Beach home of Valley Children’s CEO sits in state’s most expensive vacation spot

The square mile that comprises Carmel-By-The-Sea teems with tourists on a Saturday afternoon. They fly kites on Carmel Beach and stroll around the high-end options at Carmel Plaza, a luxury shopping center surrounded by blocks of fine art galleries, wine-tasting rooms and expensive real estate offices.

In this enclave of California’s wealthy is one of the homes of Valley Children’s Hospital CEO Todd Suntrapak, whose multi-million-dollar executive compensation package has been scrutinized lately as excessive for a nonprofit children’s hospital. During the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2022, the hospital compensated him $5.1 million and also gave him a $5 million “loan for residence in lieu of other compensation,” according to federal tax filings.

The same year, he purchased a $6.5 million home in Carmel, Monterey County property records show.

According to Zillow, the average home in Carmel is worth more than $2 million, and the median list price for homes that are on sale there is more than $2.6 million. Records show Suntrapak’s four-bedroom, 3,225-square-foot home in Carmel was built in 2005 on a nearly 7,000-square-foot lot.

Valley Children’s is the largest children’s hospital between Los Angeles and San Francisco, with more than 70% of those treated enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state’s insurance program for low income people. In the Fresno area, Valley Children’s has for years been a go-to charity for donations and volunteering, with several retailers collecting nickels and dimes when patrons are asked at checkout if they want to “round-up” and donate. The hospital is also known for its fundraising efforts at events in which people raise money by selling newspapers on the street, known as Kids’ Day, which The Fresno Bee has sponsored.

Three hours away from Fresno, Carmel is the most expensive summer destination in the state, according to a cheaphotels.org survey from last year. Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood was once the city’s mayor. Carmel sits next to exclusive Pebble Beach, which Forbes calls one of the 50 most expensive zip codes in the country.

Whether Suntrapak used the $5 million Valley Children’s loan to buy his home in Carmel is unclear. A search of Monterey County property records does not show there is a loan, or any other lien, associated with the hospital on the home.

On Thursday, Arboleda, the hospital’s spokesperson, confirmed that the $5 million loan to Suntrapak is a forgivable loan. She said the interest rate on the loan is consistent with the applicable federal rate at the time the loan was given.

Michael Hanson, chair of the hospital’s Board of Trustees, wrote in a recent letter to the Fresno City Council that such loans are “not at all unusual as a retention tool.”

“Should the CEO voluntarily leave the organization within the 10-year period after the loan was advanced, the unamortized balance of the loan is required to be repaid,” he wrote.

These types of loans to executives are not unheard of, said Dr. Vikas Saini, a clinical cardiologist and president of the Lown Institute, in a Thursday phone interview with The Bee. The institute, based in Massachusetts, studies the health care system, including issues of executive compensation at nonprofit hospitals.

Saini also called the loan “a remarkably attractive perk.”

“In the for-profit world, in the big corporate world and Wall Street, this is sort of standard practice,” he said. “It reinforces the impression that one gets that nonprofit hospitals and for-profit corporations are hard to distinguish, in terms of their behavior.”

In Fresno, news of the hospital’s executive pay packages and $5 million home loan caught heated criticism from City Councilmembers Miguel Arias and Garry Bredefeld, who are on opposite sides of the political aisle but have blasted Valley Children’s together.

“When it comes to the CEO and executives of Valley Children’s Hospital, a nonprofit hospital, there is a clear culture of enriching themselves at the expense of sick and poor children,” Bredefeld said during a news conference in late March.

Neither Suntrapak nor members of the hospital’s board have commented publicly about Valley Children’s executive compensation levels. They’ve turned down interviews with The Bee through Arboleda, the hospital’s spokesperson, on multiple occasions.

The Bee went to Carmel last weekend to see Suntrapak’s home and attempt to contact him. No one answered the door on a Saturday afternoon. Suntrapak also has a home in Fresno, where Valley Children’s has paid for 24-hour security patrols because of threats the hospital says have been made against him. That home is worth just over $2 million today, according to Zillow.

Some homes near Carmel Beach are worth well over $10 million. Suntrapak’s is modest in comparison, with a worth of about $7 million today, according to Zillow. It’s just blocks from the beach’s white sands and minutes from the high-end plaza. It’s also walking distance from the 253-year-old Carmel Mission Basilica Museum, where St. Junipero Serra, the patron saint of California, is buried.

From Fresno to Carmel-By-The-Sea

The road from Fresno to Carmel is as striking in the spring as the city itself. The drive includes vast farmland in western Madera County and winding curves around the San Luis Reservoir and green coastal mountains with rounded peaks. The air is crisp in the San Juan Valley, where fruit stands offer bulging, juicy strawberries.

Carmel is a city of 3,220 residents, where around 1% of people live in poverty, and where the median household income is more than 37% higher than it is for the rest of the state, according to U.S. Census data.

For comparison, in Fresno, a city of more than 540,000 residents, about 20% of people live in poverty and the median household income of $63,001 is more than 31% lower than it is for the rest of the state, Census data show. In Madera, a city of about 68,000 residents, more than 27% live in poverty.