Hotel Californian

Hotel Californian first opened in 1925, and eleven days later the earthquake and fire of that year shook Santa Barbara, and the hotel with it. The town rebuilt itself as an imagined Spain, in white walls and red tile, and the Californian came back that way in 2017: three buildings at the corner of State and Mason, rebuilt by DesignArc. Martyn Lawrence Bullard, who did the interiors, carried on across the Strait of Gibraltar. There are more than a million tiles, many of them hand-painted in Morocco. In the lobby the columns are banded black and white, and mustard velvet armchairs face each other over a chess board. In a bedroom the tiles run round the walls at waist height, under a headboard of studded maroon leather.

We were not there for the hotel. Santa Barbara was the last stop on a trip through Los Angeles and Palm Springs, a town we wanted to get to know, and for two October nights the Californian was where we set out from. We have forgotten which category of room we had. It was large and comfortable, which on a stay spent mostly out of it is what a room is for.

It was very good at that. West Beach is two minutes' walk from the door, and so is the first glass of wine, because the Funk Zone starts at the hotel: the old warehouse district between downtown and the shore, now wine-tasting rooms and galleries. We hired bikes and rode across to Montecito. For a day further out, the hotel arranges chauffeured trips to the wineries of the Santa Ynez Valley, which spares anyone the ride home after the tastings. Breakfast was across the street, in a small café we were very taken with; whether it belonged to the hotel, and whether breakfast was in our rate, has gone the way of the room category.

Children are welcome - a Granada room, with two queens, sleeps four - but there is no kids club, and with three bars and a restaurant that puts cocktails in its name, the evenings are pitched at their parents. The Tan Tan Pool is up on the Mirador roof. It is small, but we liked it as a place to sit: the sunbeds rise in tiered rows, and the view runs out over red roofs and waterfront palms to the wharf and the Pacific, with the Santa Ynez Mountains behind. Laid out like that, the deck is a small theatre, and the ocean is what is on.