Del Mar hotel: like home but better

Hotels used to harness the power of their own, instantly recognizable brands so effectively that when travelers heard the word “Ritz” or “Hilton,” they had a clear sense of the look and feel of the place. Now that hotels have given the design reins to fashion titans -- Versace, Armani and Ferragamo, for example -- and aggressively promoted the brand names of their sheets, chefs and spa products, the hotel experience can feel like a stroll through the mall.

Add to the list of design contributors one who should seem a natural fit: interior designer Barclay Butera. When L’Auberge Del Mar seaside resort embarked on a $25-million renovation, it chose the Newport Beach-based Butera as its creative director. The public and private areas received his classy-beachy-homey spin but with a twist: 90% percent of the furniture, textiles and accessories are from his Barclay Butera Home collections.

Welcome to the hotel as home decor showroom.

Beginning in mid-November, the luxury hotel closed for seven months while Butera applied his vision for the property’s new main entrance, color schemes, lobby seating areas, landscaping, outdoor water features, even the front desk. Unless you’re an interior design expert or you spot his label inside lampshades and under knickknack pedestals, you wouldn’t necessarily know this is his work.

The immersion in his aesthetic brings, predictably, a pleasing unity, with the brown, celadon and sand colors applied to carpets, wallcoverings and upholstery. Seashells are frequent accents, including the thousands hot-glued onto the lobby’s Baroque consoles, a rare display of wit.

Yet the real advantage to this all-Butera scheme seems to accrue to Butera, who gains important name recognition. Guests get a perfectly lovely hotel, one attuned to local tastes but without boundary-pushing ideas that can make a hotel memorable and exciting.

“I consider this project to be a great opportunity for me to showcase my work in the hospitality industry, and I am looking forward to being a significant force in hotel design,” Butera said in media materials. If that proves true, he’ll join others who earned bigger design businesses using hotels: Jonathan Adler (Parker Palm Springs), Kelly Wearstler (Kor’s Viceroys), Philippe Starck (Royalton, Paramount and Mondrian hotels), Andree Putman (Morgans), and on their heels, Thom Filicia (W hotels) and Dodd Mitchell (Thompson Hotels).

I subjected the hotel to the ultimate test: I visited Fourth of July weekend, barely a month after the still-unfinished resort reopened. Though the fine-dining restaurant won’t open until October and the spa won’t open until December, the construction areas were deftly screened.

Expecting a holiday-weekend frenzy, I instead found civility among fellow guests, earnest service and a rare, small-town hospitality. The concierge and desk clerks knew the community well, and all of my requests for reservations, beach towels and driving directions were answered quickly.

When my odd, low-ceilinged subterranean room gave me the willies, the just-hired front desk clerk showed me three more until one met my liking, as it should at these prices. My 300-square-foot plaza room cost an average of $437.50 ($465 on weekends), with occupancy tax, $25 for valet parking and a $12 resort fee.

Butera’s reinvention of this beloved Del Mar landmark has improved upon its role as a local gathering spot for all ages and as a destination for beach weddings and weekend getaways. Guests gather in the expanded, breezy lobby, sipping cocktails, looking out to the pool area and ocean views beyond. Others convene at the small pool’s 12-seat bar and shaded teak dining tables or huddle in the hot tub, cabanas or crowd-drawing fire pit.

Reinforcing the hotel’s place in the community, dozens of refurbished historic photographs chart the long association with such celebrities as Pat O’Brien and Bing Crosby, who helped open the nearby Del Mar racetrack.

The city of Del Mar grew up around this hotel, which has been managed by Destination Resorts and Hotels since 1994. Located on the Camino Del Mar main thoroughfare, it’s walking distance to nearly 25 restaurants, coffeehouses and boutiques, so it’s impossible to separate the hotel’s charms from those of its surroundings.

It sits along a popular bicycle path, one block from a wide swimming and surfing beach that’s flanked by grassy parks, a playground and a historic train depot.

The energetic can walk past world-class homes on their way to the Del Mar Fairgrounds or racetrack. While strolling the beach, I watched a morning parade of costumed kids, baby carriages and dogs in Uncle Sam hats and, later, fireworks exploding from the fairgrounds. It was a perfect slice of Americana.

Need more? The hotel also supplies two tennis courts, a lap pool, multiple ballrooms and a separate spa and fitness center. Not that you’d ever want to leave your cozy room.

The relaxed sophistication of the 120 guest rooms reveals Butera’s expertise with residential interiors. His harmonious color scheme counteracts the potential for clutter from the room’s many homey accessories: tabletop picture frames, baskets, mounted turtle shells, coral and Rizzoli hardcover books on design and architecture.

A built-in wall unit holds the 42-inch flat-screen TV, mini-bar and dresser drawers. Yet not even the hotel engineer could figure out how to play an iPod through the TV. Accessing the free Wi-Fi proved far less complicated.

In the bathroom, white Carrara marble countertops and shower shelves add a luxe touch. Frette sheets, a climate-appropriate cotton cover and a headboard woven like a Bottega Veneta handbag make the king-size pillow-top bed all the more indulgent.

If there is a weakness in this hotel -- besides the steep prices and some weird room configurations -- it’s the food, which seemed to suffer from the newness of the staff and limited menu. When it’s done, the hotel, the third built on this site in nearly 100 years, may be remembered more for the important celebrations that took place here and less for the pillows and picture frames. But perhaps that’s as it should be.

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valli.herman@latimes.com

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How it rates

* * * 1/2

New and noteworthy: Interior designer Barclay Butera directed the $25-million renovation, using his namesake company’s home decor collections.

The stay: Even on a busy holiday, the beach city’s genteel neighborhood infects hotel staff and visitors with a civilized, small-town feeling.

The scene: Weddings can overtake the midsize resort; families gather more quietly for beach vacations in classy lodgings.

Deal maker: For the price of a hotel room, guests can feel like a resident of exclusive Del Mar.

Deal breaker: Hipsters and iconoclasts may not like the country club atmosphere.

Stats: 1540 Camino Del Mar, Del Mar; (800) 245-9757; www.laubergedelmar.com.

Rooms: Standard rooms begin at $410 in peak season; low-season rates begin at $390 a night.

Rating is based on the room, service, ambience and overall experience with price taken into account in relation to quality.

* * * * * Outstanding on every level

* * * * Excellent

* * * Very good

* * Good

* Satisfactory

No stars: Poor

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