The newest Ojai hotel also happens to be the oldest

RECENTLY RESTORED, HOTEL EL ROBLAR WEARS ITS HISTORY ON ITS WALLS

- BY CHRISTOPHER REYNOLDS

DOWNTOWN OJAI’S NEWEST HOTEL, which is also its oldest, stands along Ojai Avenue like a rancher in his best string tie and leather vest. $ This property, now known as Hotel El Roblar, has been a fixture on Ojai’s main street for more than a century —party to multiple civic dramas, one fraud conviction, repeated closures and four decades of fitness retreats. Now, after years of negotiation and restoration, a new team of owners has reshaped the place to evoke Old California, celebrate the Ojai Valley's wild side and lure Angelenos looking to escape the city.

“There’s a hitching post outside, next to the bike rack,” hotel partner Jeremy McBride pointed out, noting that horseback visits aren't out of the question. $ In a town that’s short on lodging supply, the Roblar stands out for its size, its place in local history and the way it wears that history on its walls. Oh, and the two giant tortoises out back.

It went up in 1919, a blend of Spanish Revival and California Mission Revival styles. Its 2 acres include 39 guest rooms, 11 bungalows, a pool, an event space, a dinner restaurant (the Condor Bar) and a breakfastand-lunch restaurant (La Cocina). It reopened this summer with nightly rates of $455 and up.

“There are so many trendy design hotels out there, and we certainly didn’t want to do that,” said Eric Goode, the partner with the most longstanding ties to the area. “Ojai is rustic and horsey. It’s not Montecito.”

The hotel entrance is framed by an arch that echoes those in Ojai’s downtown arcade building. Most of the bungalows have kiva-style fireplaces. In the Cocina breakfast-and-lunch room, the bar wall is a stack of colored bottles mortared together with concrete like a ghost town bottle-house.