Search: "the block hotel"

Sleeping With The Big Brands

by The Editors on November 3, 2009

110209 11

Ever since the Marc Frank Montoya’s The Block Hotels shut their doors in December of 2008 action sports fans have been missing out on any really good places to sleep with their favorite brands in a themed hotel room. A Laguna Beach hotel is changing that with some help from SoCal’s Riviera Magazine and eight action sports fashion brands.

Through a collaboration between the La Casa del Camino Hotel, Riviera hooked up Roxy, Billabong, Billabong Women, Rip Curl, etnies, Lost, Quiksilver, and L*Space with some of Orange County’s top interior designers to create branded rooms in 10 of the boutique hotel’s 38 rooms. The resulting spaces run the gamut from beautifully modern (complete with Nelson Swag Leg desk and platform bench) to what can only be described as ASR trade show booths with beds and bathrooms.

Our favorite was the etnies eco suite (shown above with etnies vice president of marketing Don Brown). Using a skateboard theme (the only one in the hotel) etines worked with designer Eve Lowey of Studio Chameleon in Newport Beach to come up with a cool, environmentally friendly space. “The inspiration for the etines room was all about taking the skate eco design and bringing it together,” said Don Brown. [click to continue…]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Tahoe Gets Its Block Knocked Off

by The Editors on December 15, 2008

Block 1City of South Lake Tahoe officials swarmed Marc Frank Montoya’s The Block Hotel last Thursday (December 11, 2008) and shut the place down until the hotel can pay up on more than $100,000 in back taxes it owes the city.

Customers who occupied the hotel (Thursday) were allowed to stay, but the hotels will remain closed until the TOT is paid,” City Attorney Catherine DiCamillo said Friday. . . . The Block failed to pay TOT between January 2007 and January 2008, and owed penalties and interest from September and December 2006, according to the police statement. . . . Managing partner of the hotels — 37-year-old Las Vegas resident Eneliko Smith — appealed Vuletich’s decision to City Manager David Jinkens, who upheld the finance director’s decision on Nov. 21.

Smith said that the back taxes had not been paid because “financial records detailing the unpaid takes were lost.” Nice of the city to close the hotel right before the holidays, but it shouldn’t have been a surprise to Smith as he was arrested in September over the same issue.

The biggest bummer is for all the shreds who invested in this place and trusted Smith to run the business.

[Link: Tahoe Daily Tribune]

{ Comments on this entry are closed }