Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore Santa Barbara | |
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General information | |
Location | Santa Barbara, California |
Address | 1260 Channel Drive |
Coordinates | 34°25′01″N119°38′31″W / 34.41696°N 119.64196°W |
Opening | 1927 |
Owner | Ty Warner |
Management | Four Seasons Hotels |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | Reginald Davis Johnson |
Other information | |
Number of rooms | 206 |
Website | |
Official website |
The Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore Santa Barbara is a luxury resort hotel located in Santa Barbara, California known for its Spanish Colonial Revival architecture and gardens. It opened in 1927 as the Santa Barbara Biltmore, part of the Bowman-Biltmore Hotels chain. The hotel closed in March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Santa Barbara Biltmore was designed by architect Reginald Johnson and landscape architect Ralph Stevens in 1926-1927. [1] Their design of the hotel and outdoor garden rooms synthesizes Mediterranean Revival, Spanish Colonial Revival and Moorish Revival styles of architecture. The $1,500,000 construction cost was funded by the Bowman-Biltmore Hotels Corporation of New York City, with a 5 March 1927 groundbreaking. [2] Since its 1927 opening, the hotel has been known popularly simply as 'The Biltmore'. [3]
Allied Properties of San Francisco bought the Biltmore in 1936. They sold the property in 1976 to Marriott for $5.25 million and the hotel was renamed Marriott's Santa Barbara Biltmore. Marriott sold the hotel to Four Seasons Hotels in 1987 for $55 million [4] and it was renamed the Four Seasons Resort Santa Barbara. In 2000, billionaire Beanie Babies creator Ty Warner purchased the hotel [5] for $150 million, [6] while retaining Four Seasons as the management company. He restored the hotel at a cost of $240 million and brought back the historic 'Biltmore' name soon after, renaming the hotel the Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore Santa Barbara. [3] The hotel closed in March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [7] The hotel has remained closed, due to a dispute between Warner and the Four Seasons chain. [8] In August 2023, it was reported that Warner and the company were nearing an agreement, and the hotel might reopen in late 2024. [9]
Coral Casino Beach and Cabana Club, built across the street in 1937, was also purchased by Warner in 2000. [10]
Montecito is an unincorporated town and census-designated place in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Located on the Central Coast of California, Montecito sits between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Montecito is best known as a celebrity enclave, owing to its concentration of prominent residents. The population as of 2022 is approximately 8,638 residents.
Beanie Babies are a line of stuffed toys created by American businessman H. Ty Warner, who founded Ty Inc. in 1986. The toys are stuffed with plastic pellets ("beans") rather than conventional soft stuffing. They come in many different forms, mostly animals.
The Spanish Colonial Revival Style is an architectural stylistic movement arising in the early 20th century based on the Spanish Colonial architecture of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
Bowman-Biltmore Hotels was a hotel chain created by the hotel magnate John McEntee Bowman.
Ty is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. It was founded by Ty Warner in 1986. It designs, develops and sells products, most notably Beanie Babies, exclusively to specialty markets worldwide.
Marriott International, Inc. is an American multinational company that operates, franchises, and licenses lodging including hotel, residential and timeshare properties. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland. The company was founded by J. Willard Marriott (1900–1985) and his wife Alice Marriott (1907–2000).
H. Ty Warner is an American billionaire toy manufacturer, businessman, and convicted felon. He is the CEO, sole owner and co-founder of Ty Inc. which manufactures and distributes stuffed toys, including Beanie Babies and other lines. He is also the owner of Four Seasons Hotel New York, which he bought with profits earned selling Beanie Babies during a fad in the late 1990s. In 2020, he was No. 359 on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America, with a net worth of US$2.3 billion.
Isadore "Issy" Sharp, is a Canadian hotelier and writer. He is founder and chairman of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts.
The Millennium Biltmore Hotel, originally the Los Angeles Biltmore, is a historic hotel opened in 1923 and located opposite Pershing Square in Downtown Los Angeles, California.
The Miami Biltmore Hotel, commonly called TheBiltmore Hotel or The Biltmore, is a luxury hotel in Coral Gables, Florida. The hotel was designed by Schultze and Weaver and built in 1926 by John McEntee Bowman and George Merrick as part of the Biltmore hotel chain. The hotel's tower is inspired by the Giralda, the medieval tower of the cathedral of Seville.
The Graduate Providence is an upscale hotel that opened in 1922 as the Providence Biltmore Hotel, part of the Bowman-Biltmore Hotels chain. It is located on the southern corner of Kennedy Plaza at 11 Dorrance Street in downtown Providence, Rhode Island. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The New York Biltmore Hotel was a luxury hotel at 335 Madison Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The hotel was developed by the New York Central Railroad and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad and operated from 1913 to 1981. It was one of several large hotels developed around Grand Central Terminal as part of Terminal City. The Biltmore was designed in the Italian Renaissance Revival style by Warren and Wetmore, one of the firms involved in designing Grand Central. Although the hotel's steel frame still exists, the hotel itself was almost entirely demolished and replaced by an office building in the early 1980s.
Mediterranean Revival is an architectural style introduced in the United States, Canada, and certain other countries in the 19th century. It incorporated references from Spanish Renaissance, Spanish Colonial, Italian Renaissance, French Colonial, Beaux-Arts, Moorish architecture, and Venetian Gothic architecture.
Four Seasons Hotel New York is a luxury hotel in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, that opened in 1993. The hotel is owned by Ty Warner Hotels and Resorts, L.L.C. and operated by Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts. It was closed temporarily in 2020.
The Belleview-Biltmore Resort and Spa was a historic resort hotel located at 25 Belleview Boulevard in the town of Belleair, Florida, United States. The 350,000 square feet (33,000 m2) hotel structure was the last remaining grand historic hotel of its period in Florida that existed as a resort, and the only Henry Plant hotel still in operation when it closed in 2009. The building was noted for its architectural features, with its green sloped roof and white wood-sided exterior, and handcrafted woodwork and Tiffany glass inside. Constructed of native Florida heart pine wood, it was the second-largest occupied wooden structure in the United States after 1938; only the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego was larger.
Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy is a private, all-girls Catholic high school in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles run by the Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose. It is located in La Cañada Flintridge, California, on a 41 acres (170,000 m2) campus near the San Gabriel Mountains.
The Mission Revival style was part of an architectural movement, beginning in the late 19th century, for the revival and reinterpretation of American colonial styles. Mission Revival drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century Spanish missions in California. It is sometimes termed California Mission Revival, particularly when used elsewhere, such as in New Mexico and Texas which have their own unique regional architectural styles. In Australia, the style is known as Spanish Mission.
Lina Trivedi is an American entrepreneur, author, educator and civil servant.
Historic Hotels of America is a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation that was founded in 1989 with 32 charter members; the program accepts nominations and identifies hotels in the United States that have maintained their authenticity, sense of place, and architectural integrity.