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Big Sur Accommodations
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 Your travel source with a personal touch! Individual Hotels, Resorts, Bed and Breakfast, RVing and Camping ►Post Ranch Inn ►Ventana Inn and Spa |
Individual Hotels, Resorts, Bed and Breakfast, RVing and
Camping
Post
Ranch
Inn
Ventana Inn and Spa
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Post
Ranch
Inn Post Ranch Inn is blessed with one of the most extraordinary locations on the face of the earth, a place of such breathtaking beauty it’s hard to believe it’s even accessible by mere automobile-driving mortals. Big Sur is the most scenic destination along California’s most scenic drive, Highway 1, which links Los Angeles with San Francisco and features such curiosities as Hearst Castle and Steinbeck’s Monterey along the way. Of course what Highway 1 mostly features is natural beauty, and some of the last unspoiled places in America. It would be difficult for any man-made structure to compete with these cliffside views of the Pacific, or the majesty of the redwood forests; but this strange and decadent little hotel holds its own. Modernist architect Mickey Muennig settled in Big Sur in 1971, and has been responsible for most of its notable buildings ever since. Post Ranch Inn is his only hotel design, and indeed it’s hard to imagine it translating into some kind of movable hotel template, comprising as it does a number of discreet house designs, each uniquely suited to its location. The Tree Houses, for example, are almost exactly as advertised, built on nine-foot stilts and camouflaged amongst (if not actually nailed to the branches of) the redwood trees. Ocean rooms, on the other hand, are close to the cliff’s edge, nearly all glass to take in the view, and blend into the hillside, with grasses and wildflowers covering the sloping roofs. More traditional is the cuisine, another of Post Ranch Inn’s big draws. Sierra Mar, is a local favorite, a first-rate restaurant (with a first-rate wine list) that is either delightfully incongruous with or else perfectly matched to its location, depending on your point of view. There are no televisions and no cell phone service here, and children are not permitted—peace and quiet carry the day. This place is built for relaxation, from the oversized spa tubs and the massage tables in the guest rooms to the infinity pool a thousand feet above the Pacific. Possibly the best place in California to leave it all behind. |
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Ventana Inn and Spa Ventana Inn and Spa - Big Sur is the jewel of the California coast, one of the most spectacular places in North America, and Ventana Inn 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 Inn 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 Allegria Spa, offering a selection of treatments so comprehensive as to set the head spinning. And the food, of course, is exquisite as well, the Cielo restaurant serving Mediterranean-inflected cuisine 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.
For additional information, or to make a reservation,
click on
Ventana Inn and Spa
or on
Tablet Hotels.
Have a suggestion for a nice place to stay in the Agoura Hills area? Like to list your hotel on this page? Just send Jim all of the information and he will check it out. mailto:jimbruner@gettingaway.com
