What to expect: This is the consummate Santa Monica beach club, with an interior that recreates a 1920s Renaissance Revival-style resort; rich with elaborate relief work, sculpted figures throughout the façade, and elegant public rooms with fruitwood and bronze furnishings, damask and velvet, and shades of gold, green, blue, and apricot. The Hotel Casa Del Mar is a sophisticated, entirely smoke-free hotel.

Amenity highlights: As befits a stylish Los Angeles-area beach club, the hotel’s restaurant, lounge, and pool are all positioned on the oceanfront. The casually elegant restaurant features California cuisine, while the lobby lounge serves lunch and cocktails in a heavenly setting with 20-foot-high windows offering unobstructed ocean views. The fitness center and spa offer massage and other therapies.

Insider tip: The restaurant and lounge are delightful, but for even more romantic alfresco dining, guests of Hotel Casa Del Mar can use the phone on the landscaped garden terrace behind the pool and order light meals or cocktails (particularly fabulous while watching the sunset). Dine poolside, or at tables set up in the garden.

What to expect: This Los Angeles-area hotel's lobby has a cool and relaxing ambience. The atrium ceiling allows sunlight to filter over cushioned chairs and side tables reminiscent of a living room. The Hotel Oceana's clientele includes locals enjoying a posh weekend, European tourists, and extended-stay business travelers.

Amenity highlights: Exterior hallways overlook an open-air pool and patio where guests of The Hotel Oceana swim, sun, and relax with cocktails and lighter fare. Complimentary wireless Internet access is available throughout the hotel’s public spaces for guests who have wireless-ready laptops.

Insider tip: On the grounds of a historic trolley depot less than three miles from the hotel is the Santa Monica Museum of Art, as well as the trendy Bergamot Station, a colorful complex of warehouses-turned-art galleries. Forty galleries sell works by new and established artists from the Los Angeles area, including modern paintings, photographs, ceramics, furniture, and dining utensils.