Santa Monica : Work on Hotel to Resume

There will be a hotel on the beach in Santa Monica after all.

The unfinished--and, for the moment, nameless--hotel at the foot of Pico Boulevard has been bought by the former owners of the Beverly Hills Hotel, who will resume construction Jan. 4 on the 198-room luxury seaside inn.

It has been more than a year since worked stopped on the project, formerly known as the Park Hyatt Hotel, because of a construction dispute and subsequent bankruptcy of its former owner, Sam C. Stein.

Edward and Thomas Slatkin of Beverly Hills paid $18.75 million for the property. Their partner in the deal is Goldman, Sachs & Co.

The brothers, who own five other hotels, said they are excited to be coming to Santa Monica, where they will own the only hotel that is right on the sand.

“It’s a terrific destination area,” Thomas Slatkin said. “Travelers come to L.A. especially from the Midwest and East and they think beach.”

Slatkin described the hotel as luxurious, but informal. “It’s made to look like someone’s wealthy mother’s beach house,” he said.