Hotel Bel-Air - Dorchester Collection ★★★★★

A Lake, 483 Trees and a Road That Goes Nowhere Else

Stone Canyon Road leaves Sunset Boulevard and stops being a city street almost at once. At the top of it, Hotel Bel-Air holds twelve acres planted with 483 specimen trees and more than four thousand plants, a lake with resident swans, and 103 rooms and suites laid out as a village rather than a building. Joseph Drown, a Texan hotelier, bought the land from the oil man Alphonzo Bell and asked the architect Burton Schutt to turn Bell’s estate planning office into a hotel: mission walls, tiled roofs, bougainvillea over everything. It opened in 1946 and has never stopped being where Los Angeles goes to disappear for a few days.

Why It Works

The scale is what convinced us. Very few luxury hotels in an American city are laid out as an estate, with paths, bridges and garden entrances instead of corridors, and fewer still have kept that plan intact through a full modernisation. Alexandra Champalimaud and the Rockwell Group rebuilt the interiors under Dorchester Collection without sanding off the Golden Age character, which is the hard part. Add a kitchen that locals book on their own account, a spa that is not a converted basement, and a genuine welcome for dogs, and the address does something no tower hotel in Los Angeles can.

Why This Location

Bel Air sits in the hills between Beverly Hills and Brentwood, which is the quiet middle of the west side. The Getty Center is a short drive up the freeway, UCLA and Westwood are just below, and Rodeo Drive and the Sunset Strip are close enough for dinner and far enough to forget. The hotel counts thirty to forty minutes to the airport and about the same to the beach at Santa Monica. What the canyon really buys is silence: birds, running water, and no sightline to a boulevard from any room.

Fast Facts

• Price: Luxe

• Vibe: canyon garden, Californian, discreet, old Hollywood

• Rooms: 103 rooms and suites, many with private patios or their own garden entrance, including the Swan Lake Suite

• Best For: honeymoons, long Los Angeles stays, dog owners, anyone who dislikes a busy lobby

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: the swans on the lake below the stone bridge you cross to arrive

• Dining: The Restaurant at Hotel Bel-Air for modern Californian cooking with a Mediterranean hand, the Bar and Lounge, The Living Room, and The Pâtisserie under executive pastry chef Christophe Rull

• Amenities: The Spa at Hotel Bel-Air, hammam and massage, salt water outdoor pool open all year, 24 hour gym, gardens and terraces, valet and private parking, airport shuttle and car hire, babysitting, two dogs welcome

• Attractions: the Getty Center, UCLA and Westwood, Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive, Sunset Boulevard, Santa Monica beach

Pink Walls, Private Patios and a Village Plan

Rooms are reached along garden paths, and a good many come with a patio, a fireplace or a private entrance, which is why the hotel reads as a set of houses. Champalimaud kept the palette warm and Californian, closer to a canyon home than to a suite in a chain. The Swan Lake Suite is the one people ask for. Families are accommodated, children are genuinely welcome, and check in runs from three in the afternoon with noon check out.

Eating Under the Trees

The Restaurant at Hotel Bel-Air cooks modern Californian with a Mediterranean hand, built on local produce, and its terrace under the trees is the room worth booking. The Bar and Lounge handles the earlier and later hours, The Living Room is where people sit between the two, and The Pâtisserie, run by executive pastry chef Christophe Rull, is the reason to come down before a walk. Room service, breakfast in the room, special diets on request and meals for children are all part of the arrangement.

The Spa, the Salt Water Pool and Arriving With a Dog

The Spa at Hotel Bel-Air sits in its own courtyard, with hammam and massage and a 24 hour gym alongside. The outdoor pool is salt water and open all year, ringed by palms and warm enough to matter in February. Two dogs are welcome, valet parking removes the Los Angeles car problem, and an airport shuttle and car hire can be arranged at the desk, which is the sort of detail that decides a long stay.