Kelly Wearstler's involvement with the Santa Monica Proper Hotel represented something of a homecoming — the designer's Southern California sensibility meeting a property whose stucco courtyard facades and palm-shaded interior volumes feel deeply rooted in their setting. Completed in 2021 within a purpose-built seven-storey structure on Fifth Street, the 271-room hotel gave Wearstler the rare opportunity to shape both the architectural language and the interior atmosphere from the ground up, in collaboration with the local firm Natoma Architects. The interiors carry the effect of a well-traveled collector's house rather than a composed hotel environment. Dark iridescent tile wraps the lobby columns while indoor palms rise through double-height volumes furnished with bamboo chairs, Moroccan rugs, and sculptural ceramic wall pieces. Guest rooms deploy Wearstler's signature layering of tone and texture — arc-form upholstered headboards in woven natural fiber dominate accent walls clad in grasscloth-style panels, paired with bleached oak floors, slatted wood bed benches, striped wing chairs, and wicker pendant lights whose warm glow anchors the room's sandy, dusk-lit palette. On the rooftop, a pool terrace edged with ornamental grasses and teak loungers frames a clear Pacific sightline, the ocean visible just beyond Santa Monica's low-rise skyline — an understated payoff to a building whose restraint at street level gives little away.

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