Four new California hotels to book now

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Stay in the “other” SoCal wine country

The Santa Ynez Valley remains, despite a star turn many years ago in the Alexander Payne-directed film. Oblique, a relatively off-the-radar destination for most people beyond the borders of the Golden State. It shouldn’t be: it’s lovely, much less underwritten than Napa or Sonoma, and the landscapes are proto-California: rolling yellow hills padded with patches of vineyards and dotted with broad oak trees, punctuated by the occasional frontier-era town ( usually with some clapboard facades still gratifyingly intact).

Auberge Resorts, which has a corner in the West Coast luxury hospitality market, recently opened The Inn at Mattei’s Tavern in one such city, Los Olivos. He unassumingly inserts himself, operating his restaurant and bar in the original tavern (dating from 1886), with rooms and suites spread between turn-of-the-20th-century cottages and a new two-story building (some of which have gardens and balconies). The food is clean and simple Californian, from Central Coast abalone to, of course, a robust kale salad, and good enough to have made the Tavern restaurant a popular stop on the SoCal-to-NorCal Highway. 101. aubergeresorts.comfrom $950

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Iconic architecture in western Sonoma County

The Sea Ranch Lodge is a minor Northern California legend: a pioneer architecture and model 1960’s community on a beautiful 53 acre portion of the Sonoma County shoreline. For the past two years, he has been undergoing a quiet revolution makeover involving local artists and artisans that has once again caught the eye of tastemakers. First, in 2021, its public spaces arrived: a diner, open to the public and specializing in comfort classics (soup, squashed burgers, and cereal bowls), a cafeteria, and a general store. Earlier this month, the original 1968 hotel’s 17-room reopened for bookings after a gentle renovation of less is more than honors the original vision of the architects and landscape designers who worked on the project, including Charles Moore, Joseph Esherick and Lawrence Halperin.

There is plenty of local wood and local stone (hard to come by these days), hand-woven rugs, custom beds, custom-built armoires and desks. Santa Cruz Carpentryand built-in window seats that take advantage of views of the ocean horizon. The next stage of the project makes seven of the famed Sea Ranch residences available for short-term, hotel-operated stays (its brilliant general manager, Kristina Jetton, is one of the best in California). For now, though, get yourself a room, build a fire in the fancy fireplace, pour yourself a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, and tap into a time before tech billionaires and real-estate savages when the Sonoma landscape was the preserve of dreamers. theearnlodge.comrooms from $500

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Twee Carmel changes her style

Carmel-by-the-Sea, in central California, is a much more familiar name to most: long a tourist destination for its restaurants, shops, music festivals, and two long, beautiful beaches (not to mention the festival annual elegance contest of vintage cars and a constellation of world-class golf courses, both next door at Pebble Beach). Palisociety, the micro-chain of small, hip, design-forward addresses, has just opened the first two properties of its new spin-off brand, Le Petit Pali, here. One, on the corner of Ocean Avenue, the town’s bustling main street, puts you right in the center of the action, with 34 rooms in several bungalows.

The other, a 24-room hotel conversion in the local Craftsman style, is a few blocks away on Eighth Avenue; a bit quieter, but about as easy as walking to Bottega Veneta, great pizza at La Biciclette, and Carmel State Beach, where south of 13th Avenue you can (and should) have a picnic at the Cheese Shop Go down to the sand to watch the sunset. The style of Le Petit Pali is a mix of English Country Cottage meets West Hollywood: all paneled walls painted pistachio or cream, antique wicker (or mid-century oak) furniture, and Aubusson or Persian rugs mixed with jute mats. They are welcome additions to a place that could use a few more addresses. lepetitpali.comfrom $350

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San Diego gets a great lady back

Far to the south of San Diego, where historic Del Coronado has (rightly) dominated as the place to stay for years, another iconic location has just emerged from a cool-looking and complete renovation. Once a favorite escape for the likes of Ava Gardner and Lana Turner, the 1946 Hotel Lafayette was acquired a couple of years ago by CH Projects, which owns and operates a handful of the city’s best restaurants.

Its 139 rooms have been redesigned by regular CH collaborators postal company, a Brooklyn-based boutique firm that has long devoted itself to papered ceilings, fringed lamps, and jewel tones, for a look that stays just on the right side of the top. Some rooms are in the main hotel, while suites fill the townhouses that surround the original pool (and it’s quite an old California glam pool). A total of eight bars and restaurants complete the offer, including a Oaxacan taco-mezcalería whose interiors were rescued from a deconsecrated church in the Mexican state. lafayettehotelsd.comfrom $299