Montecito Travel Guide
Kim Kardashian / Hotel Weddings / Santa Barbara Hotels / Four Seasons Hotels / Honeymoon Suites / → All Tags
Is This Where Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries Spent Their Wedding Night?
When we told you last week that Kim Kardashian's big-ass wedding had the Four Seasons Biltmore all booked up, we had no idea that the newly married couple would be spending their first night as husband and wife there as well. Yet E! Online released photos sly photographers caught the couple exiting the hotel on Sunday morning.
Now in looking at the guest rooms and suites available at the hotel, we can safely assume that the couple, who now wear million dollar wedding bands, was not shacked up in a regular old guest room. But with eight one-bedroom suites and one Ty Warner cottage (also a one-bedroom) to choose from, we wonder which one was good enough for Kim and Kris. Um ok, that's an easy one.
Hotel Weddings / Celebrity Scoop / Kim Kardashian / Santa Barbara Hotels / → All Tags
Kim Kardashian's Big Ass Wedding Has The Four Seasons Biltmore All Booked Up
Kim Kardashian is all set to marry NBA star Kris Humphries in a super spectacular wedding in Montecito, Calif. (just outside of Santa Barbara) that will probably put all celeb weddings to shame (to the tune of $20 million!)
And but of course, no celeb wedding is complete without a hotel stay. As it turns out, The Kardashians will be keeping up with all their guests by putting them up at the Four Seasons Biltmore while the family itself is spending the weekend at the nearby San Ysidro Ranch where private cottages go for $5,500 a night, according to Star Magazine.
While it's not quite clear where exactly the nuptials are happening--it's looking like San Ysidro Ranch might be the place--both hotels are completely booked up for the weekend.
Hmmm. Looks like Santa Barbara may have gone all out for the wrong royal couple this summer. Still, if you're interested in staying at the hotel favored by other reality stars, The Four Seasons has rooms next week starting at $595 a night.
[Photo: Kim Kardashian]
Hotel Jobs / Hotel Pets / Santa Barbara Hotels / Rosewood Resorts / Pet-Friendly Hotels / → All Tags
More Cool Hotel Jobs: Director of Privileged Pets at San Ysidro Ranch
HotelChatter contributor Eric Rosen will be telling us about some of the coolest hotel jobs out there. He reached out across the globe to talk to the dynamic folks who do everything from wrangling elephants (and guests!) to designing the latest high-tech gadgetry for your next guest room. So check back every day to see who he’s talking to next.
Last week we told you about the Loan-A-Lab program at the Ritz-Carlton Bachelor Gulch and this week, we thought we’d also just mention another innovative dog program at another luxury resort, just as a way of looking at the other end of the leash.
Hotel Hype / Santa Barbara Hotels / Rick Caruso / → All Tags
The Miramar Hotel in Santa Barbara is Back on Track
Miramar Beach in Santa Barbara
When we last checked-in on the forlorn Miramar Hotel property in Santa Barbara we saw the glass as half-empty. Actually, the glass looked entirely empty to us. But there have been some new developments that have put this historic hotel-turned-hot-potato back into action.
Developer and mega-lifestyle mall creator, Rick Caruso, has finally reached an agreement with the property's neighboring community about drainage problems and their environmental impact. While the plans to build a luxury hotel were approved by the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, the residents were putting up a bit of fight.
Now that the problem with the community has been tentatively resolved, Caruso can go ahead building the 192-room hotel which sits on 16-acres near the Pacific ocean and which will have a tennis court, a ballroom, three restaurants, two swimming pools and a beach club. Of course, today's climate is not an ideal time to finance, build or open a luxury hotel but we're wishing them the best of luck.
[Photo: Andre.Theus]
Santa Barbara Fires / Hotel News / Hotel Emergencies / → All Tags
San Ysidro Ranch Not in Harm's Way, Yet
As the Tea Fire spreads across Montecito in Santa Barbara today, we wanted to check in on the San Ysidro Ranch, a luxury resort where John F. Kennedy honeymooned in 1953. It's also a resort favored by our VIP Reviewer and author Gabe Rotter.
Right now, the hotel is currently not in any danger. A very chipper hotel employee said that things were looking great right now at the ranch but that with the unpredictable winds, "we just don't know." Let's hope this fire stops soon.
Related Stories:
· Californians Seek Shelter in Hotels Near Montecito [HotelChatter]
· Author's Dog-Friendly Hotel Pick in Oprah's Backyard [HotelChatter]
Santa Barbara Fires / Hotel News / Hotel Emergencies / → All Tags
Californians Seek Shelter in Hotels Near Montecito
Dangerous fires have broken out in a wealthy enclave of Santa Barbara, forcing several families to seek shelter in hotels. From the LA Times:
A fast-moving brush fire driven by 50- to 70-mph winds erupted Thursday night in the hills above Montecito in Santa Barbara County, burning at least 800 acres, destroying up to 80 homes and forcing evacuations of luxury neighborhoods, authorities said. The fire broke out about 6 p.m. in the wealthy Cold Springs area of Montecito, where a number of celebrities live, and quickly overwhelmed firefighters with its speed.
Families were checking into hotels like the Holiday Inn in Carpinteria and more are expected to find refuge in other hotels in the area.
Ironically, the NY Times had profiled Santa Barbara for its Sunday Travel section and had listed numerous hotel accommodations. We will try to update you throughout the day on whether more hotels in the area have been affected or not.
VIP Hotel Reviews / VIP Hotel Reviewer Series / Gabe Rotter / Pet-Friendly Hotels / Rosewood Resorts / → All Tags
Author's Dog-Friendly Hotel Pick in Oprah's Backyard
We now present you with our VIP Hotel Reviewer Series in which we hand-pick experts in the travel and media worlds and beyond to tell us what are their favorite hotels and why. Once a week, we'll feature a hotel review from said VIPs about their favorite leisure or business hotels. Pay attention: These VIPs are experts at what they do and they don't mess around when it comes to their hotels.
The next VIP in the series is Gabe Rotter, author of the Simon & Schuster novel Duck Duck Wally about a chubby whiteboy who is the secret ghostwriter for a famous gangsta rapper, Oral B. Since Wally's beloved bulldog Dr. Barry Schwartzman is an important character in the book (he gets dog-napped!) we figured Gabe could tell us a safe place to travel with your dogs. Enjoy.
[Photo: IanL]
My favorite dog-friendly hotel is a place I'll likely never be able to afford again. I went there once, a few years ago, for two nights. And I'll be working it off until the day I die, old and hunched and grey and wrinkly, drooling into my Jello and dreaming about my two, wonderful nights with my bitch at the San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara.
Oh, and my dog came too.
Hoteliers / Hotel News / Hotel Openings / → All Tags
Oh, What a Tangled Web Hoteliers, Developers and Beanie Babies Weave
Ty Warner the man who made gazillions of dollars from manufacturing and selling Beanie Babies has let the Miramar Hotel in Montecito, Calif. go to shit.
Well actually, Warner bought the hotel from none other than Ian Schrager in 2005 after Schrager himself stalled on the property for six years due to lack of funds. Schrager had wanted to make it a funky 213-room hotel (was this Gramercy Park Hotel before the Gramercy Park Hotel was the Gramercy Park Hotel?) When Warner bought it for $43 mil he wanted to make the Miramar one of America's premiere resorts. That plan never went through as he felt "extreme bias" from two influential community groups.
Now the hotel is looking to be acquired by Rick Caruso, the developer behind the hugely successful Grove shopping center in LA where you can always spot at least two celebrities--has-beens or current--while shopping at the Gap and catching a movie. And already it looks like Caruso has gotten further than the hotel's previous owners since the community likes his ideas of turning the resort into a more family-friendly place. Yes, a Schrager-inspired scary gothic sex castle is not the right place to take kids. But couldn't Ty Warner and his Beanie Babies have put a family-friendly spin on the hotel?
Related Stories:
· Developer Caruso said to be buying Miramar Hotel [LA Times]
· Ty selling Miramar to Caruso [Santa Barbara Independent]
Hotel Heaven / → All Tags
Santa Barbara Serenity
For a truly beautiful hotel stay experience with a refined and consistent level of service, head to the Four Seasons Biltmore at Santa Barbara.
Not only is the setting breathtaking. Check out photo! The sunsets are gorgeous and the three seperate workout facilities offer three different yet competing views. Not to be missed is the say ahhh Spa. The treatment rooms are suites onto themselves and the locker rooms make you want to move in forever.
The staff is incredibly pleasant as they call you by your name and deliver everything not only promptly, but with a smile.
For your money - yesall of your money, including liquidating your 401k - this is the place! Its ideal for a romantic long weekend. Be sure to rent bikes and bike on the bike paths down from Montecito, where the hotel is located, to Santa Barbara proper and have lunch on the pier or at any of the good places in town.
Somebody take me there...right now.
