Alila Ventana Big Sur

Big Sur is the jewel of the California coast, one of the most spectacular places in North America, and Alila Ventana Big Sur is Big Sur’s original luxury resort, founded by writer Lawrence A. Spector, using profits from the film Easy Rider. Clearly it doesn’t get much more California than that.

Fortunately this is the eminently dignified and respectable face of California, a sort of middle ground, as far from New Age hippie excess as it is from the glitz and materialism of Hollywood. Ventana is clearly a high-luxury resort, specializing in escapism and what is often called ‘pampering’— but Big Sur is the star here, the main event the hallucinatory view of the Pacific a thousand feet below.

A less restrained, less confident resort would feature gleaming, monumental buildings, and would probably pave over the redwoods to construct a grand looping driveway. Here we find a hotel at peace with its surroundings, very much a part of the Big Sur landscape—the hotel itself comprises some ten or more low wooden structures, hidden around the sprawling 243-acre grounds and connected by winding pathways.

But the genius of this place is that beneath its humble surface it delivers all the material comforts of those proud and decadent resorts—from the wood-burning fireplaces, Jacuzzis and high ceilings of the guest suites to the public spaces like the pools, the Japanese bathhouse, and the Spa Alila, offering a selection of treatments so comprehensive as to set the head spinning. And the food, of course, is exquisite as well, the Sur House restaurant serving Big Sur-inspired cuisine, rooted in the unique styles and flavors of California’s Central Coast against the backdrop of the Pacific and the wide blue sky.

Make no mistake: this is the same Big Sur where Henry Miller lived, where Kerouac slept on the beach and Dylan came to study—and it’s also where the likes of Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw, as well as generations of successors, have come for Hollywood-quality luxury without the paparazzi in tow. As such, it’s like nowhere else in California—and as such, it’s not to be missed.

Please note: Children under the age of 18 are not permitted.