Guests know what to expect from rooms in a standard hotel, whether it’s a single king room, a double queen or a suite.
But at the nearly 64-year-old Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, California, the word “standard” isn’t even part of the vocabulary, especially when it comes to room types.
Here guests can choose between room 139, the “Jungle Rock” luxury suite with a rock waterfall shower and zebra-print wallpaper; room 156, the “Irish Hills” junior suite with kelly-green carpet and a 3-foot-tall gnome; or room 182, the “Tall & Short” room originally designed with different-sized furniture crafted to accommodate couples with one short and one tall partner. And that’s just a start.
From the 110 individually customized guestrooms to the pink Italian leather booths in Alex Madonna's Gold Rush Steak House and the bespoke combination Swiss/Italian exteriors, the Madonna Inn has always stood out as an authentic travel and dining experience, which is exactly what it was intended to do from the first night it opened for business on Dec. 24, 1958, said Clint Pearce, president of Madonna Enterprises.
Pearce’s father-in-law, local construction magnate and rancher Alex Madonna, designed the hotel with his wife Phyllis in the 1950s as a theme hotel from the very beginning, drawing on Madonna’s European heritage and Western lifestyle. It’s a place where guests are just as likely to see cattle brands and rock walls as they are to see ornate glass chandeliers and tall cakes frosted with the hotel’s signature hot-pink shade.
“Alex Madonna didn’t want to have a nondescript business; he wanted something special he could be proud of,” Pearce said, and what Madonna wanted was a hotel in San Luis Obispo, “his first love and the place he called the best place in the world.”
When Madonna returned to his thriving construction business after serving in World War II, he realized as he traveled away from the ranch that there were few really unique places to stay.
“He always had a dream of opening a hotel, and he also loved doing things his own way,” Pearce said. “He joked that if he made every room the same, he would repeat the same mistake. But if every room was different, he’d only make the mistake once.”
With his own construction company, Madonna could bring his and Phyllis’ elaborate vision to life on the 10 acres of land he purchased in a public auction. The original buildings needed concrete walls because of the region’s high water table. Builders hauled in local boulders, some weighing more than 200 tons each, and Madonna had custom leaded glass windows made. Wood carvers were brought in for bespoke doors and adornments, and the dining room’s hand-carved marble balustrade comes from the Hearst Castle.
As for the unique rooms, Pearce said Phyllis played a big role in dreaming up the individual names and themes, then decorating them with custom furnishings, wallpaper and decor.
Fast-forward to today, and instead of turning into a relic of a bygone era, Pearce said the Madonna Inn is just as relevant today as it was when the first guests checked in back in 1958 because its family ownership and longtime employees operate with Alex Madonna’s unique vision in mind while appealing to today’s experience-minded guests.
“This always was a passion project,” Pearce said of the original vision, and the same can be said for the generation running the hotel today. Alex Madonna’s daughter and Clint's wife, Connie Pearce, is the general manager and has worked at the hotel since she was 16, around the time she and Pearce met during high school rodeo events.
Interpreting The Vision Today
Under the Pearces' leadership, the Inn has found ways to maintain the original vision for the property while honoring the future and the past.
Pearce said it’s really not as tough as it might sound, especially since Connie worked with her father for 25 years before he died, and Phyllis, in her mid-90s, still has plenty of input.
“Our guest experience is not only unique, but it has to be fun and high-quality,” Pearce said. “Our daily work is honoring and respecting the past, making sure we are doing everything we can to not dilute and diminish the original idea and vision and dream, but at the same time, make it relevant to today’s traveler. We’re not running a museum. But people expect to see and experience what they remember from 30 years ago, and while it may not be exactly the same, they feel it is.”
Pearce cited as an example the custom rose-patterned carpet in the Gold Rush Steak House that can be made today by only two sources in the world.
“The carpet costs us a lot more and is harder to source, but when we replace it, we make sure we have carpet to the original specs because that’s what the Inn deserves,” he said. “It means a lot to us to keep the original quality and intent, and the dream alive and true.”
But that’s not to say the Inn is stuck in the past.
Over the last 20 years, the Pearces have expanded the Inn and its related properties to include a day spa, a pool complex, additional event spaces, horse trail rides, outdoor paths and more. The rooms have been through gut remodels, when the Pearces leaned even deeper into the themes.
The hotel attracts nearly all leisure travelers, Pearce said, and groups and weddings are a cornerstone of their business. Updates and additions over the years have been designed to appeal to families, and many of the hotel’s rooms can sleep several generations of a family on vacation.
But that original vision still prevails. The Inn has always had a European-style bakery, and today one of the property’s most Instagrammed images is of the bakery’s pink Champagne cake frosted in the same bright pink as those Italian leather booths — also the color of the tennis and pickleball courts.
“The whole ‘experience’ concept that is so popular today in travel — we deeply believe in it and always have,” Pearce said. “It’s pretty incredible when you look at the theme rooms, considering what is popular and trending now in hotels, with everyone wanting experiences. These are all such photogenic rooms and the whole property is photogenic.”
Meeting Challenges
When the global pandemic hit in March 2020 and hotels around the world closed, the Pearces made the decision to keep all of the hotel's nearly 300 employees hired.
The Madonna Inn has always been a union-operated hotel, but by nature of its location, employees are all locals.
“Sherry’s been here 40 years, Connie, too, and Thelma, a hostess in the cafe, has been here since the 1970s, along with Sue, who babysat then managed our gourmet shop,” he said, adding that whether they are longtime staff or college students, employees need to understand that vision to truly appreciate the Madonna Inn.
But it’s not easy, he said, especially in today’s labor-challenged environment. But as leisure demand continues to thrive, the hospitality industry is becoming an attractive industry for careers again.
The industry’s other major challenge, supply-chain delays, isn’t even the headache for the Madonna Inn that it might be for hotels that rely on single manufacturing sources to create 300 identical nightstands, for example, Pearce said.
“Yes, supply chain is always somewhat of a challenge for us because everything is curated, whether it’s wallpaper or custom furniture, but we have a good group of craftsmen on staff and we’ve worked for the past 15 years with a handful of companies in North Carolina so having that ability to source domestically helps,” he said.
Pearce is confident the Madonna Inn will weather whatever challenges come next because family hospitality is its core.
“This has always been family owned and operated,” he said. “We want guests to feel like they’re at a family establishment when they’re here and feel that warmth. Sometimes things aren’t perfect, but we give family hospitality with warmth and a smile.”