Surf City-style

Jenny Marder

The hotel lobby could be called a gallery in its own right. Large

abstract murals rise above the reception desk, a crystal sculpture

juts out from a wall, and handmade colorful Venetian chandeliers hang

from the ceiling and along the corridors.

These are only a handful of a vast collection of seaside inspired

artwork that adorn Surf City’s brand new resort, which is designed to

reflect the culture and character of its sand and surf community.

The Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort & Spa’s grand opening

will hit the beach today with sky surfers dropping from planes

overhead and landing on the shore to begin the celebration. Hotel

executives will use an oversized surf comb to cut the ribbon, which

is made out of kelp, flowers and assorted shells collected from local

beaches.

The celebration will then cross the newly constructed footbridge

to the hotel, where Dean Torrence and the Surf City All-Stars will be

waiting, along with former members of the Beach Boys and the

Ventures.

The 15-acre luxury resort features 517 guestrooms, 110,000 square

feet of meeting and function space, a 20,000-square-foot spa and

fitness center, three restaurants, and an on-site retail plaza. Set

atop an elevated parcel of land, almost all of the rooms offer views

of the Pacific Ocean.

But what really sets the resort apart as unique to Huntington

Beach is the artwork.

The resort is nothing if not luxurious, with Andalusian style

architecture providing a Mediterranean backdrop for the hotel’s

extravagant array of amenities. Contrasting sharply with the

classical buildings, is an abstract and contemporary artistic design.

“We were the foil to the building,” said Art Curator Mark

Berkhart, a Surf City local. “The building is so Mediterranean, and

we mixed the old European patterns in with very modern California

colors.”

Shades of green alone include colors like lime green, sage and

celery. “Anything but primary colors,” said Berkhart, whose goal was

to add a fresh California attitude to an old world European

architecture.

Berkhart, who has blue eyes, sandy hair and a slightly sunburned

face, is a 10-year Huntington Beach resident and the owner of

Moulding, Frame and Art, an art acquisition and publishing company.

His mission for this project, he said, was to compete with the

building and to challenge the designer.

MIND-BLOWING CREATIONS

Bram Van Stenbergen, also a Surf City resident, contributed more

than 50 pieces of his work to the hotel, including cast glass doors

at the entry to the spa and around the men’s and women’s whirlpool.

He also created 42 handblown glass tabletops and a glass sculpture

that is 1 1/2 times life size that will also be on display at the

foyer to the conference center.

The tabletops can be found at the Californian, the most

avant-garde restaurant on site, according to Berkhart.

The glass has a fluid, bubbly texture and a chameleon-like color

scheme that changes when set against different colors and lights.

Stenbergen uses a unique glazing process to shape the glass, which

involves slumping, casting and painting. Pieces of glass are

sandwiched around a layer of paint, which is then is heated at 1,400

to 1,500 degrees in a 5 1/2-by-9-foot gas furnace conceived and built

by Stenbergen himself.

“The materials break down, and molecules start adhering to each

other and melting together,” he said describing the process. “It

creates a wild, wild design. No piece will ever be the same.”

Each tabletop takes roughly 12 hours to make.

Stenbergen, who moved to Huntington Beach with his family in 1985,

learned to sculpt cast glass from an old friend who developed the

process in the 1970s.

“I’m not looking for fame, I’m looking for fun,” Stenbergen said.

A CHILD’S TOUCH

Surf City’s children have also added their own personal touches to

the resort. During the spring and summer of last year, the resort and

the Huntington Beach Art Center collaborated to work with more than

100 children from the area to create 192 ceramic tiles. The tiles

will surround the El Fuente Refejo, one of the resort’s eight

fountains.

“It was a huge community outreach with children and their

families,” said Darlene DeAngelo, curator of exhibitions and programs

at the arts center. “The kids were really excited because they knew

that the tiles would be permanently installed at the Hyatt.”

HOUSING SURF CITY HISTORY

The resort is also steeped in Surf City history.

About a dozen historical photos taken by local photographer Alicia

Wentworth will be on display at the Regency Club, a private room that

will serve cocktails to guests staying in the resort’s penthouse

section.

Wentworth, 76, was the City Clerk for 15 years and now works as

city historian. The pictures, which date back to the early 1900s,

feature old-world Huntington Beach, with pictures of old surf

competitions, the arch-shaped superstructure that used to stretch

over Main Street and City Council meetings from the 1940s when the

council met on the beach.

Artwork by several other local artists will be on display in the

gallery and the Red Chair Lounge. Toreen West and her mother, Corinne

Hartley, have impressionistic paintings on display in the gallery,

and Diana Lo Schiavo’s watercolors will be in the lounge. “We are

selling Surf City, USA,” said General Manager Cormac O’Modhrain.

“We’re selling sand an ocean, and the art reflects that.”