written by Joe Mottershead, Managing Director
November 17, 2009
The Arrivals Cottage is approximately three weeks from completion. This cottage-like
venue situated on Oak Creek will house our new guest arrivals area, concierge
desk, the new creekside bar and the outdoor, casual dining verandah. The new
building, attached to the renovated L'Auberge Restaurant on Oak Creek, will
allow our guests to enjoy the creekside experience as soon as they arrive to
check-in at the resort. With some good fortune we will have it in operation
for the busy and festive Thanksgiving holiday.
November 15, 2009
L'Auberge Restaurant on Oak Creek has commissioned local Sedona potter, Dennis
Ott, to produce 60 hand-thrown custom charger plates to complement the table
tops of the recently renovated restaurant. Each 12-inch decorative plate is
a uniquely designed piece of art signed by the artist. The plates will top the
new hardwood tables that create a sleeker, more contemporary look in the bungalow-style
restaurant fronting the beautiful waters of Oak Creek.
November 11, 2009
In cooperation with the Goldenstein Art Gallery and the Sedona Arts Festival, L'Auberge de Sedona hosted the October visit of legendary actor Tony Curtis, as he exhibited his impressionistic oil paintings in Sedona. Curtis, who is also a successful impressionistic painter, stayed for a week in a newly renovated and expanded Creekside Cottage.
"Jillie and I loved our creekside cottage! What an experience; the fireplace, the private deck and the outdoor shower, all of it. Such a relaxing environment. We plan on returning," commented Tony Curtis.
November 7, 2009
On Saturday October 30, L'Auberge de Sedona hosted more than 250 guests for the Sedona Plein Air Festival's "Sumptuous Evening with the Artists" in the Monet Ballroom. A celebration of food, wine and the arts, featuring 30 of the country's finest landscape painters and over 120 original works of art produced during the week in Sedona, this festival proved to be both "the" social and arts event of the Autumn season in Sedona. Chef David Schmidt served up more than750 portions of Ahi Tuna, 1,200 portions of Mushroom Risotto, 1,400 portions of Pasta Bolognese and over 125 bottles of wine. The highlight of the evening included the Artists' awards ceremony in which the L'Auberge de Sedona Presenting Sponsor's Award was awarded to California Plein Air artist Rick Delanty for his stunning painting "Sedona Autumn" which was created that same morning creekside at L'Auberge during the two-hour Quick Draw Competition. Rick had a memorable evening as he also won the Collector's Choice Award, voted by the 250 attendees in the Monet Ballroom.
With a nod to the unseasonably cool weather on Saturday evening, the resort's banquet staff built a fire pit on the lawn outside the ballroom and offered hot chocolate and homemade s'mores for the guests to enjoy around the "camp fire." This touch was an unexpected highlight of the evening.
One of the artists invited to this prestigious arts festival included L'Auberge's Artist in Residence, Ninfa, who is especially adept at painting memorable scenes of Oak Creek. Also pictured here are Colorado artist Scott Freeman and California artist Clark Mitchell painting on the grounds of L'Auberge.
November 4, 2009
Recent arrivals to L'Auberge de Sedona include "Willow,""Shadow," and "The Dancers," three unique sculpture pieces created by renowned local sculptor Dan Johnson. Johnson has been creating original figurative sculptures in Sedona for almost 20 years. Yet another enhancement to elevate the guest experience, these oversized humanistic art pieces reflect the rustic flowing energy of Oak Creek and the joyous emotions that one feels when strolling through the meandering garden paths of the resort.
November 3, 2009
As we welcome the sunny days and cool evenings of autumn in Sedona, we are spotlighting our 11 new Spa Cottages. The units, consisting of nine Studio Cottages and two one-bedroom Suites, have proven very popular with our guests as they make reservations for the winter.
With log-style exteriors and comfortable and stylish interiors, these units were built with expansive bathrooms housing Jacuzzi tubs, double sink vanities, separate indoor and outdoor showers, bamboo flooring in the living area, gas fireplaces, large outdoor decks with chaise lounges and a dining table for two. These cottages are furnished with custom-designed, four poster beds, 42" flat screen televisions, cozy lounge chairs and a custom-designed ottoman with a unique wooden overlay on which to enjoy a glass of wine, or a complete meal.
Surrounding the cottages is lush landscaping which includes abundant evergreens, Austrian pines, paths lined with crepe myrtle, Italian cypresses, winter turf, grasses, water features, and meandering paths for ease of transportation in our chauffer driven electric "GEMCARS."
May 30, 2009
As we prepare for the re-opening of a newly designed L’Auberge Restaurant
on Oak Creek and our new creek side bar, this week we are replacing all the
stoves, ovens and grills in the kitchen so our culinary team under the direction
of Chef David Schmidt has state of the art equipment with which to prepare our
exciting new menus. We closed the restaurant before we planned as our construction
team became a little overenthusiastic, quickly tearing down walls and ceilings
to a greater degree than we had expected. This resulted in a 14 day closure
instead of a 7 day closure of our restaurant. Due to the unusually rainy month
of May we have been experiencing, our plan to have an outdoor Grilling Festival
was foiled.
Upon re-opening, L’Auberge will offer the great gourmet cuisine our guests
have come to expect in addition to adding a new Bar/Tapas menu to complement
the new bar and patio adjacent to the restaurant. This new patio will allow
for year round “outdoor dining” with a cedar shake roof, heaters,
glass pony walls while still offering an open air dining experience on Oak Creek.
This more casual menu will allow for our guests to linger in the bar and on
the patio with a glass of wine and appetizers, gourmet burgers, tapas, salads
and light dishes while enjoying the magical atmosphere of Oak Creek. This new
bar will feature understated flat screen TV’s showing special sporting
events for those of you who want to get your sports fix, while creating an energy
hub for the entire resort where guests can meet and share their stories of their
visit to Sedona…with other guests, Sedona locals, or our engaging bartenders.
Also this week we have begun the search for the artistic centerpiece for our
new arrivals court where all our guests will surrender their vehicle and enter
the peace and serenity of the natural surrounding of L’Auberge. We are
working with Gallery 527 in Jerome and the Sedona Arts Center to source a sculpture
piece that will greet our guests with a humanistic, flowing and welcoming message.
Working with talented artists in choosing just the right sculpture is truly
the “creamy filling” in this very intense development project.
Our new spa cottages will begin opening in mid July and the Hillside cottages
are scheduled to open at the end of October, behind schedule, but surely worth
waiting for.
On a lighter note, I have begun to search the best “unknown” bookstores
in Northern Arizona to find some of the most unique vintage travel and art books
to feature in the hotel’s new Wanderlust Library which is to be located
in the Lodge lobby where our guests currently register. When it comes to travel
related books I am finding that some of the most intriguing selections are often
used editions, some more than 100 years old describing little known explorers
trekking across the world including a simple 1,000 mile walk from Mexico
to Oregon, to expeditions to Antarctica in the 1950’s. There is something
about the brown-edged pages of vintage books that seem to take the reader far
away, not only a different place, but also to a different time. I hope our guests
will enjoy these prized selections as much as I do. Similarly we are planning
to provide travel journals in our cottages for our guests to record their memories
of their visit to Sedona and L’Auberge. We believe this will add a bit
of an old world vibe as our guests press pen to paper, rather than fingertips
to keyboard, in recording their impressions of the beauty of the creek and red
rock country.
March 30, 2009
As spring begins in Sedona and Project Elevation continues we have completed many of the upgrades to our Lodge rooms which include new carpeting, furniture, bath vanities, paint color, and flat screen LCD Televisions. We are awaiting the lobby carpeting which is due to arrive in early April. After the Lodge being closed for three weeks to complete this work, we opened to a full house on Friday March 13th (no bad luck here!).
We are just a few days away from completing the expansion of the eighteen Creekside and Gardenside cottages which are at the North end of the resort. As part of this work, we have installed a large water feature among these cottages to further enhance the environment with the healing power of water. Guests arriving to their cottages will be greeted with the sight and sounds of water running through a natural red rock feature. As the weather warms up we will be introducing Koi to this environment and allow our younger guests to feed them along with the L'Auberge ducks each morning.
We will spend April, May and June finalizing the plans for our new arrivals building and lobby adjacent to the restaurant. This will feature a creek front arrival experience that will be unparalleled in Sedona. In June we will be enhancing L'Auberge Restaurant, creating an even more inviting environment with more creek front tables. We expect no interruption of dining service during this time as our meal service will naturally take place outdoors on Oak Creek during the summer. During the 5 day expansion of the kitchen our Executive Chef David Schmidt is planning a Creekside Barbeque Festival during which all meals will be prepared Creekside on outdoor grills. We are all looking forward to this event which will be yet another "first" at L'Auberge.
Our new Spa cottages, located around Spa at L'Auberge will be finished in mid summer and the new Hillside cottages with 1,200 square feet of indoor/outdoor living space will be completed in September just in time for what we expect will be a very busy autumn season at L'Auberge.
March 2, 2009
One of our latest “green” components may be the first of its kind in the resort business. I have always hoped to provide original oil paintings in the guestrooms of our resort. Of course original works of art can be expensive. But our “artist in residence,” Ninfa, came up with a very cost effective and environmentally friendly idea…
Ninfa is a well-known Sedona based oil painter who participates with elite artists from all over the country in Sedona Arts Center’s famed Invitational Plein Air Festival every October. She also teaches landscape painting of Red Rocks and Oak Creek to the guests of L’Auberge. Never one to shy away from a challenge, Ninfa volunteered to create two plein air paintings for each cottage featuring the lush grounds of L’Auberge. The challenge was to do this with a relatively small art budget while fulfilling our desire to add a sustainable component to our cottages. She overcame these hurdles by recycling the two existing giclee’ prints on canvas in each room. Ninfa is painting landscapes of L’Auberge on these “used” canvases, thus furnishing our cottages with paintings that reflect Sedona’s beautiful nature. So for instance, don’t be surprised that while staying in cottage #23 that you have an original impressionist painting of the enormous sycamore tree overhanging your expansive outdoor deck.
During the past eight weeks Ninfa has been feverishly painting for three-hour sessions, capturing the winter season of Sedona, sometimes painting bundled up in gloves and hat during silent snow falls on Oak Creek. Now as our renovated creekside cottages come available to our guests, we are placing just painted, often still wet original oils over the wood-burning fireplace and writing desk. And as the spring season begins, Ninfa’s landscapes reflect the blossoms and foliage that make Sedona a true haven for our guests.
February 4, 2009
Today is another gorgeous winter day in Sedona with sunny skies and 67 degree midday temperatures. We are delighted to announce that five of our fully expanded Creekside and Garden Cottages are open for business, and as of 2pm today we have several of our guests sunning themselves on their new oversized Creekside decks.
I spoke to a nice couple today who have been visiting L’Auberge for 18 years from San Diego, and they are truly enjoying their new and improved Creekside cottage this week. The gentleman indicated that they stayed here before we had televisions. I told them that we expect our new 42 inch flat screen TVs to be delivered in the next few weeks. They indicated that although they loved the “old” L’Auberge, they are very pleased with the enhanced natural lighting in the cottages, the sliding glass doors onto the creek, and the wood paneled ceilings. Although this couple found it a little too chilly still to use the outdoor shower, upon inspection of other cottages we have been surprised by how many of our guests have moved all their bath amenities to the outdoor area to enjoy showering under the stars.
Our goal is to have all our “up creek” cottages completed and open for business on February 13th, just in time for a busy Valentine’s weekend. After Valentine’s Day we will begin the expansion of our remaining “down creek” units and we are hopeful to be complete by midsummer.
We will close our Lodge units in early March for a two week “all hands on deck” lobby redesign makeover which will include all new guestroom furnishings and colors, and adding an art and travel library. During this time we will be greeting and registering all arriving guests in our Creekside Lodge where guests will check-in surrounded by the beauty and sounds of Oak Creek.
January 1, 2009
Happy New Year!
I am pleased to report a small indicator of an awakening economy as L’Auberge de Sedona has been sold out all week. We hope this is a sign of good things to come for Sedona and the economy in general.
Since my last entry our contractor has stabilized the stream of water in our outdoor showers to 105 degrees, comparable to the water in a hot Jacuzzi tub, and the air temperature in cottage #25 is now a comfortable 75 degrees. Both of these developments are very encouraging. Upon getting these and the other punch list items addressed we are waiting on the new furnishings to complete this cottage experience. In the meantime we are forging ahead with the demo and rebuild of creek side cottages 15, 16 and 17, who many say are our most ideally located units sitting perched high above Oak Creek.
With the installation of the new sliding doors leading to our expanded outdoor decks in these redesigned creek side cottages, we now offer expansive 180 degree views of Oak Creek which is just a few steps away. I look forward to springtime when our guests can leave their doors open and enjoy outdoor dining on their large private decks under the shade of the mature sycamores and cottonwoods.
Our newly designed cottages were described by a local member of the press, Allison Ecklund, as “spacious and airy.” Allison wrote an article for the local Red Rock News entitled, “Project Elevation (at L’Auberge) is off to a Fast Start.” We hope to have her entire article on this site very soon and anticipate that Allison will be visiting us periodically to keep our local Sedona neighbors up to speed on the progress of Project Elevation. We hope you’ll do the same by visiting this blog often.
Our contractor’s goal is to have all the creek side cottages completely enhanced by February 14th, Valentine’s Day, so the reputation of L’Auberge as a romantic getaway will be further enhanced by the memorable experience provided by these new cottages. As the holiday falls on a Saturday in 2009, we expect extraordinary demand for these spectacular cottages, our creek side gourmet restaurant and our intimate Spa at L’Auberge.
I will keep you updated on the progress of our creek side cottages in the next few weeks.
December 21, 2008
We're just about to complete the expansion and improvements on our first model cottage on Oak Creek. We're completing this cottage just a week after we received final Sedona City Council approval to proceed with the $25 million expansion of the property. I insisted on being the first to spend the night in this room so as to personally evaluate the changes and ensure they truly provide an experience our guests will enjoy.
We have been working with general contractor Ron Dibble, his carpenters, painters; plumbers, electricians and HVAC specialist to take this 1985 vintage cottage and execute the improvements we feel will make our guestrooms as memorable as their spectacular creekside setting.
First, the team demolished the ceiling drywall to raise the flat ceiling to a 12-foot vaulted surface with stained wood planks. Sprinkler heads were installed to meet current fire code. Along with this came the installation of modern recessed lighting and dramatic pin lights to highlight original oil paintings of Sedona that will adorn the cottages. Our interior designer Kim Harley then chose a taupe paint color for the walls to complement the ceiling’s soft natural bleached stain and the bright wood trim molding. A fresh and sophisticated look!
Next came the construction of a 100 sq. ft. enclosed, cedar outdoor shower. We're working closely with the plumber to ensure the proper water pressure and temperate is attained, as well as address the unique need of protecting the pipes during the chillier Sedona months, which can sometimes drop to the low 20s.
The next major improvement was the expansion of the quaint cabin-like outdoor decks into delightful outdoor living spaces. This included the removal of two windows and replacing them with 8-foot sliding doors that open onto the expanded redwood deck with its new outdoor dining area. Once this work was done, we replaced the existing furniture, but anxiously await our custom furnishings which will arrive in early March.
Upon check-in to cottage #25 at 8 pm on Friday evening, it was clear to my wife and me that the cosmetic enhancements were very impressive. The high ceilings, fresh paint and wood molding, new outdoor decking and the outdoor shower greatly increased the size and enhanced the livability of this cottage. The first impression was what we had envisioned it would be. The chef’s addition of a delicious platter of cheeses, prosciutto, candied nuts, olives and figs made the cottage even more welcoming.
However, it quickly became clear that the expansion of the ceiling height and the addition of sliding glass doors were making it difficult to heat the space on this cold winter night. We quickly threw some juniper wood on the fire and turned the thermostat up to 80 degrees to offset the outdoor temperatures which were quickly approaching freezing. After about an hour we increased the thermostat to 88 degrees and got under the goose down duvet. By this time my notepad of action items was growing large from having to beef up the HVAC unit to choosing more ample window treatments to insulate from the winter cold and summer heat. I also noted that we had to teach our housekeeping team to set the new lighting correctly in all arriving cottages.
After a cozy night's sleep, the next morning we discovered the outdoor shower water temperature reached only about 80 degrees, not nearly hot enough to brave the brisk morning of Sedona so we compromised and utilized the indoor facilities. Upon exiting the shower I realized that our electrician had neglected to install the bathroom heat lamp, resulting in a chilly escape from the bathroom to find a thick terrycloth robe. By check-out time my list included over 26 necessary improvements that would need to be accomplished in the next 48 hours before guests arrived for the busy holiday season. The pressure will be on the contractor and his tradesmen on Monday to solve these problems quickly and prepare us to exceed our guests’ expectations with our first completed cottage. If you are visiting in the next few weeks, we invite you to come and see #25 and our other new cottages as they are completed.
