About
Alila Ventana Big Sur perches in the redwood-and-chaparral hills above the Pacific Coast Highway, offering adults-only thermal facilities that represent the most complete bathing ritual on the California coast. The spa features wood-fired cedar saunas, Japanese wooden soaking tubs, two clothing-optional swimming pools, and an outdoor thermal hot tub — all positioned to face the ocean through breaks in the redwood canopy. The original Ventana Inn, which opened here in 1975, pioneered the concept of sophisticated wilderness retreat in Big Sur; the Alila repositioning doubled down on the thermal wellness program. The combination of redwood forest immersion, Pacific horizon views, and traditional heat-cold bathing is genuinely irreplicable elsewhere on the West Coast.
