Santa Monica Proper Hotel

For ninety years the Santa Monica Professional Building let its upper floors to professionals, and now it has a doctor in: Martha Soffer, the Ayurvedic doctor and herbalist behind Surya, the hotel's spa, where a Panchakarma cleanse can run from three days to 28. Arthur E. Harvey built it in 1928, six storeys of stucco and carved arches in the Spanish Colonial Revival manner, and when it became a hotel in 2019 Howard Laks Architects put up a new building beside it and linked the two. Kelly Wearstler did the inside of both. Her lobby ceiling comes down in a great plaster cone and lands on a column of grey glazed tiles; off it is a library of art books on oak shelves. In one bedroom the headboard is upholstered in concentric arches, a sunrise in cushioning, against wallpaper scattered with blossoms, and palm trees fill the windows.

Recommended for anyone who wants Santa Monica on foot rather than a beach hotel, and for families, with a Proper Family Suite, rooms that connect and a children's menu at both restaurants. The beach is half a mile down the hill, and the bike path along it runs north to the pier and three miles south to Abbot Kinney in Venice. The concierge books surf lessons at Zuma Beach and Point Dume, and on Wednesday mornings the executive chef takes guests round the Santa Monica Farmers Market. On the roof, loungers line the pool under white umbrellas, and Calabra, the restaurant up there, cooks Mediterranean food without seed oils. The hotel keeps Electra bikes, with child seats for the smallest passengers, and on the way back from Venice the last half mile is the one that goes uphill.