The Wrigley Mansion, the nearly 100-year-old hilltop estate overlooking Phoenix near 24th Street just south of Piestewa Peak, has sold for $17 million to the same ownership group that controls the neighboring Arizona Biltmore resort. The deal closed on October 1, bringing the two historic properties under common ownership for the first time in decades.
Henderson Park, the London-based private equity firm that bought the Biltmore for $705 million in May 2024, acquired the mansion from Jamie Hormel and the Hormel family, who had owned it since 1992, according to KTAR News 92.3 FM. The sale price was confirmed by Maricopa County real estate records, per the station's report. Henderson Park's ownership group for the mansion includes Western & Southern Financial Group, funds managed by Hamilton Lane, South Street Partners, and Pyramid Global Hospitality, which will operate both the mansion and the Biltmore together going forward.
A Gift Turned Legacy Landmark
The mansion's roots trace back to chewing gum magnate William Wrigley Jr., who acquired full ownership of the Arizona Biltmore during the Great Depression before building the mansion on a 100-foot knoll as a 50th wedding anniversary gift for his wife, Ada, according to Wikipedia. Designed by Los Angeles architect Earl Heitschmidt and built between 1929 and 1931 at a cost of $1.2 million, the nearly 17,000-square-foot mansion contains 24 rooms and 12 bathrooms, as detailed by Phoenix Home & Garden.
Inside, the estate features hand-painted rotunda ceilings created by Italian muralist Giovanni Battisti Smeraldi and decorative ceramic tiles produced at Wrigley's factory on Catalina Island, which were hauled up the hill by mules, according to ICONIC LIFE. The property earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places in August 1989 under the name William Wrigley Jr. Winter Cottage.
How the Hormel Family Saved It From Demolition
Geordie Hormel, an heir of Hormel Foods Corp. and the late husband of Jamie Hormel, purchased the mansion in 1992 specifically to stop the city of Phoenix from demolishing it to make way for condominiums, per A Taste of AZ. Geordie Hormel, who composed music for 1950s and 1960s television series including Lassie and The Fugitive and founded Los Angeles' famed Village Recording Studio, died in February 2006 at age 77, according to Wikipedia. Jamie Hormel continued managing and restoring the estate after his death, maintaining it as a public dining and event venue for more than three decades.
Reuniting Two Pieces of 1920s Phoenix History
The sale effectively reunites the mansion with its original companion property. The neighboring Arizona Biltmore opened on February 23, 1929, designed by Albert Chase McArthur with consulting from Frank Lloyd Wright, and features more than 250,000 custom Biltmore Blocks made from local desert sand, according to CoStar. Henderson Park's $705 million purchase of that resort from Blackstone Real Estate in 2024 was made in partnership with Western & Southern Financial Group and Pyramid Global Hospitality, the same operator now set to run the mansion.
Pyramid Global Hospitality has worked with Henderson Park on other major resort deals before, including the 2021 acquisition of California's La Quinta Resort, according to Hotel Dive. Placing both the mansion and the Biltmore under one operator sets up the possibility of combined hospitality, wellness, and dining packages across the two properties, though neither ownership group has detailed specific plans for integrating programming between the sites.
A Culinary Destination, Not Just a Historic Shell
Beyond its architecture, the mansion has become a notable fine-dining destination in its own right. In August 2026, Michelin named Christopher's at Wrigley Mansion — the modern French restaurant led by James Beard Award-winning chef Christopher Gross — one of 12 Recommended restaurants in Arizona for its inaugural Southwest Guide, as reported by The Adventurist Magazine. Gross operates out of a glass-and-steel pavilion built on the mansion grounds, a detail Hoodline covered in its earlier report on Phoenix chefs trained under Julia Child.
The mansion's Michelin recognition has already rippled through the Valley's fine-dining scene; Hoodline noted the accolade in its coverage of a Scottsdale restaurant's new chef's table experience earlier this year. For now, the ownership transition leaves open questions about how the new owners will balance public access and private events with the preservation standards the Hormel family upheld since 1992.
