With his recent threats to walk away from the project, Rick Caruso risks becoming the third in a string of successful and powerful developers who tried and failed to rebuild Montecito’s historic Miramar Hotel.

Which raises an interesting question: Who would buy it then?

Matt Middlebrook, vice president of Caruso Affiliated, laughed heartily in response to the question, but didn’t offer up an answer.

Instead, Middlebrook said, “We have not given up on this yet. We think there is an opportunity to get a great hotel built and we’re going to move forward and try to accomplish that.”

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