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The Inn at Mattei's Tavern
Los Olivos, California, United States · Auberge Resorts · High Luxury
Felix Mattei built his Los Olivos tavern for stagecoach and railway travelers in the 1880s; its guest books still keep their names behind glass in the bar. AvroKO helped bring the house into its 2023 Auberge chapter, preserving the old fireplace and four historic cottages while adding rooms across six and a half acres.
- 70 rooms
- Opened 2023
About The Inn at Mattei's Tavern
- Gin's Tap Bar honors Gin Lung Gin, who served as head chef for decades beginning in 1910.
- Felix Mattei and longtime manager Gus Berg played nightly pinochle in the back room that now bears their names as a private dining space.
History
Felix Mattei was a Swiss-American immigrant who arrived in California's Santa Ynez Valley in the early 1880s and made a practical calculation: the Pacific Coast Railway was going to build its southern terminus in Los Olivos, and travelers stopping at the end of the line would need somewhere to eat and sleep. In the winter of 1885 to 1886, Mattei's carpenters built a modest two-story clapboard structure facing Railway Avenue, 22 by 42 feet, with a steep-pitched roof and no architectural pretension whatsoever. It opened in early 1886 as the Central Hotel, serving weary stagecoach and railroad travelers making the journey between San Francisco and Los Angeles at a time when the overland journey still required overnight stops in the Santa Ynez Valley.
The timing was exact. The Los Olivos terminal of the Pacific Coast Railway opened directly across Railway Avenue from Mattei's building in 1887, meaning that passengers alighting from the narrow-gauge trains had roughly a hundred paces between the platform and a meal. Mattei became the U.S. Mail agent for the stage lines connecting Los Olivos to Gaviota, and when the railroad bypassed Los Olivos in 1901, he kept a pair of stagecoaches running his own branch line — a service that Mattei himself claimed was the last commercial stage run in western American history, continuing until 1912. The building was renamed Hotel Los Olivos after the nearby Los Olivos Hotel burned in 1890, and eventually settled into the name it has carried ever since: Mattei's Tavern.
During Prohibition, the tavern operated with the flexible ethics the era encouraged. Bootleg liquor was hidden under the floorboards — evidence still visible to guests today. Felix Mattei and his longtime manager, Gus Berg, played nightly games of pinochle in a back room that now bears their name as the resort's private dining space. The tavern's guest books, preserved behind glass in the bar, record arrivals dating to the early 1900s: cowboys, ranchers, politicians, and, eventually, Hollywood figures who discovered that the Santa Ynez Valley offered a kind of quiet that was hard to find closer to Los Angeles. Felix Mattei died in 1930; his sons carried on through the mid-century. The Firestone family owned it from the early 1970s, and subsequent ownership groups maintained it as a working restaurant and tavern into the twenty-first century.
Owners Brian and Shamra Strange acquired the property and engaged Auberge Resorts Collection and the design firm AvroKO to transform Mattei's Tavern into The Inn at Mattei's Tavern, which opened in February 2023. The approach was scrupulously preservationist. The original 1886 Tavern building — a protected historic structure — was restored with its red-and-gold wallpaper, brown-painted wainscoting, and large stone fireplace intact. The four original historic cottages, Oak, Cedar, Cypress, and Canary, were carefully renovated with original wooden floors and clawfoot tubs, while new cottages and guest houses designed to echo the original vernacular architecture were added to fill the 6.5-acre property to its current 67-room capacity. The nineteenth-century water tower still rises as the most recognizable landmark in Los Olivos. Gin's Tap Bar is named for Gin Lung Gin, who served as head chef for decades beginning in 1910. The Santa Ynez Valley made globally famous by the film Sideways acquired, in the Inn at Mattei's Tavern, the luxury property it had always lacked — and the town of Los Olivos got its heart back.
The setting
Los Olivos, a tasting-room village in the Santa Ynez Valley made famous by the film Sideways.
Restaurants and bars
- The Tavern at Mattei's — Bar
Experiences
- The Shed (Olive Shed) — Wine-country pool setting amid the olive trees for which the town is named, with fresh, approachable menus.
Amenities
- Spa
- Pool
- Bicycles
- Sauna
- Hot tub
- Fitness center
- Pet-friendly
Awards
- MICHELIN One Key (2026)
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