If you want to talk through what the next few years could mean for your corner of Paradise Valley, Shawn Keeler is glad to share that perspective. Let's Connect.