Lido House is looking to break all kinds of records this year as the 130-room hotel is completing a few projects, including five new private cottages and a new exclusive dining experience.
The features, along with new meeting venues, mean the boutique Newport Beach hotel could hit record-breaking occupancy, food and beverage revenue, and group sales in 2026, General Manager Rory Emslie told the Business Journal.
Lido House’s most recent efforts include building two new event spaces from scratch last year, in response to customer demand for more flexible meeting venues.
Emslie said the new flexible spaces are options for clients who have requested rooms outside the traditional ballroom setting. He said the hotel, built on the site of the former City Hall, is a hotspot for corporate retreats and small-to-mid-size meetings, and the new spaces allow Lido House “to blend social and corporate together” during these events.
The first to open last year was the Glass House, a brand-new 540-square-foot structure built on the Newport Lawn between the two original Ficus trees from the old city hall days. The idea was driven by the hotel’s number of outdoor events and requests for spaces with natural light from both corporate and social clients, Emslie said.
The structure has floor-to-ceiling windows on all sides, which can be left open for clients who want outdoor access. It can fit up to 200 people at a time.
“We’ve had limited events over on that side of the hotel for the last eight years, but having the Glass House there really positions it as an event location and can provide that space to our social and corporate groups,” Emslie said.
Glass House debuted on the Fourth of July and has been in high demand since, according to Emslie.
Corporate groups were also requesting flexible space for smaller, “breakout” meetings, the GM said.
In turn, Lido House built a new 900-square-foot meeting room, The Boardwalk, to accommodate smaller gatherings that would complement events in the larger Boathouse Ballroom. It opened last October.
“From a business standpoint, it also allowed us to host multiple styles of events simultaneously, which is something that we weren’t able to do before—increasing the versatility of the hotel but not sacrificing the intimacy with our guests,” Emslie said.
The hotel now has a total of 16,959 square feet of meeting space, divided into 6,270 square feet of indoor space and 10,689 square feet of outdoor space. Lido House is also part of Marriott’s Autograph Collection of hotels.
“We’ve been able to increase our lead volume going into this year, so we’re looking to have a huge increase in events: a huge increase in weddings and corporate groups going into 2026,” Emslie said.
Lido House is on the Business Journal’s list of hotel meeting spaces for the first time this year.
Entrepreneur Before Hotelier
Though Emslie says the hotel market has struggled, luxury travel and experiences remain in high demand at Lido House among both visitors and locals.
“It’s where people want to be seen,” Emslie said, adding that the hotel sees “a continuation of demand from our drive-in market.”
The new general manager came to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas from his hometown of Edinburgh, Scotland, in 2010 to study hotel management.
After graduating, Emslie launched his hospitality career at The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel as a housekeeping intern for the summer and then spent the next seven years working at the Dana Point resort.
Emslie worked his way up to front of the house manager until 2021, when he joined Lido House as director of room operations. He said that the Newport Beach hotel was a place where he could be more innovative with the guest experience.
“Being part of Autograph Collection, it’s a design-forward, experience-forward brand,” he said.
Last August, Emslie was named the new general manager of Lido House.
“It was always my dream to become a general manager, and since joining this hotel, the four years of experience here allowed me to position myself to take on that role,” he said.
Emslie added that he aims to be an entrepreneur before a hotelier, like Bob Olson, the owner and developer of Lido House.
“It’s all about delivering the vision of our owner as well,” Emslie added. “He’s a visionary himself, and to be a steward of his vision is something that I love and was also enticed to do.”
The hotel broke ground on the three-story cottages last year, with Olson hosting a demolition party at the site he purchased for the new accommodations and neighboring parking lot. The five spaces are slated to open in the summer.
Another project debuting in 2026 is a new Omakase sushi restaurant and lounge called Kaiya. It will be a 12-seat dining experience with additional lounge seating.
Kaiya will replace Crew Coffee & Cremerie in the same building, which is a lighthouse turret.
“I think it really strengthens Lido House, specifically as a hotel, as being a really unique and luxurious food and beverage destination,” Emslie said.
Kaiya is aiming for an opening date in July.
