Long one of America’s favorite playgrounds, Orange County is riding high these days on a new wave of sophistication. Just beyond the famous beaches and theme parks are ever-increasing numbers of fine-dining restaurants, world-class museums, eclectic art galleries, hip hotels, deluxe resorts, and other at-
tractions that are anything but Mickey Mouse.
In fact, even part of Mickey’s domain is poised for reinvention as the Walt Disney Corp. develops plans for a recently announced overhaul of its 6-year-old California Adventure theme park. Disney also plans to add 200 guest rooms to its Grand California Hotel by late 2009.
In the meantime, Anaheim continues to liven up its downtown area with such embellishments as GardenWalk, the first phase of which opened this fall with several new restaurants within walking distance of the convention center.
The newest addition to Anaheim’s hotel scene is a very hip reincarnation of an old Holiday Inn property, reopened in June as the Hotel Menage. The 248-room boutique hotel features an entryway lit by lava lamps, an ultra lounge cocktail bar, themed breakout rooms, and a one-acre pool deck that becomes a nightclub on Friday and Saturday evenings.
According to Richard Ham, one of the new hotel’s principals, Menage is all about allowing guests of all ages to “create their own experience.”
“We designed the hotel with a totally sensory perception in mind,” he says. “We believe that it’s no longer demographics, but rather the psychographics—not our age, but how we feel—that are important.”
Also getting a makeover is the Richard Nixon Presidential Library & Museum in Yorba Linda, formerly the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace. This fall the library replaced its old Watergate Gallery with a new 15,000-square-foot interactive addition presenting oral accounts, selections from White House tapes, scanned archives, bits of news broadcasts, and footage of the Watergate hearings. The library recently received copies of 4,000 hours of Nixon’s presidential tapes as well as 42 million pages of presidential materials from the National Archives.
Meanwhile, the O.C.’s coastal communities are enjoying the fruits of the region’s media-induced fame from sources that include film, TV series and classic surfing songs. The Huntington Beach Conference & Visitors Bureau, which bills itself as Surf City USA, recently brought on Dean Torrence, formerly of the Jan & Dean singing duo, whose Surf City was a big hit back in the 1960s, to serve on its executive board.
Torrence, a local resident who encouraged the city to adopt the surfing brand, says Surf City USA has connotations that go far beyond the sport of surfing.
“It’s a state of mind,” he says. “It’s a description of the California beach lifestyle and everything a seaside paradise stands for. Surfing is part of it, but it’s much more than that. It’s an emotional response on a very deep level, a yearning for freedom, eternal youth and sunshine—an endless summer.”
