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Overview

During the height of the enthusiasm for the Spanish Colonial Revival in the 1920s, Reginald D. Johnson designed Los Apartmentos de Sevilla, aka La Valencia Hotel, for a promontory overlooking the Pacific Ocean in San Diego's affluent La Jolla neighborhood. At this time, boosters of Southern CA were repositioning their region as the new Mediterranean of the Pacific.

Building History

Los Apartimentos de Sevilla hotel, an apartment hotel meant for long- or short-term stays, opened in La Jolla, CA, on 12/15/1926. Noted Pasadena architect Reginald D. Johnson (1882-1952) obtained the commission in the early 1920s and completed the design at a cost of approximately $200,000. It was renamed "La Valencia Hotel," still in the Spanish spirit, in 1928.

Gethin Williams became the hotel's manager in 1930.

The hotel opened two amenities--the Whaling Bar and Café la Rue restaurant--during the 1940s and purchased the neighboring, 30-room Hotel Cabrillo (completed in 1909) in 1956, increasing its total room number to 100. During the 1960s, a tenth-floor area was rechristened "The Sky Room," a twelve-table space overlooking the ocean. By 2013, this small eatery had been transformed into a lavish Presidential Suite. (See La Valencia Hotel, "History," accessed 04/09/2025.)

Building Notes

La Valencia became listed on the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Historic Hotels of America list in 1989.

Alteration

La Valencia Hotel completed a swimming pool in 1950, and thereafter installed a sauna, gymnasium, putting green and shuffleboard court later in the same decade.

The San Diego firm of SGPA Architecture and Planning supervised a renovation of La Valencia Hotel c. 2000.

New owners remodeled the hotel in 2010. According to the hotel's website, "Pivotal enhancements and additions have included a total renovation of the property including the addition of the ICON collection of suites and the reimagination of Cafe la Rue. In January of 2014, (after almost a year of renovations) the space was reopened as Café la Rue, a Modern European Bistro & Bar, with indoor banquet seating and a sidewalk patio. A few of the lively 'European Village' murals commissioned for La Valencia in the 1930's by local artist Wing Howard, adorn the walls." (See La Valencia Hotel, "History," accessed 04/09/2025.)

PCAD id: 17988