Romantic Hideaways fit for Reagan and Kennedy
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (MainStreet) -- Hotels host some of life's most romantic moments, and whether on a Valentine's Day romp or a glamorous honeymoon, some hotel getaways -- in exotic and sometimes unexpected locations -- have been tested by some of history's most famous pairs.
Those in search of history along California's Central Coast can stay in a hotel that traces its origins to land titled by the King of Spain before becoming a citrus ranch and then a guest farm. Just 20 minutes outside Santa Barbara, San Ysidro Ranch sprawls over 500 acres of rolling mountains above Montecito -- the posh residential enclave home to such celebrities as Oprah Winfrey and Ellen DeGeneres. In the 1930s the ranch was transformed into a lustrous hotel known as a romantic and exclusive country retreat by Hollywood luminaries including Lucille Ball, Bing Crosby and Groucho Marx.
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| Just 20 minutes outside Santa Barbara, Calif., the San Ysidro Ranch has hosted everyone from Groucho Marx to a honeymooning John and Jackie Kennedy. |
But the hotel rocketed onto the itinerary of American elite when it was chosen as the wedding location for Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh and later as a honeymoon getaway for John and Jackie Kennedy. Today, the hotel is owned by Ty Warner -- also owner of the Four Seasons New York and nearby Four Seasons Biltmore. Warner initiated a meticulous three-year renovation of the property and its guest rooms, with rustic architecture completely preserved and infused with more modern decor and design details such as stone terraces with radiant floors. Those seeking Camelot can book the actual Kennedy Cottage with a lofty wood ceiling and canopy bed that's likely even chicer than it was in 1953.
Those looking for the most romantic hotel in Paris may flock to Woody Allen's preferred Le Bristol as featured in Midnight in Paris or Hotel de Crillon, where it's said Marie Antoinette learned how to play the piano. Few hotels, however, can rival the fairy tales that have unfolded within Le Meurice Hotel. Overlooking the Tuileries Garden, the hotel was a frequent destination for British travelers. It was known for its English-speaking staff and blue-blood service, a good fit for guests from Queen Victoria to the Grand Duchess of Russia. The hotel also appealed to Salvador Dali, who spent one remarkable month a year at the hotel with his avant-garde posse (including a pet leopard on occasion).
Later in the late 1930s, after his abdication, the Duke of Windsor and his bride would often use a suite within Le Meurice as their Parisian sanctuary. The Duchess would entertain at the hotel as well as take meetings with journalists and photographers that would fuel the headlines of papers worldwide. Recently, Le Meurice was used for filming the Madonna-directed biopic W.E. Today visitors find a "pied a terre of the privileged" that mixes elements of Louis XVI decor with notes from a 2000 remodel led in part by designer Philippe Starck and his daughter Ara. True romantics visiting the hotel will want to book one of the upper-level signature suites with gilded antique decor fit for a would-be queen.
Today's Hollywood celebrities on weekend getaway tend toward more modern resorts such as One&Only Pamilla in Mexico's Los Cabos, a frequent address for the likes of Jennifer Aniston, Justin Bieber and Demi Moore. But in another time, Puerto Vallarta was the south-of-the-border hot spot made famous by the romance between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton while filming Night of the Iguana. In a neighborhood once referred to locally as Gringo Gulch above famous Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe Church, Casa Kimberley is the infamous vacation house that Burton bought for Taylor on her 32nd birthday. It now sits awaiting better days.
After his divorce from Taylor, Burton bought another house nearby for a later wife, and today it's one of the chicest hotels in the area: Hacienda San Angel, which still feels every bit the private villa escape. The 20 units in the residential compound are arranged around terraced pools and face the Pacific Ocean, and the interiors ooze a colonial Spanish sophistication with period antiques, 19th century Mexican oil paintings and preserved architecture that actually improves on the original celebrity-owned structure. Romantics in search of another time also find a rooftop restaurant of Mexican-inspired international cuisine as well as the hotel's chapel, Puerta del Cielo, that can seal the deal even on short notice.
With Palm Springs, Calif., getting most of the travel attention in the California desert, today the city of Riverside isn't known as a common vacation destination among the inner circles of Beverly Hills. But it wasn't always so, which is obvious upon first sight of the ornate Mission Inn -- a must-stop hotel address on the travel itineraries of Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Benjamin Harrison. It's especially desirable in an election year, since Republican romantics know it as the hotel that hosted both the wedding of Richard and Pat Nixon and the honeymoon of Ronald and Nancy Reagan. It's a still-regal landmark of 238 rooms of architectural grandeur, from buttressed ceilings to hand-painted tile floors. Since its early 20th century heydays, a more developed urban landscape has encroached on its removed desert location, but it's still a great poolside on a hot February day in California.
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