Five hand picked romantic California get-aways for you and your special someone.

3. HALF MOON BAY

Romantic Route:

Just 25 miles south of San Francisco, this is another pretty quick car ride, taking no more than 3 hours from most areas in our region; be sure to bring cash for the bridge toll!

Fall “Inn” Love:

For couples who like to unwind B&B-style, Half Moon Bay Inn, situated in the heart of downtown Half Moon Bay, is an award-winning boutique inn built in 1932 and recently renovated to preserve its Spanish Revival architecture. Definitely European-feeling, this downtown historically-rich and richly adorned property exudes romance and attention to detail. The innkeeper, Jamie, is so inviting and warm – you instantly feel taken care of. halfmoonbayinn.com

Table for Two:

Sandwich your Love. Infamous for their fall-in-love sandwiches, San Benito Deli at the San Benito House offers simple compilations that are straightforward and even better shared. Voted “Best Sandwich in Half Moon Bay…you can bet it’s for good reason. Sandwiches come on your choice of homemade whole wheat, French or olive walnut. sanbenitohouse.com

Half Moon Bay Brewing Company. Enjoy a much-adored love potion at this hotspot dive for both locals and visitors. With a great patio for seaside dining any time of day, the Brewery – producing top-quality Mavericks Beers & Ales in addition to hearty local cuisine – is the place to order the Yucatan Ceviche and beer-battered, deep-fried artichoke hearts. hmbbrewingco.com

Sam’s Chowder House. Enough said – get the chowder here. And, rumor has it – Sam’s Baked Oysters Rockefeller have been known to make sparks fly. sams chowderhouse.com

Activities Amoré:

Coastal Elegance Tours. Experience the beauty of the Pacific Coast up close and personal…on a bike! Hitch up with CET and experience several eco-culture cycling tours featuring rides for all skill levels through only the must-see spots. Look out for the local wildlife! coastalelegancetours.com

Sea Kayaking. Whether you’re an adventurist or a low-key leisurist, there’s a kayak exploration waiting just for you. Half Moon Bay Kayak Co. offers paddling among the harbor seals, seabirds and other marine sanctuary wildlife in protected Pillar Point Harbor. hmbkayak.com

Harley Goat Farm Tour. Who says cheese isn’t sexy? The goats here may not be runway ready, but they sure are cute and fun to pet! In addition to learning how a dairy runs and cheese-making techniques, a visit to these award-winning goat cheese purveyors will have you and your honey appreciating the simple things in life…not to mention four delicious varieties of goat cheese fresh for sampling. They even have goat milk skincare products! harleyfarms.com

Guilty Pleasures:

Get your garlic on. Literally. Take in the sights, sounds and tastes of all things garlic at the Great Garlic BBQ on July 31, 2010, happening at the La Nebbia Winery/Obester Winery in Half Moon Bay.
lanebbiawinery.com

Indulge in prized pastries at Moonside Bakery & Café in Downtown HMB. The shelves are beautifully adorned with a wide variety of cakes, tarts, pies, and pastries for every imagination. You’ll be giving sweet kisses all day long after a visit here. moonsidebakery.com

To read more click here

Looking for the perfect romantic getaway, a short distance from San Francisco? Look no further than the coastal community of Half Moon Bay. This beach town has miles of beaches, restaurants and a charming downtown Main Street. It takes 30 minutes or less from San Francisco so you can plan a quick trip or a more leisurely one and still have time to relax and enjoy yourself.

Choose the Half Moon Bay Inn in downtown, for the start of your romantic interlude. This historic inn, built in 1932 has been completely renovated with modern amenities. You will enjoy this luxury boutique hotel with fourteen rooms to choose from. Guest rooms are nicely decorated with a blend of both historic and modern elements including pieces from Mexico and South America. Each is unique with a collection of antiques, some with crystal chandeliers, but all have comfortable modern beds, luxury linens and marble bathrooms. The rooms are luxurious without being fussy and come with plush robes.

The Inn also has large family suites with kitchens that make for a perfect vacation or longer getaway. Weekends can be fully-booked, so consider staying a Sunday or week-night for a better selection of rooms. And if you can’t leave town without your dog, the Inn is dog-friendly. For the rest of this article click here…

Stressed out from the work week and it’s only Tuesday?  Get away from it all with the Inn’s new “Weekday Getaway Package”!  Guests can leave their worries at home and enjoy a brief respite at the Inn for a relaxing, affordable and uncomplicated getaway package that includes:

• 
  
• Overnight accommodations at the Half Moon Bay Inn
• A gift certificate for $50 at It’s Italia restaurant (excluding tax, gratuity and alcohol)
• A luxurious black bathrobe from the Half Moon Bay Inn drop-shipped to the guest’s home as a memento of their stay

The “Weekday Getaway” package is valid Sunday-Thursday nights.  The package starts at $210, single or double occupancy, and is based upon availability.  The package represents a 25% discount from the normal price of accommodations and services.  Additional robes available for purchase at $75, which is a 25% savings off of the regular retail cost.  Rate excludes tax and other charges unless otherwise noted.  Advance reservations are required. To make a reservation, call 650-726-1177 or book on-line and note you’d like to purchase the “Weekday Getaway Package”.

Make a Break for It: 10 Questions for Half Moon Bay Hotelier Jamie Barber

Half Moon Bay is a coastal haven located about 30 minutes south of San Francisco. Featuring beautiful beaches, well known wineries, and world-class golf courses and outdoor pursuits, Half Moon Bay is the quintessential respite for Bay Area city-dwellers.

Haute Living sat down for a chat with noted business owner and proprietor of the Half Bay Moon Inn Jamie Barber to talk life in a seaside town. After recently investing $2 million into the historic space, Jamie knows a thing or two about creating a unique, welcoming experience for visitors!

Haute Living: What drew you to the Bay Area?

Jamie Barber: I moved to the Bay Area with my parents when I was 12 years old.  My father worked for Standard Oil Company and was transferred to San Francisco.  They ended up buying a house in Belmont.

HL: Opening up a bed and breakfast is your “dream job.” What inspired you to enter into the hospitality field?

JB: I worked as a Concierge for United Airlines in the First Class International Department.  Providing our customers with excellent service was our goal.  This experience (26 years) has greatly influenced how my guests are treated at the Inn.

HL: Do you see many San Franciscan guests? What entices people about Half Moon Bay?

JB: Yes, many people come and stay for one or two nights from San Francisco.  They want to get away from the city and take hikes or stroll the beach, watch sunsets and just unwind and relax.

HL: The Inn has been remodeled entirely in a Spanish/Latin American style. Where did this inspiration come from?

JB: The building’s architecture is a Spanish Revival style, built in 1932.  The building has an Old World feel that I wanted to maintain with the interior design.

HL: You worked for United Airlines for many years- any favorite travel destinations?

JB: My favorite travel destinations are France, Italy and Greece.    I love the food, architecture and the lifestyle of Europe.

HL: Running the inn is a full time job- if you could take a weekend off and visit another hotel in the Bay Area, where would you go?

JB: I would probably go to San Francisco and stay at The Hotel Monaco or one of the Starwood’s properties, since I have Starwood points.  The Hotel Monaco is also dog friendly and some the W’s and Westin’s are dog friendly as well.

HL: How do you relax in Half Moon Bay?

JB: I enjoy my yoga classes at the Enso Studio.  Now, staying home and having dinner guests over is my way of taking a break.  I also enjoy going over the hill and meeting friends there.

HL: With the restaurant It’s Italia at your doorstep, what’s your favorite Italian dish?

JB: It’s hard to beat its Italia’s spaghetti and meatballs.  The linguine and clams are also one of my favorites.

HL: What is the best restaurant in Half Moon Bay for dinner? Brunch?

JB: There are several great places to eat in Half Moon Bay.  Its Italia and Pasta Moon are both on Main Street and Mezza Luna is in Princeton.  They all serve great dinners.  Cetrella’s has a Sunday Brunch as well as Navio at the Ritz Carlton.

HL: With wineries right down the road in Half Moon Bay, what is your favorite wine to imbibe?

JB: My favorite chardonnay is Rombauer.  I usually ask the waiter to select a nice red Italian wine for me as the list is always changing.

Posted by Sunset, January 12, 2010 in Coast , Northern California

by MacKenzie Geidt, Sunset assistant travel editor

With 3-day weekend season upon us, it’s time to jump on those getaway plans (unless you’re a far more organized person than I am and you’ve actually planned ahead—feel free to gloat).  If the ski weekend isn’t your thing—or not in the budget—consider a cozy winter beach weekend (and off-season rates!) in Half Moon Bay.

I’m not a B&B fan (I have a thing against flowery bedspreads), but the nearby Ritz really isn’t in the budget either.  And that’s why the Half Moon Bay Inn is my kind of place, and especially affordable right now.

Cozy (without the chintz), and a great Main Street location so you can ditch the car and take a small-town stroll. If you’re looking to sleep in, walk on the beach, browse bookstores and cafes, hike, nap, and generally slow down and recharge in a cute throwback small town, this is your spot.

Book it: Off-season rates (through April) from $130. Book online or call 650/726-1177.

Plan your trip: Check out tips on area beaches, eats, and hiking nearby. And worth the short (and gorgeous) coastal drive away are the towns of Pescadero and San Gregorio.

Half Moon Bay

San Joaquin’s Closest Beach Getaway

by DON and ANN JACKSON

Imagine you have guests visiting from the East Coast asking where they can go to best experience a Northern California Pacific Ocean beach. Our answer is always the same: Half Moon Bay. As the easiest and fastest beach town to reach from San Joaquin (take 580 to 880 and then scenic 92 to the coast), Half Moon Bay has scenic beaches, a quaint downtown area, a variety of quality restaurants, the world-famous Mavericks surfing competition (where waves have been known to exceed 40 feet), fun-filled seasonal events, lots of outdoor adventure choices, and more. You might drive there for a day and wish you could stay a week. Be sure to take enough time to really explore the area, you will be pleasantly surprised at what you’ll discover.

What to see and do: Our first recommendation is to visit the city websites, www.visithalfmoonbay.org or www.hmbchamber.com, and click on any of the intriguing choices that most pique your interest, like itineraries, farm visits, festivals, and events. Timeless Half Moon Bay activities include strolling around the quaint downtown, walks along the endless miles of beaches, kayaking in the harbor, surfing (but stay away from Mavericks unless you’re a pro), and horseback-riding and bicycling on off-road pathways.

Where to shop: Don’t miss going into Cunha’s Country Store, operating here since 1923 and considered by many as the heart and soul of downtown. Cunha’s extensive variety of groceries, gift items, and household items will intrigue and tempt. The newer Harbor Village shopping center (www.shopharborvillage.com) across from the harbor, although not yet full, should eventually be a shopping destination to compliment downtown. Half Moon Bay also boasts more quality garden nurseries per capita than any other small California community, a pleasant shopping experience for plants, flowers, vegetables, and seasonal items like Christmas trees and pumpkins. Speaking of pumpkins, Half Moon Bay’s annual Pumpkin Festival in October has become one of the most popular in the state.

Where to stay: One of the premier upscale spa and golf resorts in the country, the Ritz Carlton (www.ritzcarlton.com), located on a picturesque bluff, is the perfect choice for a special occasion getaway. Much to our liking, and unlike many Ritz properties, the ambience is considerably less formal here. Dining in the Ritz’s signature restaurant, Navio, is always first-rate and especially stunning on a beautiful sunset evening. Championship golf at the Half Moon Bay Golf Links (www.halfmoonbaygolf.com), next to the Ritz, provides one of the more challenging tests of golf in the west. The Oceano (www.oceanohalfmoonbay.com), one of the newest luxury hotels in California and maybe the last to be approved by the Coastal Commission, overlooks Half Moon Bay Harbor. Their friendly staff, tastefully decorated accommodations, and public areas add up to a delightful lodging experience. Landis Shores Inn (www.landisshores.com) right on Miramar Beach, or the beautifully restored Half Moon Bay Inn (www.halfmoonbayinn.com) in the heart of downtown are also good options.

Where to dine: For Half Moon Bay dining, try longtime critics and locals Italian favorite Pasta Moon (www.pastamoon.com); Cetrella (www.cetrella.com) for dramatic ambience and food to match; Sam’s Chowder House (www.samschowderhouse.com), famous for their waterside location, lobster rolls, and chowders; new spot It’s Italia (www.itsitalia.net) with upbeat ambience and creative cuisine; Crab Landing (www.crablanding.com) next door to the Oceano, with fresh seafood and steaks overlooking the harbor; and Mullins (www.halfmoonbaygolf.com) at the golf course serves up surprisingly imaginative comfort food. For a more raucous evening try Cameron’s Pub (www.cameronsinn.com), where English beer, darts, and British fun prevail. Bottom line: A visit to the seaside sanctuary known as Half Moon Bay area is a ‘shore thing’.

For more information: www.visithalfmoonbay.org

For bedding town, HMB’s small downtown is dotted with charming inns. The recently renovated Spanish-style Half Moon Bay Inn is exceedingly fetching, with a sidewalk-front check-in desk and a tile staircase leading up to a variety of accommodations: small Main Street-facing rooms that’ll make you feel you’re at a boutique hotel in Oaxaca, or larger apartments and suites decorated in a variety of styles from rustic to country cottage. Your doggy is welcome to stay with you in any of them (and if you’re sans pooch, you might want to ask if there are any barkers staying overnight, as some of the rooms are close together).

The other, obvious option for lodging is the sprawling Ritz Carlton Half Moon Bay, located just outside of town on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. If you’re a golfer, or a spa junkie, or you simply want to indulge in four-star style, this is the place to do it. The windswept links are spectacular; the hourlong exfoliation-plus-massage-plus-hot-stones-under-a-Vichy-shower will leave you a limp and happy creature; and you can spend the rest of the day on the multi-tiered patio in an Adirondack chair, reading. Or get in the car and explore: The hotel has recently devised a 62-mile Signature Drive, similar to Carmel’s 17-mile drive, that takes you through pumpkin patches, redwood forests and the Santa Cruz Mountains before circling back to the grand hotel.

For dinner, Sam’s Chowder House will satisfy your inner seafood lover with Dungeness crab, a New England-style lobster clambake for two, or a simple and very buttery lobster roll that’s been dubbed one of the best sandwiches in America by The Today Show. You won’t believe how packed the place gets, so be sure to make a reservation, and come early to enjoy the live music on the deck.

On Sunday, before heading back to reality, stop by Sea Horse Ranch and sign up for a guided horseback ride along a coastal trail that emerges right onto HMB’s sandy beach. You’ll pass HMB State Park, where you can camp oceanside—next time, perhaps.

By Robin Rinaldi

The Inn is located on Main Street where you can enjoy the festivities of the festival, while only being steps away from the sanctuary of your rooom!  Book ahead, as we always sell out for the Pumpking Festival!

When: October 16-17, 2010. Open from 9 AM to 5 PM both days.
Where: On Main Street between Miramontes and Spruce Streets, in Half Moon Bay, California.

By Stacy Trevenon [ stacy@hmbreview.com ]
Published/Last Modified on Wednesday, Apr 02, 2008 – 02:02:47 pm PDT

Malinda Thompson, a concrete artist from Half Moon Bay, in front of one of her Fresco-style paintings in the Half Moon Bay Inn.

Time was when concrete was a plain old, boring, gray construction material that builders hastily hid away under aesthetically pleasing wood floors or carpeting.

Times have changed.

Certainly practical, despite the rough edges and all that gray, concrete has always found its way into highly functional and architecturally expressive purposes. With the integration of specialized tints, dyes, spray paints, stains and special tools, and with a new breed of artist known as a “concretist” who allows for serendipitous miscalculations, concrete now can be a place where function meets fine art.

“You can say that floors have become the canvas,” said Half Moon Bay artist Malinda Thompson. Her medium of choice is concrete. “People are falling in love with concrete. People are so turned on to it right now.”

More than just the foundation under the floors, concrete has a lot going for it — enough to spark a movement. “It’s really blossoming,” Thompson said.

She thumbs through an issue of Concrete Décor: Journal of Decorative Concrete magazine. Page after page shows concrete used in attractive kitchen countertops or bathroom sinks. Some show what she calls the “old-school” style of stamping pretty raised patterns into concrete, but other pages display floral or abstract patterns executed in concrete with specialized dyes, stencils or other inlay, embossing or etching techniques.

There are also sophisticated, sleek concrete sinks or tubs that look like they were made of polished stone or marble, and an array of stippled, textured, or other special effects. You can even put fiber optics inside concrete to light up countertops, Thompson said.

“As a design element, people are looking at it in a new way,” she said. “You can create a very personal environment. Concrete can feel comfortable and earthy and not super-modern. It’s not a slab anymore.”

She points to kitchen counters in concrete. “If this were marble, I’d feel like I was in a museum.”

Using acrylic, latex, house paints and special dyes on concrete, Thompson has left her mark on the Coastside: She created a custom fresco in a Half Moon Bay home, gave a facelift to an El Granada stucco home with a color wash and brightened the Half Moon Bay Inn by applying the two-tone, Tuscan-inspired color wash outside and retouching the front door with a Spanish-style architectural palette.

The evolution and self-determination of her style is as colorful and unique as the work itself. She began painting on canvas in community college in Alaska, where she lived for 10 years. Upon continuing her studies in California, she was influenced by the “Society of Six,” six West Coast impressionistic, plein air artists of the early 1900s.

In the early 1990s, she went to Hawaii to help in a reconstruction effort in Kauai after a devastating hurricane, and supported herself painting rebuilt homes. Returning to the Bay Area, she came to see decorative painting as “a more artistic form of treating interiors. If I’m going to paint, this is how I want to paint.”

In the mid-1990s she worked in Los Angeles as a decorative painter, creating faux finishes and murals in homes. She built a niche in decorating children’s rooms with lively cartoon or fairy-tale figures. (They can be seen on her Web site of www.malindapaintstudio.com.)

She perfected her new trade and took it to the Coastside and to Pier 39 in San Francisco. Beginning in mid-April, she will get busy at the New Leaf grocery market in Half Moon Bay, applying some concrete “magic” to its interior flooring.

To work with concrete, she plunges into the boxes of color samples, tints and specialized dyes she carries in her car, from which she says she often works. (She also maintains studio space at Enso in Half Moon Bay.)

She leverages her background in painting with latex, acrylic or house paints into painting on concrete with specialized dyes or stains. She applies the colors by spraying them or blotting with a rag, seldom if ever with a brush.

Key to the process of tinting concrete is sealing the work with one or multiple coats of lacquer, epoxy or floor wax. The sealing determines the look of the concrete — how shiny it is, for example.

For the designs in New Leaf, she is working with concretist Mike Miller of Benicia, who is part of The Concretists collective of artists. The vision they share for the market’s floor, he said, is as a 15,000-square-foot “modern-art canvas” which they hope to execute a representation of Half Moon Bay: natural history to indigenous residents to topography to culture.

He calls concrete almost organic.

“Concrete generally shows the hand of the maker,” he said. “If I want to see something that has a handmade quality to it, concrete is a material that has that.”

The image of concrete as just a drab gray building material, he added, needs to be rethought. “Simply by applying color to it, you have the ability to … make it quite lively.”

Part of the organic quality of concrete lies in its unpredictable quality, say Thompson and Miller.

“It’s not only the hand of the maker, it’s the hand of the material,” said Miller. “Like a good conversation or improvisation between musicians, the material is saying it wants to do one thing and the craftsman wants to do something else, and it will ultimately be resolved in a permanent and architectural way.”

“Part of the concrete aura is the design and flow of it,” Thompson said. “It’s hard to predict what happens with concrete, so you have to be fluid about the outcome.”