
When it initially opened in September 1926, the Breakers loomed giant on the Lengthy Seaside, California, skyline … at a hovering (for the time) 14 tales.
After it was reflagged because the world’s eighth Hilton within the Thirties, it turned often called among the best inns on the West Coast, attracting Hollywood golden age glitterati like Elizabeth Taylor and Cary Grant. Since then, it has modified arms a number of occasions and was most not too long ago a retirement dwelling.
Associated: TPG’s 16 favorite hotels in California for every type of traveler
Lately, the resort — which reopened as a Fairmont in November 2024 after a multiyear, $150 million renovation — is perhaps dwarfed by the encompassing edifices. Nevertheless it retains a regal air because of its inimitable Spanish Revival model and imposing silhouette.
The interiors, in the meantime, have been gorgeously redone with an eye fixed towards artwork deco aptitude (assume: rounded velvet furnishings and polished brass lighting fixtures) whereas retaining unique components like ornate crown molding and old style mail chutes nonetheless intact.
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We obtained a primary take a look at the resort days after its opening. This is what the expertise was like.
Fairmont Breakers Lengthy Seaside location
The Fairmont Breakers Lengthy Seaside sits smack dab in the midst of downtown Lengthy Seaside, proper alongside Ocean Boulevard. The resort is just below 7 miles away from Lengthy Seaside Airport (LGB), which takes round 20 to half-hour by automobile to succeed in. Relying on site visitors, you possibly can anticipate to pay round $40 to get to and from the airport by way of a ride-hailing service.
The property can also be 25 miles south of Los Angeles Worldwide Airport (LAX), and a trip from there can take wherever from 40 to 75 minutes and price upward of $80 in case you are utilizing a ride-hailing service. An alternative choice is John Wayne Airport (SNA), which is 25 miles southeast of the resort in Santa Ana, California. The drive from there can take round 40 to 60 minutes and price roughly $70 when utilizing a service like Uber or Lyft.
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Should you’re already visiting Los Angeles, it is simple to succeed in the resort by way of important thoroughfares. It sits only a brief distance off Interstate 710 (also called the Lengthy Seaside Freeway).
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Fairmont Breakers Lengthy Seaside reserving particulars
The Fairmont model is a part of Accor and participates within the Accor Live Limitless loyalty program. Members can earn factors on stays when reserving immediately via Accor at a price of 25 factors per 10 euros ($11) spent and redeem them in increments of two,000 factors to avoid wasting 40 euros ($44) on resort payments. Reserving as a member via Accor additionally opens up preferential charges that may embrace reductions and add-ons comparable to free breakfast or on-property credit.
Charges on the Fairmont Breakers Lengthy Seaside begin at $349 per night time.
Standout options
- You may need to take a look at the resort’s a number of swanky watering holes, together with the rooftop Halo venue and the foyer jazz lounge Alter Ego.
- The constructing has beautiful historic options, in addition to fantastically redone rooms and public areas.
- Friends can anticipate inexpensive room charges with on-property advantages when reserving immediately via Accor.
Drawbacks
- Although renovated, the constructing is previous, so some rooms have quirky configurations.
- Workers are nonetheless discovering their footing, and whereas service is real and heat, it’s not as polished accurately quickly.
- Sadly, the resort is not a part of any of the credit card luxury hotel booking programs but.
The vibe at Fairmont Breakers Lengthy Seaside
“That is the mayor of Lengthy Seaside,” our server at Nettuno stated as she set down a plate of Caledonian prawns with Calabrian chili butter, indicating a person entertaining a big banquet at a close-by desk.
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He was simply one among many locals we discovered trying out the newly opened resort in November. The spa was largely booked throughout our two-night keep, and each the glamorous eating room at Sky Room and the gardenlike lounge at Halo on the higher flooring have been full of curious Lengthy Beachers wanting to strive the meals and drinks on the metropolis’s hottest new resort.
Little question the fanfare will relax over time and the gang combine will veer extra towards out-of-town enterprise vacationers and households trying out Lengthy Seaside’s longstanding points of interest. However for now, it was good to see a mixture of guests and locals alike.
Rooms at Fairmont Breakers Lengthy Seaside
Though it had 330 lodging again in its unique heyday, after the current renovation, the Fairmont Breakers Lengthy Seaside now homes simply 185 rooms and suites. These begin with 279-square-foot Fairmont King rooms and vary as much as the Breakers Two Bed room Suite on the twelfth ground.
I stayed in a Fairmont Bay View King, which is a number of classes greater, about 20 sq. toes bigger and round $50 per night time dearer than a normal room. It was on the finish of the hallway on the resort’s ninth ground and supplied views of the Port of Lengthy Seaside and San Pedro Bay via giant home windows that allow in loads of pure gentle.
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The room had a brief entry hallway and a small closet that have been most likely vestiges of the historic room footprint.
The room’s coloration palette was impressed by the port, with tones of business grays, cloudlike whites and swirls of blue and gold on the rugs, plus some framed seashells above the king-size mattress. The spotless white linens, woven straw wall accents and bleached wood flooring gave the room a clear, up to date look.
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Connected to the wall in a single nook was a big flat-screen TV. To the opposite facet of the mattress, there was a small form of multipurpose space that includes a spherical, marble-topped desk that doubled as a spot to eat and work. It had one heavy armchair with a ropelike body (one other nod to the close by port’s industries) subsequent to it. There have been additionally a Nespresso machine and complimentary bottles of water.
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Probably the most spectacular function was the lavatory, which was surprisingly giant for an previous resort constructing. The area included an extended marble countertop with two sinks and mirrors, a separate water closet with a frosted-glass door and a marble spa-style moist space that contained each the bath and the bathe.
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There was a wall-mounted, hand-held showerhead and one other overhead one with a number of stream capabilities, together with a mister. Each the vainness and the bathe space have been stocked with Le Labo Rose 31 merchandise.
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Although on the small facet, the room’s contemporary look and spacious rest room created an expensive atmosphere equally suited to each leisure and work journeys.
Food and drinks at Fairmont Breakers Lengthy Seaside
There are 5 bars and eating places on the Fairmont Breakers Lengthy Seaside, and even a brief keep is sufficient to expertise most, if not all, of them.
Nettuno
Nettuno is the resort’s important restaurant and sits subsequent to the reception space within the foyer. Its eating room has hovering double-height ceilings anchored by squared-off columns with antiqued-mirrored surfaces and Corinthian capitals which might be stunning contrasts to the up to date artwork on the partitions and the chainlike chandeliers strung throughout the ceiling.
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The breakfast menu provides requirements like avocado toast with child kale, cherry tomatoes and stracciatella on seedy complete wheat ($18) and an egg white omelet with seasonal herbs, mushrooms and goat cheese ($20), plus pastries like a fluffy blueberry-olive oil muffin ($6) and quite a lot of coffees, teas, juices and smoothies ($6 to $16).
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The lunch and dinner menus function largely coastal Italian fare like zucchini blossoms crammed with lemon-herb ricotta ($24), artichoke tortelli with brown butter and sage ($28) and tiramisu ($10).
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Sky Room
Sky Room, which takes up a lot of the resort’s thirteenth ground, dates to 1938, when Conrad Hilton took over the property and turned a penthouse suite into one of many West Coast’s toniest eating places.
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It’s trying as splendorous as ever once more thanks to a whole restoration. It is simple to image your self right here throughout its prewar pinnacle as you cozy up in one of many monumental round velvet cubicles or on the intimate two-tops by the home windows, all illuminated by a stunning fluted gentle fixture that seems to ripple because it runs almost the size of the eating room.
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Open just for dinner Tuesday via Saturday, Sky Room seems like a throwback to the supper golf equipment of yore because of the bustling, neatly uniformed workers, a cocktail checklist of previous favorites and a roster of continental classics you might need discovered on a few of the unique menus — oysters Rockefeller and clams on line casino, anybody? You’ll be able to truly spot a few of the Thirties menus adorning the partitions close to the doorway.
Begin with piping-hot parkerhouse rolls with whipped cultured butter ($8), then tuck into specialties like luscious Dungeness crabcakes with smoked trout roe and caviar butter ($28) — there’s even an entire caviar menu, if that is your factor.
Convey a number of buddies to indulge within the California wagyu beef Wellington with mushroom duxelle, bordelaise sauce and prosciutto encased in a flaky pastry crust ($165), or go lighter with the juicy complete John Dory (fileted tableside, after all) with yuzu-kosho beurre blanc and herb salad (market worth based mostly on weight). The wine checklist options bottles from all over the world, together with the likes of chardonnay from Western Australia’s vaunted Vasse Felix vineyard ($105 per bottle).
Order the bananas Foster ($22) to finish your meal with a bang … or relatively a flambe because the workers units the dish alight proper at your desk.
Halo
Halo seems like a bit of secret tucked away on the resort’s high ground. Inside, glazed inexperienced tiling, pink wallpaper with unique leaf motifs and a fantastically lit, deep-veined alabaster bar all create the sensation of a Caribbean backyard get together.
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That is solely heightened by the tropical cocktails, just like the startlingly blue Clarified Prime Ground Mai Tai ($19) with Bacardi Ocho rum, Plantation Stiggins pineapple rum, Wray & Nephew overproof rum, Grand Marnier, lime, mango and pineapple.
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Come the hotter months, the out of doors terrace ought to be one of the best place on the town to catch the sundown and views of Catalina Island throughout the channel.
An added historic oddity? Should you search for on the resort’s belvedere, you possibly can nonetheless spot a World Warfare II pillbox gun turret from when the constructing shaped a part of the nation’s coastal protection.
La Sala
On the road facet of the foyer, La Sala is designed to really feel like a comfy solarium with jade-green chinoiserie wallpaper adorned with blossoming timber and a palm-shaped brass and crystal chandelier overhead. Friends and guests can cease in for barista-made espresso and tea drinks, cocktails and light-weight bites all through the day and night.
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Alter Ego
Moodily lit and embellished with emerald velvet chairs and Henri Rousseau-like floral prints on the partitions, Alter Ego is positioned simply off the foyer. There will likely be dwell jazz most nights to accompany inventive twists on traditional cocktails, together with updates on the daiquiri and the soiled martini.
The drinks to order, although, are the specialty Outdated-Fashioneds, together with one impressed by California’s redwoods with Outdated Forester bourbon, numerous house-made botanical tinctures, “campfire” bitters, a smoky mist and even an edible pine cone ($23).
Facilities and repair at Fairmont Breakers Lengthy Seaside
On the japanese finish of the bottom ground, the Fairmont Breakers Lengthy Seaside has a small health middle and a bi-level spa.
The health middle has a plethora of window-facing Technogym cardio machines, together with treadmills and stationary bikes, plus racks of weights, resistance bands, kettlebells and stability balls, amongst different tools. There’s additionally a water dispenser so you possibly can replenish your individual bottle.
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Subsequent door, the Fairmont Spa has an ethereal reception space replete with cream-colored marble and up to date brushed brass lighting fixtures, plus loads of counter area to show the merchandise integrated into the remedies, together with objects from Biologique Recherche, Venn and Lola’s Apothecary.
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There are separate males’s and girls’s locker rooms with steam rooms and bathe amenities, in addition to a pre- or post-treatment lounge space with blond timber partitions and chaise-style seats separated by diaphanous curtains.
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The therapy menu contains intriguing choices like a Venn supercharged facial (60 minutes for $260) and the signature Breakers therapeutic massage you could tailor to your preferences (60 minutes for $220).
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Up on the third ground, the resort now incorporates a small out of doors pool and deck with loads of lounge chairs, some seating vignettes and a pool bar (although it was not open throughout our keep).
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Service on the resort couldn’t have been hotter or extra enthusiastic. There have been a number of opening-week hiccups, comparable to a server bringing the improper dish or a sure glass of wine on the menu not being out there, however these have probably been ironed out by now.
Out and about
For these not conversant in the world, there’s lots to see and do in Lengthy Seaside.
Households may need to stroll to the Aquarium of the Pacific and the waterfront the place harbor cruises and ferries to Catalina depart. The close by Terrace Theater hosts performances all year long, and numerous seashores in addition to the Lengthy Seaside Museum of Artwork are fast drives away. There’s additionally outlet buying, plus the unbiased boutiques of Retro Row, close by. As for enterprise vacationers on the town for conferences or conferences, the Lengthy Seaside Conference & Leisure Heart is conveniently located subsequent door.
Accessibility at Fairmont Breakers Lengthy Seaside
Outdated inns, particularly these with landmark standing that prohibits drastic adjustments to their infrastructure, can typically be hit and miss with regards to accessibility, however the Fairmont Breakers Lengthy Seaside has integrated loads of accessible options into its renovation.
The resort’s important entrance and floor ground are step-free, so these in wheelchairs can entry all of the areas. There are additionally elevators to each ground, together with a small wheelchair elevate as much as the pool deck from the third ground. Talking of the pool, it has a chairlift at one finish to help people with restricted mobility into the water. The spa additionally has wheelchair-accessible showers in its locker rooms.
The resort’s hallways are all extensive sufficient to accommodate wheelchairs, and there are seven room and suite classes with mobility- and hearing-accessible amenities. They embrace rest room and bathe seize bars, and closet rods, towel racks and viewports lower than 48 inches excessive. These designed for hearing-impaired visitors embrace visible alarms and doorbells.
Testing
In contrast to most of the different entries on our checklist of the best hotels that opened in 2024, the Fairmont Breakers Lengthy Seaside just isn’t a brand new resort. Relatively, it’s a landmark reborn, one with a storied legacy relationship again almost a century that also manages to really feel utterly contemporary because of its new lease on life. Having already garnered the curiosity of locals, who come to hang around in its grand public areas, it is solely a matter of time till phrase will get out and vacationers from farther afield begin realizing what a particular keep awaits them.
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