Shade Hotel

Luxury yachts were the inspiration for star interior designer Christopher Lowell when he decked out this boutique hotel two blocks from the sand in easygoing Manhattan Beach. Airy curtain-lined rooms have river-stone shower floors, single-flame fireplaces, and sliding mahogany-framed shoji screens as bathroom walls. In-room cocktail shakers, glowing “chromatherapy” lights above Jacuzzi tubs, and a swinging, mojito-sipping crowd in the chic Zinc Lounge bring the West Coast funk.