Person to Watch: Alan Fuerstman Chief executive, Montage Hotels & Resorts

Now entering the fourth year as head of his own hotel management company, Alan Fuerstman made strides and hit some bumps on the development front in the past year.

Fuerstman, chief executive

This year the resort's Spa Montage earned the first-and only-five-star spa rating from Mobil Travel Guide. The resort again earned a four-star rating from Mobil Travel Guide for 2006.

Last November, readers of Cond Nast Traveler ranked the Montage Resort & Spa the No. 2 U.S. resort.

The Montage was featured in Spa Finder magazine, Gentry Magazine and House Beautiful, among others, in 2005.

Along with other coastal resorts, Montage this year joined an Orange County venture called the OCeanfront to market the county's luxury coastal resorts.

"We've made good progress with The OCeanfront," Fuerstman said. "We're pleased with it."

On the development front, Montage and its Phoenix-based development partner, the Athens Group, in March won approval from Beverly Hills voters to build a 214-room hotel.

The project, north of Wilshire Boulevard between Canon and Beverly drives, includes an acre of public gardens and a 1,100-car parking garage.

Fuerstman said site work and design are progressing and the company plans to break ground in the first quarter.

In OC, the company's plans hit some rough spots over redevelopment of the Aliso Creek Inn and golf course, which it bought in 2004.

Early this year, some Laguna Beach residents were angered that the developers approached county supervisors about the possibility of expanding the golf course on public land.

Though executives with Athens and Montage insisted the talks were merely exploratory, the community outcry led to further studies and a new plan unveiled this fall.

The new plan doesn't include an 18-hole golf course-a critical component of many upscale resorts.

Instead, it calls for a redesigned nine-hole golf course, a 90- to 95-room Craftsman-style hotel and up to 50 condominiums on the site of the Aliso Creek Inn. Another 11 residential lots on the parcel known as Driftwood Estates remain part of the plan.

The conceptual plan will be submitted for approval in early 2006, according to John Mansour, Athens' vice president of development.

The company doesn't expect the hotel to open before 2010. The timing depends on how long it takes to get approval from several government agencies, including the California Coastal Commission.

Athens also plans to address several environmental issues in its plan, said Martyn Hoffmann, the company's director of forward planning.

Other projects also are on the horizon for the company, including ones in Deer Valley near Park City, Utah, and a resort on 1,300 acres in Cabo San Lucas in Baja Mexico.

Fuerstman said the Cabo resort will include golf, homes and a beach club.

"It's a great destination for us and a great market to complement Laguna Beach," he said.

-Sandi Cain