Sandbourne Santa Monica, Autograph Collection
In 2024, our team at Evo was brought in to transform the former JW Marriott Santa Monica Le Merigot into something singular. The location was iconic. The beachfront, unbeatable. But we didn’t want to compete in the usual categories—views, cocktails, curated calm. Santa Monica already had plenty of those.
So we turned inward.
Santa Monica is a place people come to see the sunset, hear the waves, do the things. But there’s one sense they bring with them that they can never turn off—one that’s always on, always absorbing—but almost always ignored: touch.
You can close your eyes. You can cover your ears. But you can’t not feel. And yet, most of us have dulled that sense entirely.
That was our spark.
We saw an opportunity to build the first hotel in the market designed not just for aesthetics or escapism, but for reawakening. A place where guests would reconnect with the sense that anchors memory, grounds emotion, and makes every moment real.
We created Sandbourne as a temple of touch—where design becomes sensation, materials become mood, and memory begins at the fingertips.
What we did
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We built the brand from the ground up—name, narrative, identity system, guest rituals—crafting every layer to evoke a coherent, sensorially-driven experience.
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We uncovered an overlooked human truth—touch is the most constant yet least noticed sense—and used it to anchor the brand’s emotional and conceptual foundation.
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We designed a tactile visual system where typography, texture, and mark-making echo the feel-first ethos of the brand—elegant, elemental, and sensorially alive.
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We crafted textured print collateral for Sandbourne that invited guests to feel every moment—using embossed details, premium stocks, and tactile finishes that extended the sensory story beyond the room and into the hand.”
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We developed Pottery by the Pool as a guest-facing ritual that translated the brand’s core idea—touch as memory—into a social, hands-on experience.
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We served as the connective tissue across interior design, marketing, and hotel operations—ensuring every sensory, spatial, and service detail carried the same embodied story.
The Results
Significant ADR Increase
Post-rebrand, Sandbourne achieved an average daily rate (ADR) in the $483–$721 range, up from the previous hotel's ADR in the high-$300s—representing a 25–35% increase in realized nightly revenue.
Narrative-Centric Differentiation
In a saturated market of “coastal luxury,” Sandbourne became the only hotel in Santa Monica explicitly designed around the sense of touch—owning a unique emotional territory and offering a memory-based brand edge.
Elevated Market Position
Sandbourne transitioned from a legacy JW Marriott into a high-design Autograph Collection standout—now competing directly with iconic properties like Shutters and Casa del Mar, but with a distinct brand proposition centered on sensory immersion.
Cross-Functional Brand Cohesion
The brand’s core concept influenced not just visual identity, but interior textures, guest programming, operational rhythms, and staff training—making it a systemic brand, not just a surface one.
Brand Premium
Even with only 175 keys, Sandbourne was able to command rates surpassing larger beachfront competitors through brand positioning alone—proving that a concept rooted in emotional and physical depth could translate directly into pricing power.
Guest Experience as Brand Delivery
From the tactile check-in tea ritual to textured collateral and sensory playlists, Sandbourne transformed branding into a lived, multi-sensory guest experience—turning brand recall into body memory and boosting early word-of-mouth buzz.