She has been called the “godmother of wellness,” the “mother of the modern spa,” and a “pioneer in the mind/body/spirit movement.” Her life’s work building Rancho La Puerta and Golden Door—two of the most famous destination spas in the world—is what helped earn her those monikers. But it’s how she sees herself as “a seeker and a learner,” along with a motto that she’s always carried close to her heart—siempre mejor or “always better”—that have successfully guided Deborah Szekely (pronounced say-kay) throughout her illustrious career.

Glimmers of grace, spirit, and good fortune run from beginning to end in the novel that is Deborah Szekely’s life. Whether it be her mother’s desire to move the family to Tahiti in search of a healthier lifestyle, her own marriage at 17 to a Hungarian philosopher who would be her partner in laying a foundation for the modern spa movement, helping Hollywood royalty like Kim Novak and Burt Lancaster get fit before their next movie, running for Congress at age 60, or continuing—even at nearly 100 years old—to deliver lectures on health and life to spa guests on a weekly basis, Szekely is the first to say she is blessed. “I really believe I have some angels up there who take care of me.” Yet, it becomes quickly evident when you talk with Szekely that fortitude, curiosity, hard work, and courage play large roles in her novelesque life as well.

Learning Life Skills in Tahiti

It was certainly the hard work young Szekely learned as a child that gave her the skills and the courage to help create Rancho La Puerta, which itself at more than 80 years old was named 2021’s number-one destination spa by Travel + Leisure.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Szekely’s health-conscious family moved to Tahiti during the Great Depression. Her mother, a nurse, believed in eating fresh, organic foods, and Tahiti offered that to the family during a time when fresh foods were hard to come by at home. With steamship tickets in hand, the family set off for a new way of life. At 8 years old, Szekely learned what it meant to live off the land as she caught fish, carried drinking water, learned to live without an indoor bathroom, and helped with the family’s garden. It was a simple life.

It was while in Tahiti that the family befriended Edmond Szekely, who was teaching about raw foods and healthy living. He was a philosopher, religious scholar, and author of Cosmos, Man and Society, written in 1936. It was at one of the family’s favorite swimming holes that they first met Edmond, in what was to be the beginning of a lifelong friendship. When the family returned to the US, they continued the friendship with Edmond, and would frequent his summer health camps, a tradition he brought with him from Tahiti and various European locations. The young Deborah Szekely ended up working for Edmond, and the two eventually married in 1939. With war at hand, neither knew how dramatically their lives would change in a few short months.

Finding a Special Place

Imagine starting adult life at 17, newly married, and needing to find a way to keep your Hungarian-born husband from being deported to fight in Hitler’s army in WWII. It was 1940 and these were the circumstances that led the couple to a small village in Mexico where they would lay roots for the birth of today’s modern spa and where the famed Rancho La Puerta would be born.

“The war threw us a curve—we had been on our way to England where my husband had been working at the British International Health and Education Center, and I was going to go to college,” Szekely says. But the Romanian government would not renew Edmond’s visa. “They wanted him to come and fight on the side of Hitler, and that wasn’t very attractive for a young Jewish man living safely in the United States,” she explains. Without a visa, the US government chimed in next. “My husband got a letter saying, ‘If you are found in the US after June 1, 1940, you will be returned to your country of origin.’ So, we left . . . We went to Mexico without papers, without anything, knowing that in a village in Mexico, nobody’s going to pay any attention to us . . . and they didn’t.”

The couple began looking for a place to call home. “We had absolutely no plans,” Szekely says. “We were kicked out of the United States. We really didn’t have many choices, and there was no planning, no vision, no wonderful ideas.” But there was Edmond’s reputation as an educator, and a following of people who liked his message of healthy living, whole foods, and being with nature. People wanted to hear this new message. There also was the experience the husband-wife team had with the summer health camp scene. Continuing Edmond’s summer camps and building on his reputation as an educator seemed to be a path they could navigate in their new world.

“We started with a little adobe shack that was used to store hay,” Szekely says of the first building at the Rancho La Puerta site they called home. There were no motels or lodgings nearby for students/guests to stay, so the Szekelys began renting pieces of land where guests could pitch a tent. And people came, not only to learn from Edmond, but to be part of this magical spot.

“There was a river, a creek, and a mountain, and we used all three,” Szekely says. The mountain—Mount Kuchumaa— is considered sacred by the Kumeyaay tribe. Szekely thinks the mountain was part of what called her and Edmond there. “I think Mount Kuchumaa was bored and there we were. There’s so much magic there,” she says. “In the river, you walked in water that was about 18 inches deep, and you walked almost a mile every day—it was really a health routine. We had everybody bring tennis shoes, so that you didn’t get any tootsie problems, and they walked in the river. Then we had the creek, where we made small pools where you could have a bathtub. We had somebody who would dig out the sand every morning, and you had an ice-cold bathtub in the creek. We didn’t have any equipment or anything, so we developed what we had—a mountain to climb, the river to walk in, and the creek to bathe in.” And at 4:00 p.m. each day, Edmond would lecture under the large oak trees.

As part of the payment for their stay, guests would help with chores around the property. “You would pay $17.50 a week for food and board, but you worked two and a half hours a day.” Szekely says there was no staff to do the chores; it was up to her and the guests to get the work done. “The guests did gardening, they did kitchen work, they did everything.” And in return, they got to walk into a different lifestyle. “The guests didn’t want to leave,” she says.

When the war ended, Szekely says they were welcomed back to England. But they made the decision to stay put. After five years of investing in their little piece of heaven, they didn’t want to start over again. “And besides, we loved Mexico. The people were just so welcoming and went out of their way to help us. We wouldn’t trade Mexico for any other country in the world,” Szekely says.

As their business continued to grow, they would purchase abandoned homes and bits and pieces of land. The Szekelys were innovative in how they built their little oasis. “One year I bought 30 war surplus boxes that had been created to ship airplane engines, and they were the wrong size. These became our first cabins.” It was a lot of trial and error. “And so we were, little by little, growing but still very simple.” Was this like the early spa/sanitarium movements of Dr. John Kellogg and others? With a small smile, Szekely says, “They were beautifully civilized. We were a commune.”

Szekely says it took a number of years before they could relax and think about what was next. “But when the war ended and when we decided to stay, that commitment was a turning point. Until then, we were camping out and having a good time. We had nothing to lose.”

And Then Came Golden Door

With their success came new opportunities. After 17 years of marriage, Szekely wanted children, but Edmond was concerned about her being in Mexico if something happened to him. Even divorced for 10 years before Edmond’s passing in 1979, Szekely still speaks sweetly of “the professor” and there is no ill will when she remembers their time building their businesses. “The decision was, if I want to have kids, we had to have a business in the United States. Well, the only business I knew was running a spa. I started at 17, and here we were 17 years later. And so we started with a motel with eight rooms in Escondido, California. And the motel was a little spot on the highway with an adobe exterior and a Japanese-style roof. So, I did a Japanese-style garden.” It was that simple design element that propelled Golden Door, and when the spa had to move years later to accommodate a new highway coming through, the Zen garden theme followed suit and remains a primary design element at today’s Golden Door location.

“We called it a spa and fitness resort,” Szekely explains of their new venture, which would become a destination for the Hollywood elite. “Escondido is just a little over an hour from Hollywood, so that if the studio called, the actors could go back. They also could bring their voice coach down. Remember, there was no competition, there was nothing that would exercise them five hours a day and feed them low-calorie, health-nut food, and everyone in Hollywood wanted to drop a few pounds.” All of which made Golden Door the perfect oasis and a huge success.

There is No Such Thing as Retirement

The achievements on Szekely’s resume are long and impressive. In addition to a run for Congress, she managed a federal agency (the Inter-American Foundation), served as a delegate for UNESCO, and was selected to the President’s Council for Physical Fitness by Presidents Nixon, Reagan, and Ford, serving in that role for almost 25 years. She founded Eureka Communities and the New American Museum, and launched a Wellness Warrior website 10 years ago as a health resource.

Today, her days remain full. “I’m working on two books, I have a puppy dog that needs water and walking, and I have a lovely social life—I go to concerts. Right now, there is a concert series every Saturday, and so Wednesday and Thursday I’m at the Ranch, and Friday I have friends for dinner, and Saturday I have the concerts and I don’t know . . . the week just flows.”

And with her 100th birthday celebration coming up in May 2022, retirement is not a word she’s ever embraced. “I say I’m retired from the daily grind, but I’m not retired from life at all.”

The Spas She Built

Winning every award there is from the spa and travel industry, Deborah Szekely is responsible for two coveted spa properties:

• Rancho La Puerta, a 4,000-acre wellness resort in Tecate, Baja California, Mexico, just south of San Diego, where Szekely and her husband Edmond first put down roots in 1940. The Szekelys’ daughter, Sarah Livia Szekely Brightwoood, serves as president of the family business and continues the Szekely legacy there today.

• Golden Door, a Zen-garden-inspired luxury resort and spa in Escondido, California. It was created as an upscale alternative to Rancho La Puerta by the Szekelys in 1958 to meet the growing needs of Hollywood elite who wanted a more private setting for their fitness goals. The family sold Golden Door in 1998.

A Century of Wisdom

You can’t let a vibrant spirit like Szekely leave the conversation without asking what has fed her longevity. “The main thing is self-care—I walk an hour a day, I’m religious about that. I like being young at 99, and so I have to commit myself to being young at 99—it doesn’t just happen.”

And she believes strongly in the “siempre mejor” or “always better” way to frame life. “My husband brought that motto to our lives. I wish we could say it as a society, but we can say it as an individual—I’m always better. And that is the goal to achieve.”

She believes being physically fit gives you the stamina to handle the hard things much easier. “It’s even more important in difficult times to be healthy, meaning you watch what you eat, and watch how you act and how you think and what you think about. I do not welcome negative thoughts. When I have them, I say, ‘Go away, I’m not going in that direction.’ You can change your direction. You can’t do much about all these horrible things that are waiting out there, and you don’t know which ones are going to come up and which are not. All you can do is know that you, yourself, will be physically fit and in good boxing shape.”

And her biggest self-revelation? “I found years ago that everything I fretted and worried about never happened, and I think that was the most important discovery I made. I stopped worrying. You do your best, and God does the rest. That’s all you can do. But at all times, you do your best and you do it honestly and with pride. And passion.”