Rosewood Miramar Beach

Trains on the coastal railway still run along the edge of the property, between the lawns and the sand, as they did when they stopped here for guests of the old Miramar. Rosewood Miramar Beach, which opened in Montecito in March 2019, is the latest hotel on a stretch of beach that has been taking visitors since the 1880s.

History

In 1876 Josiah Doulton and his wife Eliza bought land on the shore east of Santa Barbara, and within a decade they were taking paying guests. The house took the name Miramar, Spanish for 'look at the sea'. Over the twentieth century it grew into the Miramar Hotel, a rambling family resort of cottages with blue roofs, a railway stop of its own and a long beach that generations of Southern Californians remember from childhood holidays.

The old Miramar closed in 2000. Several redevelopment plans followed and failed, and in 2007 the Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso bought the property. He spent the next twelve years on approvals and construction, and the new hotel opened in 2019 under the management of Rosewood Hotels & Resorts.

Architecture and design

Caruso chose a traditional idiom rather than a modern one. The main building, the Manor House, and the cottages around it are painted white with grey roofs and shuttered windows, closer in spirit to an East Coast summer resort than to the Spanish Colonial manner common in Santa Barbara. Gardens, lawns and hedges fill the space between the buildings, and the beach front is kept open so that most of the grounds look towards the Santa Barbara Channel and the Channel Islands on the horizon.

Rooms and suites

Rooms are divided between the Manor House and a series of bungalows and cottages set in the gardens, some directly on the beach. Many have terraces or balconies facing the sea, and the suites are laid out as small houses.

Dining

Caruso's, the principal restaurant, sits on the beach and serves Italian cooking built on Californian produce. The Manor Bar, inside the main house, is the evening gathering place, with a piano and a fireplace, and lighter meals are served by the pools and on the beach.

Wellness

Sense, A Rosewood Spa, offers treatments in its own building in the gardens. The resort has two swimming pools, and the beach itself, long and sandy, is a rare amenity on a coast where many hotels sit above the water.

Weddings and events

The lawns facing the ocean, the beach and the indoor function rooms are used for weddings, and the meeting rooms take corporate retreats and private celebrations.

Location

The hotel stands on Miramar Beach in Montecito, the residential community just east of Santa Barbara, between the US 101 highway and the sea. Butterfly Beach, where the Biltmore has stood since 1927, and the Coast Village Road shops are a few minutes along the coast, and Lotusland, the gardens created by the opera singer Ganna Walska, lies in the hills above. Montecito has been a place of large estates since the early twentieth century, and the centre of Santa Barbara is about ten minutes by car. As a luxury hotel in Montecito, it is unusual in having the beach at its door rather than below a cliff. Santa Barbara Airport is about 20 minutes away, and the Amtrak station in Santa Barbara is served by the Pacific Surfliner and the Coast Starlight.