The Lodge at Torrey Pines

Designed in a remarkably authentic Arts and Crafts style, and patterned after some of Greene and Greene’s historic Pasadena houses, the Lodge at Torrey Pines shows a respect for history that’s rare on the prefabricated Southern California coastline. And all the more impressive is the fact that despite the century-old look, it’s brand new; this hotel was completed in 2002, and hewed strictly to traditional tongue and groove methods of craftsmanship, as well as modern building regulations.

The site, as well, is something to behold—adjacent to the Torrey Pines State Reserve, the hotel sits on a bluff overlooking a rocky coastline, surrounded by stands of pine trees and acres of sagebrush and sandstone. You’re just north of La Jolla, and just south of Del Mar, with the hotel’s cars available to chauffeur you to destinations in town; yet within the resort’s grounds, the feeling of seclusion is nearly total.

Guest rooms are spacious, even sprawling, with custom-designed Stickley-style furniture and rich woods and fabrics. Many bathrooms feature oversized separate baths and showers, and rather than a rotating cast of boutique bath amenities, Torrey Pines features custom products blended with local sage. Rooms overlook the hotel’s central courtyard or the 18th green of the Torrey Pines golf course, a once slightly derelict course redesigned by the famed Rees Jones into a thoroughly championship-ready venue.

Rounding out the package are the A.R. Valentien restaurant, decorated with any number of artworks by its namesake and serving an ever-changing menu of contemporary California cuisine, and an expansive and vaguely Scottish-styled spa complex, offering massage and beauty and wellness treatments as well as a state-of-the-art fitness center. All in all, a spectacular location, a well-put-together resort, and just twenty minutes from downtown San Diego.