A Waterfall, a Hidden Champagne Bar and 31 Clamshell Beds: The Baby Grand Opens in Coronado, California
The bed is a clamshell. Not a headboard shaped a little like one, but a full iridescent shell fanning up from the pillows to nearly the height of the ceiling, and it is in all 31 rooms. That is the first thing you will see at the Baby Grand, and it sets the tone for a hotel where a waterfall runs through the restaurant and the Champagne bar is hidden behind a sculpture.
It opened in May in Coronado, California, on the flat, wealthy spit of land reached by a two-mile bridge from downtown San Diego. The building is a 1957 roadside motel. You would never know.
Where you are
The address is 1315 Orange Avenue, on Coronado's main street, a few minutes' walk from the Hotel del Coronado, the white Victorian resort that has been the landmark here since 1888, and about seven from the sand.
That matters for how you use the place. The Del is the beach resort, with 938 rooms and everything that comes with them. The Baby Grand is 31 rooms and a garden, and it is walkable to the sand and the shops. You come here for the rooms and the evenings, not for a full resort.
The rooms, and which to book
There are three types. The Petite Baby Grand is the smallest, the Baby Grand is the classic, and the Terrace Suite looks down Orange Avenue from above.
All of them have the clamshell bed, painted palm murals, tropical wallpaper, high-gloss ceilings, oxblood trim and parquet floors, plus an in-room bar that is closer to a drinks cabinet than a minibar. There is zebra next to leopard next to tapestry next to gilt, and it somehow holds together.
The detail worth booking for is the bathroom. It takes up close to half of every room, which is an unusual amount of space to give away, and it is where the property is most beautiful: a clawfoot tub on gold feet, fluted marble consoles, hunter green tile, mosaic floors and animal-print stools. Even in the smallest category, you get marble.
If you are choosing, the middle category is the sweet spot. The Petite is genuinely small, and the Terrace Suite is the one you book for an occasion.
A garden that used to be a parking lot
Around 6,000 square feet of the property is planted ground, and it was asphalt until recently. It now holds mature palms, gas-lit torches, statues holding lamps in the undergrowth, tented pavilions, a sand-bottomed lagoon pool and a two-storey artificial rock face with a waterfall running down it.
The intention is a place that feels found rather than built, as though an expedition camp was left on the coast long enough for the planting to close over it. The planting arrived fully grown for exactly that reason. Walking from the lobby to dinner takes about a minute and is one of the better parts of staying here.
The lagoon pool has a sand bottom and runs about four feet deep, with a small beach of sand imported from Turkey around it. It holds a handful of people at a time, so it is somewhere to sit in the water with a drink rather than swim. For the ocean, there is a beach valet who will set you up on the real shoreline.
Night Hawk
The main restaurant is Mediterranean with the Greek islands leading, cooked over wood and charcoal, and entirely outdoors, built into the rock face with the waterfall behind it. The menu runs to mezze, skewers off the grill, a Grand Souvlaki Platter at $88 and a Maine lobster linguini in squid ink, and it wanders into bucatini and a dry-aged tomahawk if you want it to.
It serves from 11am on weekdays until 10pm, later on Friday and Saturday, with brunch from 10am to 3pm at weekends. Every table has its own small shaded lamp, which is why the place still feels like a room after dark. It is open air, so take a jacket. The covered section under the striped canvas is the one to ask for on a cool evening, and the bar is worth a drink on its own.
Fallen Empire, the bar behind the sculpture
Somewhere in the lobby there is a sculpture that opens. Behind it is Fallen Empire, a bar with a short counter and room for about 35, walls of hanging gold chain and mirrors on every surface, so a handful of red lampshades multiply into a crowd of them and you lose track of where the room ends.
Kumamoto oysters, caviar cones, bluefin sashimi and a chilled seafood platter at $185, against a Champagne list that runs from Veuve up through Krug and sideways into growers like Egly-Ouriet and Agrapart. It runs 5pm to 11pm nightly and reservations are required, which is not a formality at this size. Book it when you book the hotel.
Mornings
The Café opens daily at eight and is also the front desk, so you check in at a bar. It is white plaster worked into coral relief, checkerboard mosaic underfoot, milk-glass globe lights and a chrome rail along a terracotta-tiled counter. It pours coffee early and turns to cocktails later.
It is the calmest room in a hotel that is otherwise turned all the way up, and after a night of gold chain and open flame you will be glad it exists.
What it costs, and who it suits
Rooms open around $350 a night, and suites and peak dates run well above that, so the spread by season and night is wide. A 31-room hotel does not discount its way out of a busy weekend.
This is the second hotel from CH Projects, the San Diego group behind Born & Raised and False Idol, and the second designed with the Brooklyn studio Post Company. Their first, The Lafayette Hotel & Club in San Diego's North Park, took a Michelin Key in October 2025 as the only property in the city to get one that year.
Book it if you want a room you will photograph, dinner and a hidden bar without leaving the property, and a beach you walk to. Book across the street if you want a resort. What you are paying for here is 31 rooms' worth of attention, and it shows in every one of them.
