Santa Monica Proper Hotel

Lovely contemporary hotel with rooftop deck, very nice rooms and super helpful staff. Restaurants have great food but are expensive — guess that is normal for Santa Monica! We would stay there again for those vacations we’re doing a bit of a splurge on. For this occasion it was pre-cruise and this hotel made a nice base for a walkable day/night of exploring before boarding a ship from the LA World Cruise Center.

amazing stay - perfect location, beautiful rooms, service is impeccable, the rooftop restaurant is lively + delicious! concierge team was so helpful + available via text. have stayed solo, as a couple + with family - all were fabulous stays. highly recommend!

I have stayed at many hotels, and the caliber of the staff makes this hotel stand out. They are helpful, and no, it is not something they say right off the bat; they want you happy and try to make our stay as pleasant as possible. Here is an example. We were waiting for the elevator, and I wanted to find out about the rooftop restaurant

The best hotel in SM! Clean, friendly staff, fantastic breakfast in the lobby restaurant, great rooftop bar and restaurant, convenient location and great fitness facility. We always feel so “at home” here. Love the back room lounge/working area. Highly recommended.

Zero stars if I could. Save yourself and stay literally ANYWHERE ELSE than this jute covered flaming dumpster fire. Why pay $600+ a night to have a strange man threaten to break the security chains on your locked room while you are naked and asleep, as he fights to enter the room past your door chain? The hotel is barely interesting from a design perspective, and while has high ceilings and nice lighting, it has the worst staff of any hotel in this category in the entire state. It’s a core problem to this hotel, and if you read about other’s experiences here and elsewhere online, you’ll start to see why. Imagine a hotel full of worst people you have ever met, from guests to staff. From mere pettiness all the way up to dangerous people—your stay will be ruined by each interaction. Why is that? How is it possible that Proper Hotels have created SUCH a toxic culture that the entire visual design is overshadowed by an overall grotesque experience? From check-in… to breakfast… to especially the rooftop pool… to front office, every encounter with staff or guests is a nightmare. Upstairs on the rooftop pool, guests are insanely rude and will throw other people’s personal items resting on lounge chairs in the bushes even though there are plenty of free chairs and general seating everywhere. The staff here are even WORSE — Ernest from the front office lied to my face inventing a bs reason for why he threatened to break the security chain of the door preventing him from barging in as I was naked just because I wasn’t able to dress fast enough after he woke me up, and so I was forced to answer the door barely holding up a towel as he proceeded to try barging in and hold an extended conversation without allowing me to get dressed. BOTTOM LINE: NOT RECOMMENDED FOR SOLO FEMALE TRAVELERS. If you have to stay at this hotel, DEADBOLT the door, otherwise staff will try force in whether or not you are naked (and verbally requests to wait while you get dressed will be completely disrespected). Totally inappropriate, unsafe, and unacceptable. Usually other hotels will slip an envelope under your door if they need to pass along a message. This hotel is staffed by rote and monstrous employees who could care less about the quality of your comfort, peace, or sleep. This happened even after I took the time to call the hotel ahead of arriving to make a special note that I would be arriving late from extended travel, and even after putting up the “do not disturb” handle hanger. Joshua Samad, Director of Rooms, argued with me with totally gaslighting statements defending this unacceptable, scary, and violating behavior. Three different members of staff, from check-in, to Ernest, to Joshua all lied multiple times in conversation with me, contradicting themselves and each other. I wish this hotel would shut down completely. The toxic culture here is horrible, and the staff are at best completely incompetent and at worst rude to the point of being scary. Santa Monica Proper Hotel is the worst. On top of all of this, Proper Hotel mgmt charges a disgusting $70 per night just to park at the hotel to avoid walking at night among the homeless outside. Proper Hotels are contributing to an extractive, toxic culture in the hospitality and travel industry, they ARE the problem. At parking rates that high, the least you could do is hire qualified and educated professional staff with quality hospitality degrees instead of people who so clearly should not work in any service capacity whatsoever. I hated this hotel so much that I actually left my multi-day prepaid booking early, which I have never done at any other hotel before. If I could go back in time and un-book this hotel, I would. AVOID this nightmare of a hotel.