Wells Fargo Bank submitted the high bid of $55 million at an auction today for the Makena Beach & Golf Resort.

Wells Fargo, which is the trustee for a group of lenders owed more than $192.5 million by the hotel's owners, beat out a competing bid of $50 million.

Real estate developer and broker Christopher Lau, the commissioner appointed by the court, conducted the auction and the sale now moves to a confirmation hearing before Second Circuit Judge Shackley F. Raffetto.

"There was a huge amount of interest in the property," Lau said. "I spent hundreds of hours these past few months introducing potential investors from all over the world to the property.

"In the end, though, the economy remains uncertain and in this environment no one was prepared to bid anything close to what the mortgage lender is owed."

He said the mortgage represented only a fraction of the over $400 million of total debt that the current owners had taken out to acquire and develop the property.