Review: Villa Mara Carmel, California

Why book? 

Villa Mara is the anti big box luxury hotel, located in one of the most storybook, seaside towns in California, steps from the Pacific Ocean in a private enclave of multi-million dollar homes (think tens of millions). So, if you’re looking for intimacy, authenticity, and the quintessential Northern California bougie barefoot experience, instead of just a really nice room for a night, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Set the scene 

Villa Mara wasn’t envisioned or designed for the St. Regis or Ritz Carlton crowd – which is precisely the way developer Dev Patel wanted his hotel to be, given its location in Carmel Point’s residential heart. It’s the kind of place guests go to disappear, be unassumed, and fit in, instead of stand out, even though almost everyone who comes here could pay for a room at the St. Regis if they wanted to anyways. People don’t come to Villa Mara for the amenities – it doesn't have a pool, a spa, or a gym – so the vibe here is thoroughly chill and decelerated. Everyone takes it down a notch. People read, couples talk, and guests get to know one another around the fire pits at night sipping wine from Patel’s fairly exquisite cellar, which he serves from for free. That kind of vibe in hospitality is hard to manufacture these days, but somehow Patel has managed to create it organically in the middle of one of America’s most expensive zip codes. All that said, if you want to rev up your style and savvy while staying at Villa Mara, upscale downtown Carmel-By-The-Sea is less than a mile away where you can eat, drink, and shop at some of the finest, award-winning establishments in Northern California.

The backstory 

Dev Patel, Villa Mara’s founder and developer, sold his first motel room 29 years ago when he was seven years old, manually processing an American Express card across one of those old school carbon paper swipers. He also changed the sheets and washed the towels daily. His parents had bought the hotel in Oregon a few years prior, so Patel grew up in a hospitality family, learning the ropes at an early age about attention to detail, service culture, and the “guest experience”. Fast forward three decades and Villa Mara is Patel’s first project on his own (but almost certainly not his last), incorporating everything that he absorbed from his parents, while also learning a thing or two about successful real estate investing and development along the way. Villa Mara was a five-year labor of love for Patel, including an almost top-to-bottom renovation of the property spanning the pandemic. It shows in every detail – from the leather-wrapped staircase handrails on the inside to the botanically perfect landscaping outside. Patel also knows all of his neighbours up and down the street. There are a ton of reasons that a hotel in an upscale residential neighbourhood like Carmel Point could have had disaster written all over it. That Villa Mara is now a neighbourhood fixture says everything you need to know about Patel’s vision, but more importantly about his execution.

The rooms 

If you could fuse muted minimalism with beach chic and add a dash of fabric fantastic (e.g., the bed headboards and throw pillows), you’d have Villa Mara’s 16 guest rooms nailed to perfection. While the rooms are intimate, they’re airy, open, uncluttered, and calming. Most ground-floor rooms have direct access out onto the hotel’s impeccably manicured grounds, while most second-floor rooms have Juliet-style balconies with views sweeping out over the Pacific to Pebble Beach. Each guest room’s bathroom also rivals anything a luxury chain hotel would normally dish out, including waterfall showers, Toto Washlet bidet toilets, and velvety robes that you’ll want to take home. All of Villa Mara’s guestrooms are also named after someone, or something, that makes Carmel-By-The-Sea legendary or famous, like an artist, an architect, a landmark, or a lighthouse, and it’s precisely this sense of historical context that makes Villa Mara feel like you’re staying in someone’s high-end home and not just some hotel in the first place.

Food and drink 

Villa Mara doesn’t technically have a restaurant in the sense that they don’t take reservations or serve a regular dinner menu. But what they do have is an intimate café-style dining room on the first floor by the fireplace where they serve an all-day seasonal menu curated from local vendors and farms including daily breakfast featuring pastries, breads, wellness shots, and several types of quiche (breakfast can also be delivered to your room to eat on the balcony overlooking the Pacific or in bed). Villa Mara also rocks an open bar happy hour every afternoon showcasing a wine list with over 150 old world and new world vintages as well as a full craft cocktail bar of over 50 spirits to choose from. This is where guests typically congregate every evening, recounting their adventures from the day and trading recommendations on the next greatest place they’re jaunting off to before heading outside to one of Villa Mara’s many fire pits to listen to the ocean and star gaze.

The neighbourhood

If location, location, location is essential in real estate, it’s arguably even more important in hospitality. And in Villa Mara’s case, its pin in the map doesn’t get any better, nestled along one of the most historic streets in Carmel-By-The-Sea’s Carmel Point neighbourhood literally a few hundred steps from Carmel Beach, which is one of the most postcard-perfect stretches of sand and sea in America. The whole point of Villa Mara is that you’re not surrounded by restaurants, bars, galleries, and shops – even though Carmel’s famous downtown is less than a mile away and Villa Mara offers free bikes to get there if you don’t want to walk. Villa Mara’s vibe is all about the neighbourhood, fitting in, going local, making friends, and coming back again and again.

The service 

Of all the things that elevate the experience of staying at Villa Mara, it’s the feeling that “guests come first” that lingers the longest – because the guest experience for Patel has always been his first priority. Any hotel can install a concierge desk and say they cater to their guests’ every need. Executing on that takes a more finely tuned attention to detail. Villa Mara’s General Manager George Nagata has a long history reining in big brand luxury hotels and his if-you-ask-for-it-we’ll-figure-it-out approach is second to none.

Eco effort 

During Villa Mara’s re-development and renovation process, Patel paid careful attention to preserving all of the recycled materials that he could such as timber, decking, and tile. Drought-resistant landscaping was also incorporated throughout the property. On the culinary front, Patel was also very conscious about food waste and respecting Northern California’s farm-to-table culture by procuring locally and seasonally grown produce as well as locally farmed eggs and meat.

Accessibility 

Villa Mara is fully ADA compliant with a dedicated parking space, ADA accessible guest rooms, bar, and seated check-in options, along with a ramped entry into the hotel.

Anything left to mention? 

There are a hundred “can’t miss” things about staying at Villa Mara: playing a round of golf at Pebble Beach, a day hike along the Big Sur coastline, strolling the art galleries in downtown Carmel. The best thing about staying at Villa Mara, however, are the sunsets from Carmel Beach two blocks away. For the locals who live next door and nearby, congregating on the cliffs and beach as the sun plunges into the Pacific Ocean is a daily ritual. Not surprisingly, one of Patel’s favourite traditions is taking guests on a walk up the street with a glass of wine to experience that sense of “localness” for themselves and introducing everyone to everyone. This innate sense of generous, experiential hospitality in Patel’s genes. And he just can’t resist doing it anyways because that’s how you fit into a neighbourhood.