For the year of 2011, Nancy and Gordon Wheeler spent 69 nights in Point House lodging. They are allowed to to book them a year in advance. These rooms are generally full, and people wishing to book are often turned away, because the Wheelers are staying there for free. This is the bare minimum amount of money Esalen would have made in 2011 had the house been used instead by paying visitors:
$44,100, plus 10% hotel tax = $48,510.00
[The Wheelers receive over $200k yearly in salary and consulting fees, besides worldwide travel and lodging, from the financially suffering Esalen. They own 4 houses. —Ed.]
—Anonymous
why don’t they stay in commuter housing? perhaps because they don’t want to share a room with scott stillinger, a near full time occupier of commuter housing. he also doesn’t like it when dirty hippie e.s.’s stay in the room before him, as cabins was once asked to clean the room to make nice for his arrival. luckily they refused the request.
But, Cabins DOES clean the South Point House before and after each of the Wheeler’s visits. They are the only community members who get their housing cleaned.
The figures quoted above represent a vast improvement from the years when the Wheelers were both employed at Esalen (around $250,000 in combined salaries, plus benefits) and had full-time rights to the South Point house, even though they spent close to 50% of their time at their Santa Cruz home. Their overall “cost” to Esalen in those years probably approached a half million dollars annually. My big question, both then as well as now, is whether the services they provide(d) are/were commensurate with these expenditures?
Gordon cost Esalen a fortune in his worthless hires of Harry Feinberg and Dave Patterson. Esalen is still far from being able to admit that these hires were very expensive mistakes financially and culturally. Nancy’s contacts with workshop leaders is still worth some travel (less as time goes on) but Esalen’s price for Gordon is hard to justify.