La Bahia Hotel & Spa has opened on Main Beach at 215 Beach Street, introducing a newly built luxury resort that anchors Santa Cruz’s oceanfront with year-round lodging, wellness, and events offerings.
La Bahia was developed by Ensemble Real Estate Investments in partnership with the Santa Cruz Seaside Company, with resort management by Ensemble Hospitality. The project team also includes ACRM Architects as architect of record, ForrestPerkins of Perkins Eastman for interiors, and SWENSON as general contractor
215 Beach Street Santa Cruz via Ensemble
The resort includes 155 guestrooms, including 29 signature suites, many oriented toward the bay and boardwalk. On the amenities side, La Bahia features four culinary venues:
- High Tide (signature dining with Pacific-Rim influences)
- Low Tide Bar & Grill
- Pearl (champagne lounge)
- Plunge (poolside)
- Plus a rooftop spa with indoor and outdoor treatment rooms, an ocean-view sauna, and relaxation areas
For groups, the property lists 13,000+ square feet of meeting and event space, highlighted by the 5,200-square-foot Seaside Roof Deck and the 4,000-square-foot Bahia Ballroom, alongside smaller salons and pre-function terraces, positioning the hotel for weddings, corporate retreats, and community gatherings.
“The opening of La Bahia represents the culmination of four decades of visioning, planning, and execution—not just for Ensemble, but for the City of Santa Cruz and its community,” said Conrad Garner, Managing Director of Ensemble. “This project exemplifies the type of legacy asset we seek to create: rooted in place, responsive to history, and built to add long-term value through exceptional design, operations, and experience.
La Bahia Hotel & Spa Oceanfront Pool via Ensemble
“La Bahia is a flagship addition to Ensemble’s portfolio, and one of our most ambitious new-build projects to date,” said Kristi Allen, Executive Vice President of Hotels at Ensemble. “Our goal was to introduce something truly distinctive to Santa Cruz—an upscale resort that respects the soul of the community while delivering the elevated service, amenities, and design that define the next generation of California hospitality.”
From the sand, La Bahia reads as a stepped Spanish-Mediterranean revival; white stucco volumes terrace up the hillside, punctuated by restored bell-tower forms and arcaded ground floors; upper levels stack deep, shadowed balconies with dark metal rails and glass guards to frame the water, while the interiors lean coastal-craft: rattan seating, softly arched niches, and teal “fish-scale” tile at the bar; outside, striped loungers and yellow-fringed umbrellas animate palm-lined roof and pool decks against Monterey Bay.
Spaces extend to the oceanfront pool deck with private cabanas and fire pits, as well as curated experiences the brand touts, like surf partnerships, access to redwood and marine excursions, and other collaborations designed to make the resort a launchpad for the greater Monterey Bay area.
Ensemble Debuts La Bahia Hotel & Spa, the First Luxury Resort in Santa Cruz – Low Tide Bar Photo via Ensemble
With its opening, Ensemble positions La Bahia as Santa Cruz’s first luxury beachfront hotel & spa, elevating the city’s competitive set along California’s coastal leisure markets and complementing the company’s regional portfolio, which includes Dream Inn Santa Cruz and other West Coast properties.
About La Bahia Hotel & Spa: La Bahia Hotel & Spa, located in Santa Cruz, California, is a celebration of one of California’s most idyllic, storied coastal towns.
About Ensemble: Over the past 30 years, Ensemble has successfully invested and developed more than $3 billion in real estate across the United States and has $2 billion in the pipeline, offering state-of-the-art property solutions in the hospitality, multi-family lifestyle mixed-use, life science and commercial sectors.
Photo credit: Ensemble
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Santa Cruz is about 300 miles north and is more part of the San Francisco Bay Area. That RSS feed for the Los Angeles area is tough. It’s so spread out with so many different cities. You go there and you can see all of the construction of high rises and everything else, but it doesn’t seem to show up on the RSS.