Rosewood Miramar Beach Opens Near Santa Barbara

Manor House

Rosewood Miramar Beach officially opened on Friday, March 1^st, touting itself as the first ultra-luxury resort in Southern California to offer guestrooms set directly over the sand, as announced by Caruso, its owner and developer. Rosewood Hotels & Resorts is the property’s manager.

Located in Santa Barbara County’s Montecito community, the resort encompasses 161 guestrooms and suites and is Rosewood’s first property in Southern California. The cost of the project was not disclosed, although the Pacific Coast Business Times estimated it at $185 million.

“Rosewood Miramar Beach is the pinnacle of design, setting and service,” Sonia Cheng, CEO of Rosewood Hotel Group, said in a prepared statement.

Here’s how luxe this resort is:

• The house car is a Rolls-Royce Ghost;
• There is a 600-piece art collection curated by Rick Caruso, founder & CEO of Caruso, and including original works by Norman Rockwell, Fernando Botero, Mel Bochner and Hans Burkhardt;
• It’s home to goop’s first permanent hotel retail shop. And each guestroom at Rosewood Miramar Beach includes a minibar offering goop-curated items.

The center of the sprawling, residential-style property is the Manor House. Among other functions, this features three signature suites: The Founder’s Residence, The Miramar Suite and The Ambassador Suite. These suites can be combined with king-sized guestrooms to form a private, seven-bedroom retreat within the Manor House.

Complementing the Manor House are the Bungalows and Lanai House guestrooms, each of which features a furnished balcony or patio and a bathroom with marble finishes, freestanding soaking tubs and his-and-hers vanities.

Beach House Studio King at Rosewood Miramar Beach

In addition to those guestrooms are the resort’s 26 oceanfront Beach House suites, studios and guestrooms, which feature private terraces directly over the sand.

The resort’s amenities include two pools; a spa with relaxation rooms, steam rooms and saunas, as well as individual and couples treatment rooms; the Sally Hershberger Montecito salon; and a fitness center, featuring outdoor treadmills.

Rosewood Miramar Beach’s culinary program is headed by Executive Chef Massimo Falsini and consists of seven restaurants and bars. The most noteworthy are Caruso’s, an oceanfront restaurant focusing on southern Italian cuisine; Malibu Farm at Miramar, a farm-to-table concept by Helene Henderson; Miramar Beach Bar, an oceanfront bar with craft cocktails and snacks; and the chic Manor Bar, with live music.

Long path to luxury

The road to this opening reportedly was a long and painful one. Local media reported that the former Miramar Hotel, which existed in some form well before World War I, closed in 2000.

The property remained vacant for years, through a change in ownership, then Caruso bought it in 2007, just before the Great Recession. In 2016, Caruso finally tapped Tutor Perini Corp. to build the new resort.

“After a challenging 2018, limited additions to supply in 2019 should help steer the market beyond the RevPAR level reached in 2017,” of $164.77 in Santa Barbara County, according to a 2019 outlook from CBRE Hotels.

A second-half 2018 report from Marcus & Millichap, however, notes that California lost about $20 million in tourism business just in July 2018 because of wildfires. Parts of Santa Barbara County were hit by evacuation orders during last year’s wildfires.

Images courtesy of Rosewood Hotels & Resorts