Benchmark's Chaminade Completes Renovation
SANTA CRUZ, CA, May 23, 2008. Benchmark Hospitality International, which operates Chaminade Resort & Spa, has formally announced the completion of the comprehensive $15 million renovation of the historic property overlooking Monterey Bay in northern California. The renovation program included all public areas, the restaurant & lounge, guestrooms, as well as meeting and event spaces.
"We're thrilled to formally announce the new Chaminade," said Norbert Relecker, general manager. "We now have a resort complex that matches our Four Diamond service and breathtaking views. We hope people will come and visit us to see it for themselves."
Perched high up on a vast hillside rising out of Monterey Bay and providing stunning views to the Pacific Ocean, Chaminade was originally a Catholic Boys School named after the French priest and educator, Father William Joseph Chaminade. The school opened in 1929 at a time when the area was a misty coastline, unexplored except by an occasional adventurous soul venturing into what were then the outreaches of northern California's hills.
Today, Chaminade is reincarnated as a vibrant and award-winning resort destination, which celebrates its heritage and serene California coast setting while setting its sights firmly on providing exemplary 21st century hospitality to it guests.
The interior designer for the new Chaminade, Andrea Dawson Sheehan of Dawson Design Associates, located in Seattle, Washington, incorporated this heritage into the resort's sophisticated and luxurious new interiors. To do so, she utilized a kaleidoscope of colors, borrowing pigments from the entire spectrum of the storied California sun, landscape and the resort's mission heritage, while folding in elements of the indigenous culture and that of Spain.
Fabrics, wall coverings, floor treatments, bed linens and the myriad of tasteful appointments placed throughout are of rich, elegant hews of chocolate brown, mustard, cherry, slate and tomato reds with splashes of azure, fuchsia and yellow providing dramatic accents.
Natural materials such as walnut, cotton, wool and slate are interspersed with hand-made carpets, tiled floors, glass tile walls, brick, and finished metals. The mix has produced spaces that are visually alluring and yet soothing -- to borrow from Chaminade's heritage, inspiring and spiritual.
Outside, guests find magical, tree lined paths wrapping hillsides forested with groves of ancient oak and eucalyptus trees on the resort's 288 private acres. Groomed lawns creep up to the resort's terraces where they unite with bougainvillea and wisteria, which blanket the trellises.
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