Casa del Mar: The 1926 Club Next Door

Hotel Casa del Mar shares the same sand and the same family, fifty steps from Shutters at 1910 Ocean Way, twenty-five to forty minutes from downtown. The Harter brothers built it in 1926 as Club Casa del Mar, a beach club for a city that still dressed for the water. The Navy took it in the war. Later chapters included Synanon and the Pritikin center. In 1997 the Slatkins bought the closed landmark, spent more than fifty million dollars, and reopened it in 1999 as a hotel that kept the Renaissance Revival bones and gave the rooms a contemporary coastal life. The lobby’s original height and windows remain the hidden gem: sunset as architecture.

The charm is grandeur with a beach at the door. One hundred twenty-nine rooms, including two-story penthouses, Sea Wellness Spa, Palm Terrace pool for guests only, Terrazza, a lobby lounge that still knows how to hold an evening. Book a cabana in that lobby if the afternoon should look like a club. Book the spa if the stay is rest in the literal sense. Nearby attractions are the same as Shutters—the Pier, the Promenade, Main Street—with a more formal parlor to return to. Comfort is traditional club hospitality restored: high ceilings, a bar that faces the water, a room that does not apologize for being dressed.

What you gain instead of a new beach motel is a landmark that survived its odd middle chapters and came back as itself. The limits are the same sand traffic and the same premium rates. Some travelers prefer Shutters’ shingles to Casa’s more European posture. Guests who wanted the pristine historic beach house will be in this lobby at dusk.

Hotel Casa del Mar is a Citywide Spotlight Diamond Destination because it is independently held with its sister hotel, unique as a restored 1926 club on Los Angeles sand, and finished for couples who want the ocean without a chain on the letterhead. Choosing it is choosing history that was rebuilt with care, a spa and a pool that belong to guests, and a night that still feels like arrival.