The Waldorf School announced Monday that it had signed a letter of intent to lease the former Santa Ynez Inn site at 17310 Sunset for a term of 25 years. The private elementary school, currently based in Santa Monica, plans to spend more than $1 million to improve the 1.5 acre site, which is owned by the Self-Realization Fellowship. The funds will be used to bring the dilapidated, 14,000 sq. ft. structure up to code. The move will allow the school, which has 160 students from nursery to grade 6, to nearly double its enrollment. Tuition at Waldorf is $13,500 a year. ‘This is a major breakthrough for our community,’ said Waldorf administrator/director Jeffrey Graham. ‘We are blessed to have found such a quality property. There is ample space for the children to hike and explore, and for playing fields and gardens.’ The non-sectarian Waldorf School, founded in 1988, is part of an association of Rudolf Steiner/Waldorf schools with 1,200 campuses worldwide. The education integrates the arts and sciences within an art-based curriculum that addresses all learning styles: logical, linguistic, spatial, kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. Graham said that the opportunity to lease the Santa Ynez site came as a complete surprise, ‘even to me.’ With Waldorf’s lease at St. Augustine’s By The Sea expiring next year, Graham had been looking for a new location. When he drove by the Santa Ynez site in February and saw no work going on, he wondered what was happening with New West Charter Middle School’s plans to build a second campus there (as announced last April). He had his real estate broker contact SRF and subsequently learned that New West had been unable to formally extend its letter of intent to lease because it had not been able to raise the estimated $750,000 needed to renovate the property. After two months of negotiations, Waldorf signed its own letter of intent 10 days ago, and will soon begin improvements. When the school is completed sometime during the 2005-2006 school year, it will offer classes from preschool through grade 8. The Waldorf Early Childhood Center, with additional nurseries and early-childhood programs, will remain in Santa Monica on 15th Street. Santa Ynez Inn was built in 1946 as a motel with 24 guest rooms and a restaurant. The facility was sold in 1976 to the World Plan Executive Council, better known as TM (Transcendental Meditation), which used the facility for meetings and retreats. In 1989 it was bought by SRF, which owns a total of 15 acres on Sunset, including the nearby Lake Shrine. SRF is a worldwide nonprofit religious society founded in 1920 by Paramahansa Yogananda.
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