Los Angeles :
Where to Stay
The Lodge at Torrey Pines
11480 North Torrey Pines Rd. • La Jolla, California • 858-453-4420
• lodgetorreypines.com • from $575
It’s fitting that Torrey Pines South Golf Course, the site of this month’s 2008 U.S. Open Championship from June 9 – 15, is only the second truly public course to host the jewel of the U.S. Golf Association’s comps. That the general public has access to one of the continent’s most stunning tracks—perched atop bluffs towering above the Pacific Ocean with spectacular views of the azure coastline and deep ravines sheltering one of the rarest trees in the U.S. in the Torrey Pine Reserve, brews a palpable authenticity and profound connection to the arid, ancient land from which the course was carved. But for an even more magnificent manifestation of local reverence, a stay at the six-year-old Lodge at Torrey Pines, the U.S. Open’s clubhouse for the last several weeks and throughout this month, is mandatory.
Adjacent to the 18th fairway, these six and a half acres are the only five-diamond property in the San Diego area, and the designation is justified as soon as you pull up on to the brick drive and enter the early-20th Century California Craftsman lobby—think thick, decades-old timber beams, cherrywood ceiling beams and monstrous fireplaces. Look closer, through the eyes of, say, an American architecture junkie, and it becomes clear that the lobby is inspired by the Gamble House in Pasadena, a trip back in time to the early-1900s’ California Craftsman design style developed by the Brothers Greene.
“(Co-owner) Bill Evans has a dog whistle-like awareness of the details,” says Steve Pelzer, an executive vice-president at family-owned Evans Hotels. Actually, that’s an understatement. Consider that the native San Diegan obtained blueprints for Greene and Greene furniture that had never been built and had them constructed for his property and its 170 rooms, and you gain a small window into one man’s obsession with recreating California’s past one handmade piece at a time.
“The Lodge is a celebration of California to its core,” says Pelzer. “From the cuisine to our work with the nearby Torrey Pines State Reserve.” Now if only local boy Phil Mickelson can win the Open this month to really bring it all home.
