SARASOTA - The Colony Beach & Tennis Resort, a Longboat Key institution for more than 40 years, plans to halt nearly all of its operations Sunday night because of the founding Klauber family's ongoing dispute with unit owners over maintenance costs.

"Without the cooperation of our condo owners, it is virtually impossible to operate the Colony as a world-class resort," Katherine Klauber Moulton, the resort's general manager and president, said at a news conference Tuesday. "I'm sorry we have to do this. I'm sorry for the community, but we will return to the gem of the Gulf that we have been."

The resort, which generates $20 million in annual revenue, is laying off 80 full-time workers and retaining 60 full- and part-time employees to help run the Colony's restaurant - the only major part of the resort that will keep operating.

After Sunday night, power will be shut off to the more than 230 units, the pool will be closed, housekeeping will stop, tennis courts will be off limits, there will be no front desk service and no maintenance.

Last month, the Colony was dealt a blow when a bankruptcy judge ruled that the resort's nonprofit condominium association is not responsible for millions in past maintenance and repairs.

The partnership had filed suit against the condo association for as much as $12 million in repairs and maintenance costs, saying that the condo owners should have been assessed for repairs to the common areas and infrastructure.

The association countersued for $10 million and filed for bankruptcy, saying it never assessed its members for the repairs, never approved them and could not afford them.

Bank of America filed a foreclosure lawsuit against the Colony this year, claiming that the well-known getaway has been in default on about $8 million in loans and fees since January 2008.

The condo owners have been fighting since 2005 against any attempt to get them to pay for repairs to the aging resort because they never had to in the past.

The resort's general partner, Murray Klauber, has said that when times were better he covered those costs.

The resort, first built in the early 1950s by Herbert P. Field, has a rich history. It housed the original Nick Bollettieri Tennis Academy and was the setting for a 1981 movie, "Spring Fever," starring Susan Anton.

Klauber took over the resort in 1972.