Alamo Motel — Los Alamos, USA
With their growing constellation of updated roadside motels, husband and wife team, Kenny Osehan and Chris Sewell of hospitality group Shelter Social Club, are making the case that even when the journey exceeds the destination, there are still plenty of reasons to make pit stops along the way. Their noted project, Ojai Rancho Inn, at the foot of the Southern Californian Topatopa Mountains, quickly became a gathering spot for stylish wanderers and local artisans. Similarly infused with the designs of talented friends, their latest venture, Alamo Motel, is no different: the makeover of a 1940s motel located in Los Alamos - a small Californian town along Highway 101 with fewer than 2,000 residents - Osehan explains that the property is inspired by the ‘soft and dramatic desert landscape and the western agricultural setting’. Mindful of that, details include plywood furniture, brass sconces by lighting studio Atelier de Troupe and bed throws by textile artist Marissa Macias, whom Osehan and Sewell met when she stayed at another Shelter Social Club property with her mother. ‘We’ve been coming through Los Alamos for years,’ says Osehan. ‘Everyone is super-friendly with a good wine buzz,’ she adds. ‘It’s exciting to take a property with good bones in a cool environment and tie everything together, including the community.’
INFORMATION
ADDRESS
425 Bell Street
Los Alamos
California
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
-
At Duryea’s Sunset Cottages in The Hamptons, it’s all about stillness and open horizonsA beloved Hampton restaurant becomes a tucked-away retreat set on a windswept bluff above Fort Pond Bay in Montauk
-
The Mercedes-Benz Vision Iconic is automotive haute couture, a concept with cinematic styleThe Vision Iconic concept makes a play for a new approach to future luxury, blending art-deco excess with neo-gothic trimmings and monumental scale
-
María Berrío creates fantastical worlds from Japanese-paper collages in New YorkNew York-based Colombian artist María Berrío explores a love of folklore and myth in delicate and colourful works on paper
-
At Duryea’s Sunset Cottages in The Hamptons, it’s all about stillness and open horizonsA beloved Hampton restaurant becomes a tucked-away retreat set on a windswept bluff above Fort Pond Bay in Montauk
-
The return of Genghis Cohen: LA’s cult Chinese diner lives onThe 1980s Chinese-American landmark returns with red booths, neon nostalgia, and a fresh dose of Hollywood eccentricity
-
A24 just opened a restaurant in New York, and it’s as cinematic as you’d expectHidden in the West Village, Wild Cherry pairs a moody, arthouse sensibility with a supper-style menu devised by the team behind Frenchette
-
Seven kitchens, one fire: inside LA’s hottest new food marketAt Maydan Market, chef Rose Previte turns global street food and layered design into a vibrant, fire-lit experience
-
The Viceroy Hotel Group wants you to get on your bikeAcross properties in Santa Monica, Chicago, Washington DC and the Algarve, Viceroy guests can experience curated cycling routes and community events
-
Big flavours and bold design define La Nena Cantina, Los Angeles's newest Mexican hotspotFrom handmade tortillas to 40-ingredient mole, this new Sunset Boulevard restaurant takes Mexican cuisine seriously
-
Aperitivo time is this Los Angeles bar’s ‘ragione di vita’Located in Echo Park, Bar Bacetti is a welcoming haunt celebrating the great Italian ‘art of snacking’
-
This boisterous cocktail bar in Denver was inspired by Le CorbusierA 1950s furniture showroom has been reborn as a modernist social hub in the city’s Sunnyside neighbourhood. Its cocktails? Semiprecious