One Night in a Beachfront L.A. Hotel Where the Rooms Are More Like Apartments

Welcome to One Night In, a series about staying in the most unparalleled places available to rest your head.

With family in Los Angeles, I’ve been visiting the city from the east coast at least once a year for my entire life. That means that, while it’s not exactly a second home, flying into LAX is about as close an experience as I get to feeling like I’m going home while not actually doing it. And given the preponderance of people I know in the city, more often than not, I’m sleeping in guest rooms or on couches. But last month, I was pitched by a publicist to try something a little different: What if a stay in this city could be a stay in a luxury hotel meets apartment complex—right on the ocean?

The Regent Santa Monica Beach opened two years ago after a full renovation—its predecessor, the Loews Santa Monica Beach, was built in 1989—and is already the recipient of one Michelin Key. Their intent is that each guest have a "highly personalized stay," which means you get an "Experience Manager" who can customize your visit for you, and there are a number of activities you can book, from makeup classes to Hawk Talks (more on that later). The hotel is also known for the size of the rooms: the smallest room you can book is a suite of 720 square feet, and the largest over 3,000—a range that exceeds many New York City apartments I’ve lived in. With a trip out west already on the books, and the encouragement of a colleague who had visited the hotel during a press trip when it first reopened, I added a few days on to the front to see what luxury hotel living was all about, curious to experience how the hotel had developed since then.

Wednesday

8:30 p.m.: I arrive in L.A. after a decidedly Normal Flight, handle navigating the airport’s continually mystifying rideshare pickup, and find myself at the Regent. It’s quiet midweek, and as I check in at reception—which features a massive screen showing a live feed of the beach via KTLA’s cameras—I’m handed a lemonade and a cold towel for my hands. The lobby, which sits at the bottom of a massive atrium that stretches up through the majority of the floors of rooms, and merges into the hotel’s main bar and restaurant, is decorated in neutrals—stones, metals, woods, bouclé. Unlike the austere feeling of some similar spaces (ahem, Kim Kardashian’s home), the lingering ’80s feel of the structure softens things, giving it a slight retro feel that an entirely new build with the same furnishings would lack. Now owned by Strategic Hotels & Resorts, which owns IMG Hotels and Resorts, which owns Regent Hotels & Resorts, it’s the first Regent in the Americas since the Regent Beverly Wilshire lost that identity in 1992, and seems to be an attempt to make a noticeable return with the brand. 

I’m given the general lay of the land, including the fact that free bikes are put out at 7 a.m. for riding down the beach, and take the elevator up to my room on the 7th floor—which is… gigantic. An occupational hazard—if you could consider it that—of this job is that I have stayed in some very nice places. But the size and scale of this "room" unfolds in a way that has me fairly shocked. I’ve been given the Pacifica Oceanfront Suite, one of seven entirely unique suites in the hotel, as I’ll learn later on a tour. At 1,500 square feet, it is an apartment, with one-and-a-half baths, two living spaces, a full kitchen, dining room, King bed, and walk-in closet (not to mention the vanity area for getting ready), and will run you thousands of dollars a night, depending on season (like, $10,000). Even with it being dark outside, walking through the entranceway, the room immediately opens up to a corner view of the pool as well as the beach and the Santa Monica pier, ferris wheel glowing. There’s jazz playing from one of the three flatscreen televisions, and, if I didn’t have plans that had been set up for me by the hotel, I’d probably just spend the rest of the evening walking back and forth between the rooms in a daze.

9 p.m.: One of the specialized experiences the Regent has set up to differentiate itself is its Bath Butler service. Like its Beach Butler service—which is what it sounds like; someone sets up an umbrella and other beach accoutrements for you on the sandy stretch outside the hotel—the Bath Butler is a curated bathing experience. Priced at $400, you can start or end your day in your soaking tub (drawn by yourself or the butler) and accompanied by a variety of Guerlain products, as also seen at the Guerlain Wellness Spa downstairs.

I walk into the bathroom to find that it’s all been set up for me (though I chose to fill my own tub; I can do some things). The lighting in the room has been dimmed, electric candles have been lit, there’s a Bluetooth speaker (which I cannot get to pair, but no matter; I play music off the TV in the bedroom), and an electric kettle with hot water ready for tea. With the addition of the bath products (which, should you get sticker shock, are yours to take with you), the room is truly filled with lotions and potions. Despite being addicted to submerging myself in water, I am not frequently a bath person, but—when in Rome! It is, as you might imagine to be, severely relaxing.

After tub time is over, I slip on my robe and slippers and avail myself of the marcona almonds and pear that has been left for me as a welcome; the snacks were customized to my taste before arrival. In a touch I’ve only heard tell of and not gotten to experience myself, the pillowcases have been embroidered with my initials and those of my partner, who will be joining me tomorrow. I’m tickled. I turn on my bedroom television and lounge in bed until the west coast airing of this episode of Watch What Happens Live!—which I’ve, funnily enough, already heard the highlights of from a friend back home—ends, then turn off the many lights in my new home, and fall asleep.