When Esquire magazine announced its splashy list of the 41 best new hotels in North America and Europe, we never expected to see California dominating the ranking so thoroughly. The Golden State lays claim to a third of the U.S. hotels on the list — nine out of 31 — with San Diego’s eye-popping, luxurious The Lafayette Hotel & Club taking top billing as “Hotel of the Year.”
The newly unveiled Lafayette Hotel evokes the glamorous heyday of midcentury San Diego, when celebrities such as Bob Hope and Marilyn Monroe frequented its lounges and bars. (Haley Hill Photography for The Lafayette)
The eclectic list celebrates splashy new hotels that are the very opposite of cookie cutter. You’ll find everything from the modernist Sea Ranch Lodge on the rugged Sonoma coast to the Inn at Mattei’s Tavern in Santa Barbara wine country and the Dillon Beach Resort with its seaside cottages.
Esquire’s editors describe Guerneville’s Dawn Ranch as having a “warm, summer-camp feel with an array of cabins, cottages, and glamping tents” — if, that is, your summer camp experience included outdoor soaking tubs, a spa with sound bath and a restaurant with an Argentine and Uruguayan-focused menu.
And then there’s the Lodge at Marconi in Tomales Bay, whose checkered past — it was the headquarters of the Synanon cult back in the day — has given way to coastal-chic cottages and Adirondack chair-surrounded fire pits.
The newly opened Lodge at Marconi is surrounded by the 65-acre Marconi California State Historic Park near Tomales Bay. (Brian Ferry for the Lodge at Marconi)
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Find Esquire’s full list, which includes new hotels in the United States, Mexico, Central America and Europe, at www.esquire.com. Meanwhile, here’s a peek at the California contenders.
The Best New Hotels in the U.S. — California edition
2 Dillon Beach Resort, Dillon Beach
3 Dawn Ranch, Guerneville
4 The Inn at Mattei’s Tavern, Los Olivos, California
5 Pendry Newport Beach, Newport Beach, California
6 Lodge at Marconi, Tomales Bay
7 Drift, Palm Springs
8 The Line, San Francisco
9 The Sea Ranch Lodge, Sea Ranch
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