Channel sporty East Coast elegance at this palatial pile – the Claremont Club & Spa – offering an exceptional range of wellness options, delicious locavore dining and views of San Francisco’s beyond-iconic Golden Gate Bridge.
Coming on like a cross between a fantastical Germanic vanity schloss and a super-tony East Coast yachting club, and with Berkeley’s verdurous hills for a backdrop, the 276-room Claremont Club & Spa has since 1915 been an iconic feature of the Oakland/Berkeley burbscape (its lushly landscaped 22-acre grounds technically straddle both cities).
Its public spaces, notably the huge double-height lobby, drip relaxed grandeur and include options for fine dining – the elegant Limewood – and casual gourmet deli-style all-day grazing in the cute East Bay Provisions café. Décor in the rooms and suites, of which accessible versions are available at all grades (and props are due for extensive accessibility features throughout), is sumptuous if a little staid, and comforts flawless, especially the deep soaking tubs in the capacious, marble-lined bathrooms. Nab one with a bay view if you can, these include the Golden Gate Bridge.
Fitness fetishists are if anything overserved by the huge, handsome outdoor pool complex, vast gym and 10 country club vibes-dripping outdoor tennis courts and fitness pavilion. Recently upgraded, The Club meanwhile is an award-winning fitness centre bristling with state-of-the-art gym equipment and offering more than 90 exercise classes a week, including both usual suspects and more esoteric propositions such as African Dance Fitness and Tai Chi Chih. Guests can also access the nearby private Berkeley Country Club for a scenic round of golf with San Francisco views. No prizes for guessing there’s also a very presentable spa on site.
| Perfect for | Fly into | Right on time |
| The Sophisticate | SFO | GMT -7 |
| While you’re Out There |
| Nowhere are Berkeley’s radical, progressive roots more charmingly encapsulated than at Moe’s Books, modestly tucked beneath a red and white-striped awning on Telegraph Avenue. This street was the epicentre of the city’s massive influence on the 1960s iconoclastic peace-and-love zeitgeist, and founder Moe Moskowitz a key maverick culturalist. Today the store stocks thousands of new, used and out-of-print titles. Its jewel is the separate space ‘(more) Moe’s’: Art and Antiquarian Shop, discovered on the fourth floor at the top of a hidden columnar staircase or elevator. |
Photography courtesy of Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
