Prior to undergoing a $100 million renovation, the City & Country hotel in Mission Valley was attracting reviews that did little to attract customers.

“The hotel wasn’t at its best and social media wasn’t exactly kind to us,” said April Shute, Town & Country’s vice president and general manager since January 2017.

“We thought, well, let’s try to change what people were talking about,” Shute said. “We decided to do silly signs every week and see what happens.”

One of the first posts on the hotel brand said “Welcome to the archery tournament, free ear piercings”.

“People stopped by to get their ears pierced,” Shute said. The hotel didn’t pierce the ears, but the signs did the trick. “People ended up loving it,” Shute said.

They loved it so much that the signs became an indelible part of the hotel’s identity, so much so that they were incorporated into the renovation. “It kind of became synonymous with Town & Country that we had these big signs,” Shute said.

The old brand is gone, but a new sign adorns a wall in the hotel’s new lobby, where catchy sayings are displayed, and an entire wall is covered in sayings from past displays, and the sign has its own Instagram .

“We have this beautiful mid-century lobby, but behind the front desk we have the sign, not the original, but the one that looks like it,” Shute said.

A historic property

With interiors designed by Gensler and Sixteen-fifty Creative Intelligence, guestroom interiors designed by HFS Concepts 4, and landscaping designed by Burton Landscape Architecture Studio, the overall look of the renovated hotel is a mid-century modern blend with new 21st-century touches to create what the hotel calls “a laid-back California aesthetic.”

The sense of frivolity that the signage messages engender carries over to the hotel’s new look, as does the mid-century design that harkens back to Town & Country’s origins when it was built in 1953 as an inn. 46-room ranch-style in the middle. of farmland and pasture along what was then Highway 803, now Interstate 8.

Over time, Town & Country grew to 985 rooms on a 46-acre site with its own convention center, expansive ballrooms, and two towers – the 10-story Palm Tower and the nine-story Regency Tower.

A whole new experience

“We ended up demolishing 70% of the original hotel,” Shute said. “Essentially the entire center of the property and the arrival experience is brand new.”

The towers have been retained, and the renovated hotel has some of the largest ballrooms in the city, including the 40,027-square-foot Golden State Ballroom and the 24,026-square-foot Town & Country Ballroom.

Shute said the expansion allows the hotel to accommodate more groups than before.

Upcoming events include San Diego Women’s Week, March 11, hosted by the North San Diego Business Chamber.

Partly because of her story, Shute said Town & Country has become a special place for her.

“It’s a landmark in San Diego,” said Shute, a Tampa native who somehow fell into the hospitality industry after studying Russian language and literature at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. DC.

A job at a Marriott hotel while Shute was in college led to a very different career path than she envisioned, and ultimately, at the Town & Country Hotel.

“You never know what turn life will take,” she said.

When interviewing people in San Diego for jobs, “they all have stories about relatives who worked here or got married here or whatever,” Shute said. “We absolutely wanted to make sure the design (of the renovation) paid homage to that heritage.”

For example, one wall in the new ARLO restaurant features shelves of memorabilia from the hotel’s past, including a trolley timetable from the 1960s, a tribute to Dr. Seuss, and a Muhammed Ali doll from when Ali was training. in the hotel.

The sense of whimsy is carried from the panels to other elements of the renovated hotel, including a mural by Nan Coffey overlooking the new 6,720-square-foot Flamingo Lawn which Shute says depicts flamingos balancing cocktails. on their head.

In a mix of whimsy and history, a neon sculpture of a swimmer towers over the new poolside Lapper Kitchen and Bar.

“It’s just one of those really cool mid-century touches,” Shute said.

Among the additions included in the renovation was a 10,000-square-foot pool complex that includes a zero-entry pool, children’s pool, and a four-story, 150-foot waterslide.

“When we tore down the front of the property, we took over 100 palm trees and moved them to the pool area,” Shute said.

The hotel has also added artwork throughout, the most striking of which is a 10-story mural by Andy Davis on the side of Palm Tower and a 40-foot mural titled “Beaming” by Mark Warren Jacques on the side of a parking lot.

As with the hospitality industry in general, Town & Country struggled at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Coming out of January and into February, we’re starting to come out of it,” Shute said. “I think 2023 will be the year the industry breaks free from that.”

Town and Country Resort
CREATION: 1953
VICE PRESIDENT: April Shute
HEAD OFFICE: Mission Valley
BUSINESS: Hotel
NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 362
WEBSITE: www.towncountry.com
CONTACT: 619-291-7131
PLEASE NOTE: The original Town & Country Hotel was called the “Million Dollar Mission Valley Hotel” due to its $800,000 construction cost.

April Shute in the Town & Country Resort lobby. Photo by Karen Pearlman