Oprah Winfrey, Madonna, Kate Winslet, Jane Fonda, and Bill Moyers have all stayed at the famous Rancho la Puerta wellness resort and spa, an exquisite collection of mountain-edged casitas, pavilions, pools, and gardens on 4,000 acres in Baja California, Mexico. But the property’s biggest star is Deborah Szkeley, who co-founded the ranch with her husband in 1940, and now—at 102 years old—is the embodiment of all the property aspires to deliver: health, longevity , and peace of mind. “The morning I turned 100, I lay in bed and thought, ‘Huh, I’m 100.
What’s different?’ I couldn’t think of anything,” Szekely tells Fortune, sitting down recently for an interview in her hotel suite in New York City, where she had flown in from her home in San Diego to speak at two different wellness conferences. “I’ve had a lovely life and when it ends, it ends. But I enjoy it,” she says.
“I really, truly don’t take on worries that I cannot do anything about. Otherwise I’d be an old lady! But where I can do something, I do something.” The Brooklyn native has accomplished a dizzying amount in her life, including starting and running Rancho la Puerta and also the Golden Door , a luxe Japanese spa and resort in San Diego (which she sold in 1998).
At 60 she ran for Congress and served as president of the Inter-American Foundation ; at 80, she realized a long-held dream and founded the New Americans Museum and Immigration Learning Center in San Diego. All are extension.
