Hotel review – seaside style and quiet nooks for celebs in Santa Monica

From the outside, this handsome-redbrick building – designed in the style of a Renaissance Revival-style palazzo - isn’t that splashy, at least not compared to its slightly more famous sister next door, Shutters on the Beach, which straddles the beachfront like an East Coast summer estate Jay Gatsby would have felt comfortable in.

While Shutters is splashy and full of life, the Casa del Mar is more quietly elegant. Even the main entrance is discreet, on a nondescript side street that feels miles from the action, even though it sits on the beach and the famous Santa Monica pier is just a short walk away.

Which isn’t that much of a surprise, considering that it was built as an exclusive beach club for socialites and celebrities during Hollywood’s 1920s heyday.

Today, it’s hosting an Irish travel journalist and his wife.

The rating: 8.5/10

Arrival & Location

Hotel Casa del Mar is set right by the ocean in Santa Monica, a 20-minute walk from Venice Beach and a 20-minute drive from Downtown LA and West Hollywood (traffic-permitting).

Once inside, we get that instant wow-factor. A grand, curving double staircase leads to the extravagant lobby, all mosaic floors and elaborate Venetian chandeliers. Beyond the front desk, the carpeted lounge has more Murano glass and enormous potted plants: I’m too early to check in, but I can’t imagine a nicer space to hang around until my room is ready.

While we wait, I read about the building’s history. How the Navy turned it into military housing during WWII. How it served as a drug rehab centre in the 1960s, before idling into disrepair until it was bought by the owners of Shutters in 1997. Two years and $50m later, it reopened as a hotel whose vibe was redolent of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Another refurb has given the hotel a fresh look – think Douglas Fairbanks and Clara Bowe, but with great wifi and lots of athleisurewear. 8.5/10

Service & Style

To stop us hanging around aimlessly, the desk clerk took my number and told me I’d get a text telling me my room was ready – a nice touch in a city where everyone seems perpetually on the go, but not so urgent when all we planned to do was wander the hotel corridors checking out the amenities.

These include the Sea Wellness spa and a smallish gym (but the hotel does offer lots of workout options like yoga on the beach and bike hire). The pool on the fourth floor is also pretty small, but nobody is coming here to do laps; instead, you can lay out on a lounger under the southern California sun and use the pool to cool off.

We also popped across the street to check out Shutters - its scalloped, grey clapboard exterior making it the most distinguishable of Santa Monica’s beachfront hotels. Inside, the public areas were full of life – and eye catching artworks by the likes of David Hockney and Roy Lichtenstein. Impressive, but we were keen to get back to our own home for the night. 9/10

The rooms

When the text came telling us our room was ready, we were given a Partial Oceanview Superior King room, which sounded pretty fancy. The reality was a smidgen less so: it was a gorgeous room, but more compact than I’d imagined. And the ocean view? I had to crane my neck slightly to see the water beyond the side of the building - so definitely a partial view.

Whatever quibbles we had about size and views were mitigated by the room décor. If the public spaces were grand Italian villa, the rooms have the light-filled freshness of a New England beach house, with light blues and soft grey tones throughout. There’s a maritime theme to the artworks, while the shelves are lined with books about interior design, vases and coral sculptures that complement the seaside feel and colour palette.

The four-poster beds are dressed in Italian linen, while the Italian marble bathrooms are laden with Diptyque amenities, which my wife assured me are very fancy (I was more distracted by the Hydrothermal massage function in the bathtub).

One of my biggest bugbears in hotels is the lack of bedside plug points, but Hotel Casa del Mar has me covered. Besides a snazzy control panel for lighting, there’s multiple plug and USB charge points on both sides of the bed, which meant I could charge my phone, iWatch and headphones while I slept.

And boy did we sleep, as the bed is one of the most comfortable we’ve slept in for a very long time: a firm mattress, beautiful linen and a good mix of pillows (very important for two people prone to stiff necks). 7.5/10

A restaurant to dine for

Not surprisingly, the menu in the Terrazza restaurant is all about flavours of the Mediterranean, but with a strong touch of California. So you can get a Mediterranean platter of babaganoush, tzatziki and hummus and follow it with fish tacos or a wagyu burger.

The dinner menu leans a little heavier on Italy, with a selection of pasta dishes complementing meat and fish dishes that wouldn’t look out of place in a top end Milanese restaurant. There’s also a Raw Bar, serving oysters, crudo and ceviche so fresh the chef may as well have made it in front of you.

What is surprising, though, is how reasonably priced it is, especially the lunch menu, where no main is more than $20. I had a perfectly tasty Caesar salad for $16; my wife’s Cobb salad cost $20. Dinner mains are more expensive, but this is Santa Monica, where dining well for less than $150 a head (including a glass of wine) is something of a minor miracle.

Not only did we dine well, but in a splendid setting. The restaurant is at the far end of the lobby, all Venetian glass and large ferns hanging from the ceiling, Sicilian-style painted plates on the columns and floor-to-ceiling windows with a panoramic view of the beach obstructed only by palm trees.

The waitstaff were an added bonus, all seasoned professionals whose competent, courteous service enhanced the dining experience.

Because this is Los Angeles and famous people like to go to public places without being bothered, there’s also the option of dining in the Lobby Lounge, which is a sectioned off area around the main bar with couches and low-slung tables. Besides the Raw Bar, the menu is more limited – sliders, sharing platters and finger food – but you can nibble away in relative privacy, behind a velvet rope. 8.5/10

The bottom line

The hotel’s public areas are every bit as grand and beautiful as the website photos suggest – which, let’s be honest, is pretty rare.

We were surprised by how compact the standard bedrooms are, but they’re beautifully appointed and have every conceivable mod con you’d want in a contemporary hotel room. Plus we didn’t spend a huge amount of time there, as there was so much of Santa Monica to discover.

Rates

Room-only rates at Hotel Casa del Mar, a member of Preferred Hotels & Resorts’ Legend Collection, start from €600 per room per night. Suites start from $1,600. For more information to book, visit preferredhotels.com.

Fionn was a guest of the hotel. hotelcasadelmar.com