The new owner of the Laguna Cliffs Inn plans to emphasize what it calls the unique qualities of its location with a $1 million renovation of the 36-room boutique hotel.
Phoenix-based Classic Hotels & Resorts Senior Vice President John Grossman said the work will begin with a model room in September followed by several months of renovation to be done in phases, which will allow the hotel to remain open.
Grossman wants to be finished by February, when hotel guests begin to book summer vacations.
He said there’s a “very, very good chance” the hotel will be renamed.
Classic Hotels & Resorts bought the hotel in May for $11.2 million from Santa Barbara-based Invest West Financial Corp., and named Rachel Tejeda general manager in July.
Tejeda had been assistant general manager at the Inn at Laguna Beach, which Classic Hotels has owned for 13 years. The two properties are two blocks from each other.
The 70-room Inn completed a renovation valued at nearly $3 million two years ago, Grossman said.
The two hotels are part of Classic Hotels’ California Coastal Collection, which also includes the 75-room La Playa Carmel in Northern California.
“Like a Local”
Most of the renovation of the Cliffs will center on “what guests see, feel and touch,” Grossman said.
“The building is as nondescript as they come—it doesn’t say Laguna.”
The core experience should be a walkable sunny day in Laguna where guests “feel like a local,” he said.
Hotel design elements will evoke 1960s and ’70s skate and surf culture, from photography to physical objects.
Grossman is a longtime surfer, and he plans to hand-shape 36 surfboards in artistic fashion—one for each room—at a shop in Venice, Calif.
The hotel’s lobby and interior common areas will go from “a little Spartan and bare” to a boathouse or beach-shed look with a full-size surfboard rack, surfboards on display, bicycles, boogie boards and beach elements, swim gear, “surf-inspired art,” and in “serape” colors.
Exterior common areas are slated for a more residential feel, with softer lighting, updated furniture and a resurfaced pool, Grossman said.
Meeting Space, Art
Classic Hotels hasn’t decided on where to put meeting space for business customers.
Grossman expects original local art to be part of the new look. Its nearby sister property presents art shows at its rooftop terrace bar.
The company buys some of the unsold art for display.
“We want guests to feel like they’re somewhere instead of anywhere.”
Craft Beer, Pez Dispensers
The hotel also plans to add special touches—some of them surf-specific.
Artist Garrett Wasserman—known for his urban style and work in New York City—painted a beach- and surf-culture-based mural on a wall in the underground parking garage.
The hotel will also put some flair into its mini-bars.
“It’s kind of a thing of the past, so we’re going to update it and make it a grab-and-go kind of selection and not gouge the customer on price,” he said.
People object to $5 Snickers bars, he said, but Classic is betting they’ll enjoy local beer and artisan food costing about what they’d pay on vacation anyway.
He’s working with Cismontane Brewing Co. in Rancho Santa Margarita and stocking buffalo jerky from a Native American tribe in South Dakota. In-room coffee and tea will come in contemporary single-serving options, and there will be Pez dispensers for the kids.
“You want guests to experience these little touches,” Grossman said.
He called the work “fun” and said the company has to do it this way.
“It’s a smaller hotel in the grand scheme of things, and we don’t know any other way than diving in and doing our very best. We focus on the details, no matter how small, and that’s sort of what we do.”
