The Georgian - Santa Monica's Art Deco Landmark, Restored And Reawakened

Pick up the rotary phone in the lobby and you'll hear a voicemail from decades ago - a small, strange touch that sums up what The Georgian is trying to do. This is a hotel that wants you to know it has history, but doesn't want you to take it too seriously.

Clark Gable and Carole Lombard used to slip away here during Prohibition, back when the basement doubled as one of Los Angeles's first speakeasies. Al Capone and Bugsy Siegel reportedly drank here too. Nearly a century later, the turquoise-and-gold Art Deco tower on Ocean Avenue is doing its best impression of its old self, and mostly pulling it off.

Location

You're right across the street from the sand, with Santa Monica State Beach and Palisades Park a short stroll away and the Santa Monica Pier about a 7-minute walk. Third Street Promenade, with its shops and restaurants, is one block over.

Los Angeles International Airport is roughly 23 km (14 miles) away, about half an hour by car depending on traffic. If you want to keep exploring, Will Rogers State Park and the Getty Villa are both within a few kilometers.

A Century Of Glamour, Decline And Return

The Georgian opened its doors in 1933, commissioned by Judge Harry Borde and designed by architect Eugene Durfee to lure Los Angeles's high society away from the city. At the time, Santa Monica was still a fairly obscure seaside town, and the hotel sat on a shoreline that was more wooded than developed. It arrived fully loaded for its era too, with a beauty parlor, a barbershop, a playground and its own dining room, on top of the speakeasy hidden in the basement.

That speakeasy became the draw. During Prohibition, the hotel was a rendezvous point for studio executives and stars looking to get away from the cameras, with Clark Gable and Carole Lombard among the regulars. Marilyn Monroe and Charlie Chaplin are also said to have spent time there. Prohibition ended the same year the hotel opened, but its reputation as a discreet hideaway stuck.

The building expanded through the 1950s as Los Angeles grew into a major city, and it changed hands and got refurbished around that time too. It stayed popular with a new generation of jet-setting travelers from the US and Europe for decades afterward, and saw a further $2 million renovation in the spring of 2000. Even as ownership shifted over the years, the hotel kept attracting a famous crowd, with more recent visitors including Oliver Stone, Robert De Niro and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

By the time BLVD Hospitality, the team behind Ace Hotel Downtown LA and Soho Warehouse, bought the property in 2020, it had drifted a long way from its glamour days. The company's founder Jon Blanchard had reportedly been fixated on the building since visiting it 13 years earlier. He and his team spent two years working with design firm Fettle on the restoration before it reopened in January 2023, bringing back the sense of theater the hotel had when it first opened as one of Ocean Avenue's original skyscrapers.

Today it's recognized by the City of Santa Monica as a historical landmark, and it even makes an appearance in the book Accidentally Wes Anderson.

Gallery 33

Tucked behind those turquoise walls is a small art space, 31 m² (336 sq ft), that holds rotating exhibitions from emerging and established artists.

Sirena

Sirena is the hotel's all-day restaurant, serving breakfast, lunch and dinner built around southern Italian cooking mixed with Californian produce.

The lobby bar has a circular shape and keeps some of the building's original arches, one of the few architectural details from the 1933 build that survived.

For drinks, look out for the Bye Bye Birdie, a whiskey sour made with a whole duck egg, pistachio and bitters - not a subtle drink, but not meant to be.

When the weather cooperates, Sirena spills onto the Sunset Terrace, 140 m² (1,510 sq ft), with curved yellow banquettes and palm-shaped ceiling fans under the hotel's striped awnings, looking straight out at the ocean.

The Georgian Room

Below street level is The Georgian Room, the hotel's original restaurant and the site of that old speakeasy. It's been restored with wood paneling and the same L-shaped booth layout it had decades ago, and there's a no-photography policy - you get a sticker to cover your phone's camera, which keeps the room feeling like an actual hideaway rather than a photo backdrop.

The menu leans Italian steakhouse, with dishes like rigatoni alla vodka, and there's live jazz on select nights. Vintage photographs and old press clippings line the walls, including some documenting California's first known Black surfer.

Rooms & Suites

There are 84 rooms in total, 28 of them suites, spread across a building that doesn't hide its age in a bad way - Art Deco peepholes are still on the doors, and the wallpaper patterns lean into the geometric style of the original design.

Rooms come with either ocean or city views, curved bedframes upholstered in bright velvet, Bellino linens and marble bathrooms. Suites go further, with curated books, vinyl records and Victrola record players, plus minibars playful enough that some have a button marked "champagne" that summons a bellhop with a fully stocked cart.

The Oceanfront Suite

The one-bedroom oceanfront suite is where the hotel's coastal setting really shows off, with panoramic views of Santa Monica Bay from a space of 57 m² (613 sq ft).

It's built around a king bed and a separate living area, with a minibar positioned well for sitting back and watching the sun go down over the Pacific.