Malibu, United States

Hotel June Malibu

Price per night from$313.20

Price information

If you haven’t entered any dates, the rate shown is provided directly by the hotel and represents the cheapest double room (including tax) available in the next 60 days.

Prices have been converted from the hotel’s local currency (USD313.20), via openexchangerates.org, using today’s exchange rate.

Style

SoCal hero

Setting

Peaceful Point Dume

Just off the PCH, Hotel June Malibu has a storied past worthy of a screenwriting Oscar. Its mid-century bungalows overlooking sun-drenched hills date from the original motel, opened in 1949 by the Wilcox family, whose laid-back hospitality attracted a stream of writers and artists – most notably, Bob Dylan, who wrote Blood on the Tracks here. Pacific-lapped beaches and peacefully private bungalows are the enduring backstory to this Malibu fixture, whereas Cal-Mex takeaway from sister Hotel June in west LA and the addition of a rare-in-these-parts swimming pool are pleasing plot developments.

Smith Extra

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A bottle of wine in your room on arrival

Facilities

Photos Hotel June Malibu facilities

Need to know

Rooms

13

Check–Out

11am. Earliest check-in, 3pm. Both are flexible, subject to availability.

Prices

Double rooms from £285.76 ($361), including tax at 15.195 per cent. Please note the hotel charges an additional service charge of 4% per room per night on check-in and an additional resort fee of $28.80 per room per night on check-out.

More details

Rates exclude breakfast.

Also

The brightly patterned bathrobes in each room are individual, made with out-of-print African fabrics; if you get attached to yours, you can buy it to take home.

At the hotel

Swimming pool, bar, dining deck. In rooms: free WiFi, smart TV, bluetooth speaker, Tivoli radio with iPhone port, minibar, free boxed water, sunscreen, surf wax and Aesop bath products.

Our favourite rooms

All bungalow rooms celebrate simplicity with plenty of light, white walls and polished concrete floors, letting vintage details such as the timbered ceilings shine through. Their individuality comes from the hand-picked art and framed photographs by original owner Wayne Wilcox adorning the walls. If you want to stay where Bob Dylan penned his Blood On The Tracks album, request Room 13. The Bunk Bed Bungalow is ideal for families.

Poolside

The heated pool has a tiled deck, framed by sun loungers and easy chairs and fenced for privacy – and not far from the reception bar when cold drinks are called for.

Packing tips

If you pack like a surfer, you’ll fit right in; board shorts, retro Ts, Ray-Bans and casual mini dresses all get the SoCal thumbs-up.

Also

This former motel has wheelchair-accessible communal areas and one ADA-standard Premier Bungalow including an adapted ensuite.

Pet‐friendly

One dog per room can stay for a one-off fee of US$150. See more pet-friendly hotels in Malibu.

Children

Welcome; some bungalows come with bunks and cots can be added to most rooms. The hotel, however, has more of a couples vibe and its family appeal rests on the fabulous location, pool and easygoing atmosphere.

Sustainability efforts

Nature is close to the hearts of the team here, so preserving it is a priority. Water in the minibar is boxed in recyclable packaging and there are water refill stations. Hotel staff strive to recycle and reduce waste and make operations as energy efficient as possible.

Food and Drink

Photos Hotel June Malibu food and drink

Top Table

All tables on the deck (next door to the fenced pool area) are created equal with valley views.

Dress Code

Straight-from-the-beach threads are perfectly acceptable.

Hotel restaurant

The hotel has teamed up with a locally acclaimed Californian deli, bakery and cafe to offer a curated menu of light bites for guests to enjoy daily.

Hotel bar

Despite no on-site bar, the hotel is not short of recommendations for places to grab an evening drink. Pop down to Moonshadows for panoramic Pacific views and a range of cocktails; or grab a terraced table at Spruzzo, where you can sip on a Cadillac Margarita while watching the sun set over Malibu. 

Last orders

Takeout food from the deli is available in the lobby lounge daily from morning to evening.

Room service

There’s no room service, but your minibar is a grazer’s paradise of Kettle Chips, nuts, chocolate, Gummy Bears and M&Ms, as well as soft drinks, wine, beer and kombuchas – hard and soft.

Location

Photos Hotel June Malibu location
Address
Hotel June Malibu
28920 Pacific Coast Hwy
Malibu
90265
United States

Where the southern California coast arcs towards Point Dume, you’ll find Hotel June Malibu – a few minutes drive from central Malibu and just off the Pacific Coast Highway.

Planes

LAX airport is the nearest, less than an hour away by road.

Trains

Los Angeles is the closest city for railroad connections, with AmTrak’s Pacific Surfliner, from San Luis Obispo via Santa Barbara, following the coast.

Automobiles

There’s secure parking at the hotel from US$25 plus tax a day.

Worth getting out of bed for

Malibu rose to fame as a place to surf – and Zuma beach and Surfrider are two of the best spots for this right on your doorstep. The hotel can help arrange surf lessons or stand-up paddleboarding. Back on land, hiking the scrub-dotted hills tickled by the ocean breeze is popular, with Zuma Ridge Trail the nearest route.

Local restaurants

A modest sky-blue shack is the setting for freshly prepared Thai fare in a wood-lined dining room with a laid-back feel at Cholada. Go for the sea views – stay for the tom yum soup, kanom jeeb dumplings and gang luang yellow curry. Dining at former general store The Old Place is like stepping onto the set of a Western, then tucking into a delicious brunch of steak and eggs or bacon-stuffed burritos; plus, there’s often live music on Friday and Saturday nights. Choose from the moodily-lit, wood-decked interior or tables on the patio at Japanese restaurant Bui Sushi in Malibu itself – the place for salads and bowls, sushi and kushiyaki skewers.

Local cafés

Around the corner from Hotel June Malibu, serving much-lauded burritos, tacos and sandwiches, Lily’s is a good spot to pick up take-out breakfast or lunch. Malibu Farm Café, across the pier from its sister restaurant, serves up ocean views with oatmeal or pancakes on outdoor sofas for breakfast – lobster rolls, burgers and salads for lunch.

Local bars

Sunset views and handcrafted cocktails including mules and mezcal await at romantic oceanside restaurant Moonshadows, with ocean liner-like picture windows and plenty of outdoor seating. Make a beeline for happy hour at the Sunset Restaurant, overlooking Zuma Beach, for sliders and chicken wings with chilled glasses of Californian white.

Reviews

Photos Hotel June Malibu reviews
Erica Cerulo

Anonymous review

By Erica Cerulo, Fashion-forward scout

For me, a stay at Hotel June was the last leg of a weeklong tour of LA: a couple days in coffee-shop-strewn Silver Lake for a wedding, a few nights of Westside living in Brentwood, and, at last, a weekend getaway in a locale I’d never visited but have held in my consciousness since I first encountered Malibu Barbie. 

Back then, Malibu might have conjured only the word ‘beach’, but now I know it as a storied surf haven, the escape-from-the-city enclave that was connected to the Pacific Coast Highway in 1929, became the backdrop for the Gidget movies in the Sixties, and has attracted more wave-seekers than I can fathom since. 

Though Hotel June is technically new to the scene, its structure has been an active participant in much of the setting’s charming narrative for some 70 years. 

Soon after it debuted in 1949 as Malibu Riviera Hotel, it blossomed into a hub of local creativity. As proof: one of the co-owners built an on-premises dark room – picture it! – and in 1974, Bob Dylan holed up in bungalow 13 to write Blood on the Tracks. 

When the hideaway got new owners and a chic renovation in 2016, it reopened as Native Hotel and then Hotel June, sister to a West LA spot that’s five minutes from both the beach and LAX.

Pulling off the PCH into the parking lot, I instantly sensed that this place knew its history and how to pay tribute. Tucked back from the road with an inconspicuous painted-brick exterior and unflashy signage, it presented its invitation to chill in a relaxed, come-as-you-are way. 

When I checked in, it doubled down on this laid-back welcome: The grinning guy who greeted us wanted to know how our travel was (his interest seemed genuine!), to tell us his dad grew up in Brooklyn, and to offer us cans of wine to get our stay started.

Settling into our digs, I was impressed that the design managed to achieve a California-modern style with the exact-right amount of polish to suit the setting. There was a king-size Min bed with perfect hotel-white sheets. A built-in bench, a picture ledge, a concrete floor, and ceiling beams framed the space. 

But the considered sleekness also made room for kick-your-shoes-off comfort, like batik robes and the Dutch door – the type where you can open just the top half and let the breeze in – that led out onto our private patio hung with a hammock. Perhaps the portable Menu lamp – ready and waiting if we wanted to take it outside with us for star-gazing – captured the aesthetic sensibility in a nutshell. 

Our plan for our stay was to take in the essence of Malibu (population: 10,000; global recognition: massive) and for our first dinner, there was no question that we’d hit a seafood shack. We had a tough time deciding between Reel Inn, Broad St Oyster Co, and Malibu Seafood, but when we popped our first fried scallops at the latter – founded in 1972 and run by local fishermen since – we had absolutely zero regrets and left with very full stomachs.

The next morning, we fueled up with pastries the hotel brings in from Gjusta, the little Venice café with an outsize reputation, and, despite the day’s lacklustre surf report, tossed one of the loaner boards propped against the building into our rental convertible. It was time for the beach, and we made the eight-minute drive to Zuma to take in the seemingly endless horizon and the impressive lack of crowds (Welcome to Friday in November!). 

Next on the agenda: people-watching and lunch at Lily’s. Though we didn’t have any celebrity sightings – the signs warning off paparazzi ensured they were a regular occurrence – I did eat a grilled mahi mahi burrito bowl that I think deserves to be famous. 

As we were in the land of scenic vistas, we took the opportunity of the early evening setting sun to experience them, navigating to the area’s southern tip to gasp at the cliffs of Point Dume and then winding up to Topanga, amidst the Santa Monica Mountains, to inhale that wooded air and visit local friends. All in all, it’s an environment which made me understand the appeal of driving around for hours, ideally with the top down and the radio blasting. 

Though our weekend proved too crisp for a dunk in any body of water, we circled the Hotel June pool longingly multiple times. All those padded loungers! All that warm wood! Look at the coastal desert foliage peeking up over the hills! Next trip, a dip is high on our list – maybe paired with a re-read of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Malibu Rising that captures the legendary nature of this destination. 

I’m already starting to log my other return-visit to-dos, too: an afternoon at Getty Villa (just on the other side of the official city limits in the Pacific Palisades), a Tuna Canyon hike, and all the fresh seafood and epic sunsets I can squeeze in. 

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Price per night from $313.20