Santa Monica Hotels With Views
CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
Santa Monica's shoreline runs from the bluffs above Palisades Park south to the Venice Beach boardwalk — one of the longest uninterrupted stretches of oceanfront in greater Los Angeles. The properties here range from rooms directly on the sand to rooftop perches high enough to put the Pier and the Pacific in the same frame.
The Views
Hotels We’d Book for the View Alone
Regent Santa Monica Beach
Opened in October 2024, the Regent set a new floor for ocean-view hotels in Santa Monica — most of its 167 rooms face the Pacific directly, with the Pier visible below. For the full version: the two-story Oceanfront Atrium Suite, unobstructed from both floors.
Shutters On The Beach
The only hotel standing directly on the sand in Santa Monica — not steps from it, on it. Cape Cod design, mahogany floors, art that runs to David Hockney. Upper-floor ocean-view balcony rooms face the Pacific; the beach concierge handles everything below.
Casa Del Mar
Built in 1926 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Casa Del Mar frames panoramic ocean views from Palos Verdes to Malibu from the upper floors. The secluded pool and hot tub face the beach; waves are audible at night from most rooms.
Oceana Santa Monica, LXR Hotels & Resorts
Suite-only hotel steps from the Pacific — the Oceanfront Signature Suite places palms and open ocean on the same balcony. La Monique, the French brasserie that opened here in October 2025, has become one of Santa Monica’s most talked-about dinner destinations.
The Georgian Hotel
Turquoise Art Deco on Ocean Avenue since 1933, reopened in March 2023 after a full renovation by BLVD Hospitality. Select rooms and suites face the Pier and the Pacific head-on; Sirena on the terrace for all-day coastal Italian, the Georgian Room below for late-night jazz.
Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows
On the bluffs above the beach — not on the sand, but above it, with an elevated angle on the Pacific that reaches from Malibu to the Pier. Ocean Tower balcony rooms deliver that wide-angle horizon. On the five-acre property: 32 private garden bungalows beneath the historic fig tree.
Viceroy Santa Monica
A $21 million renovation completed in 2023 restored the Viceroy’s edge on Ocean Avenue. Ocean-view rooms and junior suites face the Pacific directly; two outdoor pools, Sugar Palm’s wraparound bar, and private cabanas anchor a beach hotel that earns its place on the list.
Huntley Santa Monica Beach
Eighteen floors above Santa Monica, The Penthouse restaurant and lounge delivers 360-degree panoramic views over the Pacific and the Promenade — open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Guest rooms, designed by Thomas Schoos, look out over the ocean from the fourth floor upward.
Hotel Erwin Venice Beach
The original boutique hotel on the Venice Beach Boardwalk — 119 rooms, some with Pacific-facing balconies. On the roof: Kassi Venice Beach, opened in July 2025, a Greek-inflected bar with sweeping views of the boardwalk, the Pacific, and the coastal range on clear days.
Venice V Hotel
Seven penthouse bungalows look out over the boardwalk and Venice Beach from a full upper-floor perspective — the Clara Bow suite delivers the best angle on the promenade. Housed in a 1915 brick building with original wooden staircases; Great White, the neighborhood café, is at the door.
What Travelers Ask About Santa Monica
The clearest ocean views in Santa Monica come from two configurations: rooms directly on the beach, and rooms on upper floors with unobstructed westward exposure.
Shutters On The Beach is the only hotel in Santa Monica with rooms physically sitting on the sand — the Pacific is as close as it gets without being in the water. Regent Santa Monica Beach opened in October 2024 with 167 rooms, the majority of which face the ocean directly; the two-story Oceanfront Atrium Suite and the upper-floor rooms deliver the Pier and the open Pacific in the same frame.
Further along Ocean Avenue, Oceana Santa Monica, LXR Hotels & Resorts is an all-suite property where the Oceanfront Signature Suite delivers direct Pacific views from a private balcony. Casa Del Mar has a seafront position that frames panoramic ocean views from Palos Verdes to Malibu from most upper-floor rooms. Viceroy Santa Monica renovated its ocean-view rooms in 2023; junior suites and corner rooms on the upper floors face west without obstruction.
Three zones offer distinct ocean-view experiences across the Santa Monica — Venice Beach corridor.
Santa Monica State Beach (Ocean Avenue south of the Pier): the most concentrated stretch of beachfront properties. Shutters On The Beach, Casa Del Mar, and Regent Santa Monica Beach sit directly on or immediately above the beach. The Georgian Hotel on Ocean Avenue places the Pier in the frame of upper-floor rooms and suites.
Wilshire Montana (Ocean Avenue north of the Pier): a quieter, more residential stretch. Oceana Santa Monica, LXR Hotels & Resorts is steps from Palisades Park with direct ocean views. Huntley Santa Monica Beach on 2nd Street delivers 360-degree panoramas from its 18th-floor Penthouse restaurant. The Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows on Wilshire Blvd sits above the beach on the bluffs, giving Ocean Tower rooms an elevated, wide-angle Pacific view that reaches from Malibu to the Pier.
Venice Beach (south along the boardwalk): a different character entirely — more bohemian, less polished. Hotel Erwin Venice Beach and Venice V Hotel are the beachfront options, with boardwalk views and direct ocean access from the sand.
Several properties combine an outdoor pool with meaningful Pacific exposure.
Shutters On The Beach has an outdoor pool between its wings that opens directly onto Santa Monica Beach — the sand and the ocean are continuous from the pool deck. Casa Del Mar has a secluded pool and hot tub with views of the beach, positioned away from the public area. Oceana Santa Monica, LXR Hotels & Resorts has a freeform heated pool in an open courtyard framed by olive trees; the Sunset Terrace rooftop lounge above it faces the Pacific for cocktails at golden hour.
Viceroy Santa Monica has two outdoor pools and private poolside cabanas, with ocean-view rooms looking down over the pool deck. Regent Santa Monica Beach's Azure Pool sits on the fourth floor, elevated above the beach with thirteen fire-pit stations around the deck and a clear Pacific sightline. The Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows has a heated outdoor pool on the bluff property, with the ocean and the Pier visible beyond the terraced gardens.
Santa Monica's luxury tier has expanded significantly with recent openings alongside its established classics.
Regent Santa Monica Beach is the newest entry — opened in October 2024 following a $150 million transformation of the former Loews Santa Monica Beach. All 167 rooms and suites start at 720 square feet; the Oceanfront Atrium Suite spans 2,180 square feet across two floors with unobstructed Pier and ocean views from both levels. The Santa Monica Presidential Suite reaches 3,200 square feet with panoramic ocean terraces.
Shutters On The Beach remains the defining address for understated beachside luxury: the only five-star hotel sitting directly on the sand, with Cape Cod interiors, hydrothermal bath suites, and a beach concierge. Oceana Santa Monica, LXR Hotels & Resorts, an LXR Hotels & Resorts property, offers suite-only accommodation with a private, residential feel — and La Monique, its French brasserie that opened in October 2025, has become one of the most talked-about hotel restaurants on the Westside. Casa Del Mar is the historic counterpart: an Italian Renaissance landmark built in 1926 that delivers panoramic ocean views from every room in the main building.
The prime beachfront strip commands luxury pricing, but several alternatives deliver real Pacific views at lower rates.
Venice V Hotel is the clearest option: a three-star boutique in a 1915 brick building on the Venice Boardwalk, with seven penthouse bungalows that look directly over the boardwalk and the Pacific. The Clara Bow suite offers the best angle. Rates here are significantly lower than the five-star Santa Monica properties while still delivering genuine beachfront views.
Hotel Erwin Venice Beach is a four-star hotel on the Venice Boardwalk with 119 rooms, some with Pacific-facing balconies. The rooftop Kassi Venice Beach is open to both guests and the public, so the view is accessible even without an overnight stay. The Georgian Hotel on Ocean Avenue is a four-star property where upper-floor rooms and junior suites face the Pier and the Pacific; pricing runs below the five-star beachfront hotels while maintaining an Ocean Avenue address.
Several of Santa Monica’s best elevated ocean views are accessible without a hotel room.
The Penthouse at Huntley Santa Monica Beach is the most consistently mentioned: an 18th-floor restaurant and lounge at 1111 2nd Street, open to the public for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and late-night cocktails. The 360-degree view takes in the full Pacific horizon, the Santa Monica Pier, and the city grid behind it. Reservations are recommended for the dining room; the bar operates on a walk-in basis.
Kassi Venice Beach at Hotel Erwin Venice Beach is the Venice equivalent — a Greek-inflected rooftop bar and restaurant that opened in July 2025, perched above the boardwalk with the Pacific and the Santa Monica coastline extending north. It is open to the public and has become one of the most popular sunset spots on the Westside. The Bungalow at Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows is an outdoor terrace bar with sweeping Pacific views from the hotel’s bluff position; it is open to non-guests and operates nightly.
Several properties sit within a short walk of the Pier’s entrance.
Shutters On The Beach at 1 Pico Boulevard is directly adjacent to the foot of the Pier — the Pier is visible from balcony rooms and the hotel beach. Casa Del Mar at 1910 Ocean Way is on the same southern beachfront block; upper-floor rooms look directly at the Pier from the south. Regent Santa Monica Beach at 1700 Ocean Ave opened in October 2024 steps from the Pier entrance, with most rooms facing the Pier and the Pacific.
The Georgian Hotel at 1415 Ocean Avenue is a few blocks north; upper-floor rooms and suites face the Pier as a visible landmark in the foreground of the Pacific view — the photo angle that most closely matches the postcard image of Santa Monica. The Viceroy Santa Monica at 1819 Ocean Avenue is also within easy walking distance north of the Pier.
Venice Beach and Santa Monica offer genuinely different experiences, and the ocean views reflect that difference.
Hotel Erwin Venice Beach and Venice V Hotel are both directly on the Venice Boardwalk — the boardwalk itself is part of the view from most ocean-facing rooms. The visual character is livelier and more open than the relatively sheltered Santa Monica beachfront: you see the Muscle Beach area, the skate park, and the full sweep of coastline extending north toward Santa Monica. Kassi Venice Beach on the Hotel Erwin rooftop is among the best places to watch sunset over the Pacific anywhere along this stretch of coast.
The trade-off is that Venice has no equivalent of Shutters On The Beach or Oceana in terms of luxury. If the view itself is the priority and the five-star beachfront experience matters, Santa Monica’s Ocean Avenue corridor delivers more consistently. But for travelers who find Venice’s character more appealing — the street life, the artists, the informality — the ocean views from Venice Beach are the same Pacific, framed differently.
Most beachfront hotels share a broadly similar westward orientation. Two properties offer something structurally different.
Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows occupies a bluff position above the beach rather than sitting on it. Ocean Tower rooms look down over the beach and out across the Pacific from a height that amplifies the breadth of the coastline — the Malibu headlands appear to the north, the Pier directly below, and the horizon is uninterrupted. The elevated perspective is a genuinely different way to read the same ocean that the sand-level hotels face.
Huntley Santa Monica Beach takes a different approach: 18 floors of height above a 2nd Street address that is set back from the beach. The Penthouse restaurant on the 18th floor captures a 360-degree panorama that combines the Pacific to the west, the Santa Monica city grid to the east, and the Pier in the middle distance — a cityscape-and-ocean composition that the beachfront hotels cannot replicate because they are too close to the water.