Santa Monica Proper Hotel

Santa Monica, CA, United States

For many years, the twin poles of Los Angeles’ hotel scene were corporate chains and glitzy grande dames that had peaked in the days when smoking was de rigueur and female actors were referred to as ‘starlets’. Over the past decade, a new wave of lifestyle-led properties has come to town, and Santa Monica Proper is sashaying to the front of the pack. Located on Wilshire Boulevard, so close to the ocean you can smell the salt, and within walking distance of laidback cafés and the world-renowned farmers’ market, it’s undoubtedly the witty Westside aesthetic that makes it remarkable – and that’s no small feat in a city where aesthetic is all.

The original structure was built in the Spanish colonial revival style in 1928 and is now flanked by a soaring extension housing 267 rooms and suites – all curvaceous settees, crisp Italian linens and Aesop bath products – many with terraces. There’s something both modernist and Moorish about the hotel’s smooth archways, decorative stone inlays and a tawny colour palette that nods to the desert. The result is right up there as a personal best for Angeleno designer Kelly Wearstler, whose trademark eclecticism and preference for mixing vintage and new is on full display in everything from floral wallpapers to custom- made brass light fittings.

Glossy locals pop in for treatments in the ayurvedic spa and to conduct meetings in the lobby, but it’s at golden hour that it becomes clear how much of a little-black-book address the hotel has become since opening in 2019. From 5pm onwards, Calabra rooftop bar pulses with MAWs (models, actors, whatevers) sipping sours and fluttering to Baleariac house as Santa Monica pier lights up behind them, while Palma, an all-day offering in a cavernous, curved space filled with art, serves sharing plates that are sometimes Italian, sometimes Mexican and always delicious. Yellowtail crudo in blood orange jus topped with a twist of Buddha’s hand lemon is a knockout. Follow it with a glass from the Californian- facing wine list as you peruse the design books in the library.

Words by Imogene Lepere.

Doubles from £438. 00 1 310 620 9990,https://www.properhotel.com/