A Closer Look: The Veranda at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa at the Disneyland Resort

[Disney4me]

If you’ve been following along on the Disney Parks Blog, you’ve seen the exciting changes at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel & Spa at the Disneyland Resort.

The final phase of the refurbishment included The Veranda, the hotel’s concierge lounge. Formerly known as The Craftsman’s Club, The Veranda is located on the sixth floor near the Great Hall elevators and offers complimentary refreshments in an exclusive, relaxing setting. Since the lounge just reopened to club-level guests, here’s a closer look at the new, sophisticated space.

Although Disney’s Grand Californian pays homage to the California Arts and Crafts movement, the new design for The Veranda draws inspiration from the architectural and furniture designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a visionary of the Arts and Crafts movement in Glasgow, United Kingdom.

Walt Disney Imagineering specifically drew inspiration from the Mackintosh-designed Willow Tea Rooms in Glasgow, with its contemporary and elegant approach. Like the Willow Tea Rooms, we used white-based colors to make the space seem light, airy and spacious. A special feature is the new wall-to-wall windows, which open onto the balcony and bring in natural light and views of the tree tops. As you can imagine, The Veranda is the perfect spot to watch evening fireworks!

The furniture design is also very architectural in style with streamlined shapes and a light color palette. The lighting fixtures and buffet wall incorporate beautiful stained glass, which is also reminiscent of the Willow Tea Rooms.

The Veranda’s artwork celebrates craftsmen, nature and the hand made. Since we focused on the Mackintosh style for this lounge, contemporary European artists were commissioned to create custom pieces for the space. This is unique to The Veranda, as all other art pieces throughout the hotel are by California-based artists.

Walt Disney Imagineering also collaborated with artists from Amsterdam to transform a wall in the lounge with a custom 10-foot long painted ceramic arrangement. The handmade, vintage plates and platters have been revived with a Disney motif—the iconic landscape of redwoods from Disney’s “Brother Bear.”

What’s your favorite feature of The Veranda?

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