The Sureos gang has tagged the front entrance but otherwise has left the inside unmarked. The continuous rattle feeds the nuts into a series of bins on the backside of the tractor. Already, they are paying $69 a month to the local utility district. Shoving aside the coins, they introduced a Scarlett OHara doll that, by itself, raked in $35 million in sales. America's Nuttiest Billionaire Couple: Amid Drought, Stewart - Forbes Pink and white oleanders divide the highway, and every third vehicle that whooshes by is a big rig. "People that had opportunities to buy into the water bank just like we did didn't do it. There is a local water bank, a kind of underground lake, that the Resnicks control. Specifically, it is stored in the Kern Water Bank, the most valuable water resource in a region critical to Americas fresh food supply. No water in the ground to make up for the missing government supply. Here and there my boots crunch down on the dried remains of pomegranates that look like small pieces of scat dropped by a coyote. State water dwindling year after year. She remembers handing the boy to her sister-in-law, who carried phony papers, and watching them cross by bridge into California. None of his three children had the slightest interest in taking over the company. This is gamblers ground unlike any other in California, and as I drive from hill to dale, examining each orchard, my head spins. My grandmother said it was his leftist politics that ate up that vineyard and the ones that followed. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is set to headline an event hosted by the centrist group No Labels in New Hampshire on Monday, alarming Democrats who fear a Manchin presidential candidacy could cost them control of the White House and Senate. By the time he graduated, he had ten employees. Wonderful denies the meetings were done clandestinely, alleging that those who say so have an "ax to grind." This is the west end of Lost Hills, the extraction end. The Resnicks met in 1970 when Stewart came looking for marketing help for the janitorial business. There was also an allegation that the pumping may have caused land to sink in the Central Valley, a phenomenon that is being tracked by NASA. She marketed pomegranate juice as POM Wonderful, a magical elixir filled with antioxidants. Billionaires Stewart And Lynda Resnick Pledge $750 Million To Caltech BACKGROUND: Born in Highland Park, New Jersey, the son of a Yiddish-speaking Ukrainian bartender, Stewart A. Resnick graduated with a B.S. Ever since I was a kid, I have felt its pulla gravitational presence on the land and in my own story. Because its so much fun to say that Lost Hills has been found., The room full of growers applauds. The dispute over the no fly zone was finally resolved by the invention of a netting that Resnick sheathes around his mandarins each spring. He also serves as President of Paramount Farms International. Lynda is also a trustee emerita of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Whether its the glint of a 15-carat, yellow canary diamond ring, a 25th wedding anniversary gift from Stewart, or one of the pomegranate-colored rubies she says are a girls best friend, its hard to tell from the back row. Theyve been described as the biggest water users in Los Angeles and the biggest farmers in the country, although theyre not farmers in the sense of men and women who personally drive tractors or get down on their knees to harvest crops. The foundation agreed because theyre making good returns and they trust us. He added that the relationship was based on pretty deep respect and friendship.. Resnick & Resnick, S.C. is AV rated by Martindale Hubbell. At age 77 he cycled about 40 miles a day across Italy during a nine-day bike trip this summer.) The tumbleweeds on open ground give you a peek into what Lost Hills looked like before the aqueduct made a river here. The leathery skin on the fruit has turned a nice orange-red. In Californias Central Valley, where residential wells have been running dry for months and other producers are debating whether they should rip out nut trees, water prices have risen to as high as $2,000 an acre-foot. She seems a little nervous waiting in the wings. It isnt going down because he wont let it go down. If you think you need an attorney, we would be happy to discuss your legal needs and schedule a free consultation. Sitting in his mansion in 2008, he already counted more than 100,000 acres of orchards across five counties. It was true that agriculture had been selling state project water to cities for two decades. Im going to Kern County, just shy of the mountains, to figure out how the biggest farmers in America, led by the biggest of them all, are not only keeping alive their orchards and vineyards during drought but adding more almonds (79,000 acres), more pistachios (73,000 acres), more grapes (35,000 acres), and more mandarins (13,000 acres). Bankers and their fair-weather financing exasperated Resnick. If only Eve had offered Adam a pomegranate instead of an apple, Lynda wrote, every day could have been a holiday.. Right there in the big canal of the Dudley Ridge Water District. There, he tells me, in the shadow of the states great concrete vein moving snowmelt north to south, I will find a private, off-the-books pipeline that Stewart Resnick has built to keep his trees from dying. His face is blank. Another third-generation grandson, Scott, has his own real estate company; his SR Capital is currently developing a 19-floor luxury apartment building at West 21st Street. Digging in was its own wisdom, he discovered. She won a gold Effie, advertisings Oscar. When a six-year drought started in 1987 and cost local farmers $800 million, he had much less skin in the game. "Ninety-nine percent of us are being asked to take cuts for the 1%: Stewart Resnick," says Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta, a Stockton, Calif.-based nonprofit working to protect fisheries and farms in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Theyre listening with their heads bent down. And so I began with slaughter and madness and then moved on to bartenders for fathers. The Federal Trade Commission found Wonderful guilty of false advertising and ordered the Resnicks to stop claiming that POM cured heart disease and erectile dysfunction. Photo Courtesy of The Wonderful [+] Company. The POM tanks, Im told, are backed up with a three-year supply. Ill have to go deeper if I can.. In the Wonderful fields, he tells me, at least 80 percent of the workers carry no documents or documents that are not real. They were pushing plates, costume jewelry, perfume, and model cars. Im in another land, an expanse of hard, ugly, cratered-out earth the color of sand. Thats $83 a tree. Desolate little towns off the highway dot the parched landscape. Across the street, the Soto family has built a new Mexican restaurant named Gabbys that dwarfs every other business on the street with its Spanish Mission faade. Wonderful Co.s self-image as an avatar of corporate social responsibility and sustainable agriculture took a hit in 2016, when it was found to have bulldozed part of an oak forest near Paso Robles, in the heart of Californias Central Coast wine country, to make room for new grape plantings for Justin Vineyards, which Wonderful acquired in 2010. Main page; Contents; Current events; Random article; About Wikipedia; Contact us; Donate; Help; Learn to edit; Community portal; Recent changes; Upload file You have no idea the people on my VIP list who drink it. The big concern is if theres a storm event, how will that change the environment, he says. It was Lynda who came up with the idea of flowers-in-a-gift. Roses are short-lived, she reasoned, but the teapot or watering can that the flowers arrive in is a keepsake. On Oscar night, she handed out free samples to the stars at the Vanity Fair party. None of the sales taxes go to City Hall because Lost Hills isnt a city. There before me, two aluminum pipes, side by side, 12 inches in diameter each, slither in the sun. They are fiercely defending that golden goose.". Measuring the reach of the Resnicks, its tempting to lean on the hyperventilated language of the 1930s: Empire. He doesnt wave me off or give chase. So so sleepy, says another. My grandfather lost the farm to vine hoppers is the story he told. Arts; Farhang Foundation, which deals with Iranian art and culture; and Aspen Music Festival and School. He wonders what agriculture will look like in western Kern in ten years. Theirs was a symbiotic partnership from the outset: He was level-headed and finance-minded; she was more dramatic with notable marketing flair. He had no intention of farming it, either. The extent to which the companys actions violated local law is unclear. Now in farming, were in a unique position. Resnick takes Pistachio War to Tulare, eyes halting another Assemi By the time he died an old man on his tractor in the Cupertino Hills, where he had planted grapes again and was making wine, the transformation of his valley by the silicon chip was complete. UC Davis is set to build a center focused on agricultural innovation and research after Beverly Hills billionaires Lynda and Stewart Resnick gave the university $50 million, the largest. The jolt and shudder would tear out the roots of a lesser species. This is a big crop, the field man tells me. You just dont do that to the Earth. Where does the water end up? Manhattan was 30 minutes in one direction; the Jersey Shore, 30 minutes in the other. Local conservationists say that there are no indications that talks involving the winery and institutions such as Cal Poly San Luis Obispo over a transfer of the property or a full restoration have borne fruit. Tonight, feeling no pain, hell sit in one of the strip clubs in Bakersfield and maybe buy himself a fancy lap dance.. When its Pablos turn, he hands Hussein a check for $437, and Hussein counts out $433 back to him in cash. Whatever remains is not nearly enough to make up for the shortfall of imported water from the state. The speech of his parents and grandparents, the Yiddish-inflected New York with its humors and cut-to-the-quick impatiences, had not left his own speech in the half-century since hed come to California. Hes using it to irrigate his almonds and pistachios in Lost Hills. Too many pistachios. For years, agriculture has been given a wide berth when it comes to monopolistic practices. In October of this year the Resnicks asked the Supreme Court to take the case. Most of the Resnicks' water comes from long-term. They have no way to grasp the $50 million to $80 million a year that the Resnicks say they are spending on philanthropy. The space for a familys secrets is only a few feet. Thats where things apparently stand at the moment. Geni requires JavaScript! Making hundreds of millions of dollars in the process?. Meet the Resnicks, the Koch Brothers of California Water To change the microbial life in our digestive tracts and reduce inflammation that leads to disease, we have to reintroduce fermented foods into our diet. Other guests through the years have included: Arianna Huffington, junk bond billionaire Michael Milken, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Yahoo News anchor Katie Couric and even the odd Supreme Court justice. His accountant suggested he buy apartments. Past Bakersfield and the high school football stadium where Frank Gifford and Les Richter, two future NFL Hall of Famers, squared off in the Valley Championship in 1947 in the driving rain. The compass in my car says Im headed east, but that means almost nothing inside a province of 15 million trees. Neil Heaton, fourth-generation Paso Robles farmer and rancher. The knoll begins to rise. The Iranian immigrant family is known there as major home builders, downtown redevelopers, philanthropists and entrepreneurs, as well as growers. Grandson Jonathan, the third generation leader, has been the family firm's president since 2007. When he first planted seedless mandarins in the valley 17 years ago, the bees from the citrus orchards around him were flying into his groves, pollinating his flowers, and putting seeds into the flesh of his fruit. In the summer of 2010, hed spent several days documenting the deplorable conditions of the modern company town. Clifton, New Jersey Stewart Resnick Obituary Stewart Resnick, 72, passed away on Saturday, May 4, 2019, after a courageous battle with Cholangiocarcinoma. This sale made headlines because it was engineered by one farmeran outsider from the cityfor his benefit only. Hes got another meeting to attend. What spikes blood sugar more than a can of Coke? He unfolds a $20 bill from a wad he keeps inside a bent paper clip, and we take a seat in the far corner. The calculation and hubris inside it. The men and women who planted, irrigated, sprayed, and picked our crops were phantoms. The film has an international cast of renowned actors, which may make it even more appealing to global audiences. He knows what I dont know. All but a handful come from Mexico. He found it. Fijian military dictators aside, the couple knows the value of cultivating powerful friends, whether at their Los Angeles mansion or their Arts & Crafts lodge in Aspen, where they spend several months a year. Kern Bank members "cannot and have not removed more water than they have deposited, just like a bank account," aWonderful spokesman says. Resnick dipped into his savings from his job at a mental hospital and went in half on the machine. You can plant only so many acres on ground that has no groundwater. Western Area Multi-Purpose Juvenile Crisis and Assessment Center (Western catchment area; blended model: 5 Crisis Beds and 4 Secure Custody Beds) 20 Lees Creek Road, Asheville, NC 28806; phone 828-338-8340. One man drives and shakes the tree while the other man makes sure the clusters fall into the butterfly opening of the receiver. Thirty-five percent of our pre-diabetic population has gone into the healthy range, she tells the team. I saw her a few months ago. We produced a short documentary film. How can another record crop be sitting pretty on these trees? The rent is $540. When the next shift ends, he tells me, the gym will fill up with workers looking to win the cash bonuses from the companys GetFit program. She wasnt content to pursue the usual list of wealthy businessmen as clients. Id have to say that fully half of my success has been luck. The Resnick family owns 192,000 farmland acres in California and Texas, primarily growing mandarins and other citrus fruit, pistachios, almonds, and pomegranates, with their Wonderful Company worth $4.2 billion. Bernard, hard to believe, is driving straight toward the aqueduct. John Gibler, a freelance journalist, found Lost Hills a year before Lynda. Stewart was the second of their four children, the only boy. The net return on the pistachio proves that Wonderfuls dominance in the market has benefited every grower in the room. My dust cloud tells him Im getting close. Theyre droughts best buddies.. Lupe says no one in her family, and none of her friends living in the trailer park or on the other side of town, drinks the water that comes out of the pipe. Not long before, Vidovich was trying to grab water from Resnick, not give it. They were hardly the first rich people to use patronage to try to wheedle a citizenry toward their idea of a better life. He told his neighbors to alter the flight of the bees or hed sue them for trespassing. By their own estimates almost half of American households buy their products. As you know, our philosophy at Wonderful is doing well by doing good. John, his oldest son, had served in the military as an intelligence officer and graduated from Santa Clara law school. In 2009 came the "Get Crackin' " ad campaign marketing their pistachios and, in 2013, 15-second clips hit the Super Bowl, with recent spots featuring late-night host Stephen Colbert. Tracts of houses, Californias last affordable dream, civilize three or four exits, and then its back to the open road splattered with the guts and feathers of chickens that jumped ship on the slaughterhouse drive. Yet there is an Eden. FORBES estimates that the Resnicks' 57% stake in the storage facility is worth at least $250 million. Several anti-Resnick forces allege the couple's immense water supply is ill gotten. The family takes showers in it, and she washes their laundry in it, and if she runs the water long enough, she will use it to wash her vegetables and cook her rice and potatoes. That was four years ago. Their mail-order collectibles firm, Franklin Mint, was sued in 1998 by the estate and charitable foundation of Princess Diana, which said the firm did not have the right to use and profit from her image on keepsakes; Franklin Mint retaliated, filing a countersuit in November 2002, alleging it was the victim of an ugly smear campaign. Hes getting ready to introduce Lynda, the main speaker, but first he wants to address the federal governments recent recall of Wonderful pistachios. The farmer isnt here to smell the cracking open of wood, the ripping open of warm secret earth. One day, gunmen mowed down residents with AK-47s and threw grenades at the church filled with parishioners. Stewart Resnick started his farming journey after his marriage in the late 1970s. The boss came back in, saw his do-nothing, and said only three words: Just get started. He began to move, and the job went quickly after that. Thousands of Wonderful acres lay bare. When he materializes onstage, he is wearing narrow black jeans, a black mock turtleneck, and a dark jacket. They’ll suck our wells dry, and then we’ll have to move somewhere else. The aqueduct brings the water, yes? The Resnicks brought him aboard in 1999, and now he works alongside Lynda and consults daily with the company chef. Im sure I knew we had a pipeline in there. The wildfires cant be far behind. The range of what the bank could be worth is wideat $250 per acre-foot, the value of the bank would be roughly $375 million, or about $200 million for the Resnicks 57% stake. His father met his mother, the cantors daughter, and they married. The pistachio trees in Wonderful number 6 million. Resnick has saved the front seat for me. Because a human picker is not needed in the almond and pistachio groves, the nut harvest doesnt spread around money the way it spreads around dust. Welcome to the club. Son Burton took over the company in late 1960s and remains the company's CEO and chairman. Because the more you invested in your employees and their communities, the more productive they became. Now they are being vilified in California for their water use in the ongoing drought. The power dynamics are essential to this story. He was short, bull-like, and didnt take crap from anyone. Still, none of it would have happened without luck., What he and Lynda had done with the wretched pomegranate was another matter. The harvest begins in January with one type of mandarin and ends in December with another type of mandarin and in between spills forth everything in your supermarket produce and dairy aisles except for bananas and mangoes, though the farmers here are working on the tropical, too. "I don't even know what these are about, because my view is we're going to win," says Stewart Resnick. The entire parcel is more than 300 acres, but the work was done on only a portion of unplanted land. I thank him and hurry down the dirt road through the almonds, eyeing the rearview mirror to see if a Resnick truck is following me. On the day the trees fall quietly upon the orchard floor, no one is here but the Mexican on his tractor. Maybe not since the wheat barons has the income disparity between farmer and farmworker been greater. It's almost like old-fashioned salons, where [Lynda] can bring people together," a former executive and regular guest says. Meet Stewart and Lynda Resnick, billionaire Agriculture royalty. Only after the media were alerted did Stewart and Lynda claim to have discovered the clear-cutting. ("I can't make anyone cry in 15 seconds, but we can make them laugh," says Lynda, adding that 30-second ads in the Super Bowl were too expensive.). At the plant, we built our gyms, and we have stretching and walking activities. 8 Philanthropy Score 3 Residence Beverly Hills, California Citizenship United States Marital Status Married Children 5 Related People & Companies Lynda Resnick Family The Wonderful Company He guides me to the caf, and we grab our lunches from the buffet. Five years ago, they decided to get rid of the nacho chips, french fries, and soft drinks. Four tribes of Yokut lived along its shores. She was in her late 20s, almost a decade younger than Stewart, and the mother of two children. With the money he made from his first company, Resnick bought the Franklin Mint Company, a subsidiary of Roll International Corporation.Franklin Mint is known for making model cars, souvenir plates, figurines, and Civil War-inspired chess sets. No farmer ever is. Stewart and Lynda Resnick are agribusiness billionaires. One more bin, a post reads. All the new water pours into the delta, and what doesnt go out to sea fills up the aqueduct again. He had none of his fathers sentimentality. He sat on the Board of Directors of LeapFrog Enterprises from 2002 to 2005. He needs every drop he can get., Dont you know? Shes done giving big gifts to Los Angeles museums and mental health hospitals that name buildings after her and Stewart. When I look around here at what weve built and then look back at my life in New Jersey, I think, How did it happen? For one man and woman to build something like this would be almost impossible today.. Neither the Assemi family nor its lawyers responded to my request for comment, but the lawsuit states that the family made the decision to process nuts on their own in 2018. Young men and women from Teach for America will do their two-year stints at the complex and live in village housing. When Lynda learned that half the students receiving thousands of dollars in company scholarships were dropping out of school, she wasnt deterred. This is Twisselman. We pile back into the van and head up the road. His dad had sold the bar and was adrift. It was going to houses. By the time he graduated from UCLA in 1960 and entered its law school, he was bringing home $40,000 a yearthe equivalent of $320,000 today. Every mogul, every movie star. He and Lynda decided in 1984 to buy the Franklin Mint, the maker of commemorative coins and other kitsch, for $167.5 million. That provoked a local campaign for an oak-preservation ordinance, which failed in a 1999 initiative vote but was enacted by the county in 2003. Resnicks billions rely on his ability to master water, sun, soil, and even bees. A van pulls up to the curb, and the door slides open. The U.S.'s Five Biggest Farms | Potato Grower Magazine Vidovich has more than one reason to be evasive. San Antonio south doesnt exist anymore. He is a small, good-looking man with a patch of black hair under his lip. You dont believe me?, No, I believe you, Resnick says. The new plant, the size of seven super Walmarts and built at a cost of $300 million, rises out of a clearing like an apparition.