A few years ago the trend was that hotels were being turned into condos. Now the real estate slump has brought the reverse, condos being turned into luxury residence hotels. Constellation Property Group a developer of high end condo projects, has announced domus STAY, a new brand which will launch with the domus@STELLA in San Diego in early 2009. The Stella Condominiums have been converted into temporary residence units with furnished bedrooms, kitchens, dining areas and living rooms. They will offer the domus Pantry food and beverage service and a café concept named Check In. The Check In cafe at domus@STELLA will open with Aussie Chef Raffaele Petrazzuolo, preparing modern Italian-Australian fusion food.

To celebrate its 20th anniversary this fall, the San Diego Automotive Museum (SDAM) is staging a a $75 million Ferrari exhibition. Ferrari: Cavallino Rampante will run from October 1st through the end of the year. Over 30 classic Ferraris will be on display, some for the very first time, during the exhibit which is being mounted in partnership with the Ferrari Owners Club of America.

SDAM will host a variety of events during the three-month show, including a two day Autostrada dei Deserto (From Shore to Sands) rally on Oct. 10-11 complete with a lavish party at the chic W Hotel San Diego. The first half of the exhibit will feature historic racing Ferraris, and the second half will focus on classic touring vehicles including a 1963 Ferrari 250 GT/L "Lusso", valued at over $2.5 million, and the beautiful 1965 275 GTB pictured above. See the gallery for more.

The Sapphire Tower condominium project in downtown San Diego takes a unique approach to attracting attention by using public art. While most public art is at the base of a structure, the Sapphire Tower's Borgonovo sculpture will stretch 80 feet from tip to tail. The design from artist Betsy Schulz is a modern metal and glass structure with two different textured glass colors set as the shimmering gemstones. Borgonovo will be made of two-tiered mesh, aluminum panels, textured and laminated blue and clear glass, and blue-LED string lights to illuminate the glass at night. Borgonovo is one of two major art pieces being installed at Sapphire Tower both designed by Schultz and costing just under a half a million dollars total.

Sapphire Tower is a 32-story project located on the southwest corner of Kettner Boulevard and A Street in downtown San Diego. The project will include 97 units in one and two bedroom, loft and penthouse layouts. Building amenities include a pool, hot tub, sundeck and gym. The building is set to be finished by the end of the year and prices start in the $600,00s with penthouses starting at $2.5 million.

Housing developers are really getting desperate. I've seen a car offered with purchase before but never the offer of an additional house. But in Escondido, a town in Southern California, Michael Crews Development will give away a four-bedroom Escondido row home worth $400,000 with the purchase of one of their $1.6 million-and-up estates in the Royal View community. It's a controversial move but one that the developer is willing to make in order to move inventory. The row homes originally sold for $540,000 before the housing slump.

Another lavish new resort is set to open in the San Diego area. The Grand Del Mar plans to open on October 6, 2007. The 249-room resort located on a coastal canyon preserve near Del Mar and the design was inspired by the design style of 1920's architectural visionary Addison Mizner, (perhaps best known for his work in Boca Raton, Florida). The resort has the look of an old-world Mediterranean estate and is on 380 acres amid The Grand Golf Club, an 18-hole Tom Fazio-designed course. There are four swimming pools of varying sizes including an adults-only spa pool, a children's pool and one for toddlers. Other features include tennis courts, a fitness center and a 21,000-aquare-foot spa. The resort includes six restaurants, the Addison, a stand-alone fine dining restaurant, the Clubhouse Grill, Amaya, an all-day restaurant with the hotel, a poolside venue with lighter fare, a gourmet shop with coffees, pastries and sandwiches to go and the Lobby Lounge which will offer cocktails and aperitifs, as well as afternoon tea. The resort is located 20 minutes from San Diego.

The resort also has eight two-story villas that are fractional ownership property. The large three-bedroom villas are 1/10 ownership which entitles owners to five vacation weeks each year, with additional nights based on availability. Details include a 1,500-square-foot master suite with his and her baths, covered terraces, outdoor fireplaces, outdoor Jacuzzis, two-car garages, luxury golf carts, media rooms, elevators and even a baby grand piano. Each villa also has ten plasma TVs and home offices that includes computers with printers. Prices for each share start at $400,000.

We are back in San Diego today because I couldn't see this development and not comment on it. The Shapery Park Tower as conceived by developer Sandor Shapery is in the news because the design has been called phallic by Gwynne Pugh, an architect hired by the downtown redevelopment agency to review building designs . Shapery has said that he thought the 40-story residential tower, created by architect C.W. Kim resembled the shape of a flower. Now he finds himself in the awkward position of having to perhaps tone down the design.

The building is to contain 90 hotel/condominium suites, 30 one bedroom condominium suites, 42 two bedroom condominium suites, one penthouse condominium suite, a spa/health club, pool and 164 parking spaces located in the project parking garage. The building would be crowned by a restaurant, a roof-top bar and an observatory topped out with back lit canvas petals.

The design of the tower had and additional purpose, energy conservation. The plan was to use ice blocks in the air conditioning system and then reuse the melted water in the swimming pool, laundry and for irrigation. The project's water features are also designed to function as cooling towers for the air-conditioning system. Photovoltaic glass will be installed on the south side building balconies to reduce each tenant's electrical requirements.

I've always thought the Aegon Center in Louisville had a similar problem, especially when lit up at night. Boing Boing has an excellent list going of buildings and structures that also resemble nature's most excellent design.

The latest luxury condo-hotel complex in San Diego, the building formerly known as The Diegan has promised to bring a new level of luxury to San Diego. The 23-story downtown condominium-hotel will be home to 185 condo units (that include 24 penthouses). The Diegan, which will now be known as the Setai San Diego (we've covered the Setai in South Beach multiple times) is being developed with the House of Blues. The interior was created by famed hotel designer Dodd Mitchell and feature 10-foot ceilings and interiors that use lots of imported stone, marble, exotic woods and art glass. Units will be furnished with Italian furniture and silk draperies and the bathrooms will have floor-to-ceiling stone walls finished in Jerusalem Bone, teak vanities and limestone floors. Penthouses will have balconies and full Italian kitchens with designer appliances. Amenities will include a business center, restaurant, lobby bar, spa, meeting rooms, a private screening room, a recording studio, a fitness center, a pool deck with a bar and cabanas, and The House of Blues.

The units are being offered from the $400,000s to $3.8 million. But there may be trouble in the soon-to-be-launched paradise, The San Diego Union Tribune has a provocative piece on the developer Steve Rebeil, whose past is full of lawsuits, odd real estate dealings and even a tax-related felony conviction. Apparently in June when he was testifying in a child support dispute with a former girlfriend who is the mother of his 6-year-old son he said that he is not certain that the condo part of the building will work out. He said that he may be returning deposits to those who have bought in to the project. Another partner in his development firm has also said that consultants are advising them to run it as a hotel. That's quite a shift from the beginnings of the condo-hotel boom that we have seen over the past few years. The most recent run on condominium-hotel projects began because hotels couldn't fill their rooms and went condo as a way of making sure they had guaranteed money. Now with the shaky state of real estate, the reversal seems to have begun.

Sex sells, and in the land of upscale hotels designers are taking advantage of that in a bolder way than ever before. Although photos of women in fishnet stockings, scantily-clad workers, and red patent leather furniture isn't a new idea in hotels and restaurants, it hasn't been something commonly seen in the luxury market. But the Ivy Hotel in San Diego isn't letting that discourage its new style: sexy sexy sexy. Michael Kelly, one of the Ivy's co-owners, was quoted as saying "We were looking for something a little voyeuristic, a little seductive."

See-through shower overlooking the bed: voyeuristic? Check. Plunging v-necks on the hostesses and black lace on the waitresses: seductive? Check.

Not my thing, but seems like they got what they were aiming for! Rooms start at $450/night.

Can a spa treatment burn calories? spaViolet, a spa in Cardiff-by-the-Sea in San Diego offers a treatment called the Shrinking Violet. They say this UltraViolet Infrared wrap can burn up to 1200 calories in a sitting. The treatment uses infrared heat and can also improve blood circulation, boost immunity, eliminate toxins and minimize achy joints. The 50-minute treatment costs $75. The spa offers a wide variety of other treatments including scrubs, waxing, facials and microdermabrasion. They also do permanent makeup, eyelash extensions and other beauty services. They recommend their The Way You Look Tonight as a preparation for a special evening. It includes a eucalyptus steam, Violet's Essential Facial. the UltraViolet Infra-red treatment, Seaweed Wrapsody, and end with a Hairball and Vichy shower. It sells for $300 and takes around 3 hours.

The US Grant, a beautiful Beaux Arts hotel in San Diego is now open after a $52 million renovation. The 96-year-old hotel has a new interior with specially commissioned works of art. The hotel was built in 1910 by Ulysses S. Grant Jr. as a tribute to his Presidential father. It now has 270 rooms, 47 of which are suites including two Presidential Suites and a Penthouse Suite. The lobby includes a $250,000 Thai silk carpet and each room includes oil paintings by Yves Clement. The hotel also features work by Native American artists. The hotel is now owned by the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation who purchased the landmark in 2003. Ancestors of this Native American tribe originally settled the land. The hotel is offering a "Grand Debut Package" starting at $329 which includes a deluxe room; a bottle of wine with a commemorative silver wine opener and fresh cheeses and fruits.

The hotel market in San Diego, California is getting hot. The Keating, a new hotel set to open in the fall, brings Italian chic to this Southern California town. With all that red in the virtual mock-up there can only be one Italian source, Pininfarina,the ultra-chic designers who created some of our favorite Ferraris and Maseratis. The 35-room Keating is their first hotel design. The Keating is one of San Diego's oldest buildings and has a Romanesque Revival façade but a modern sleek interior. This is also another one of those hotels that is eliding the the bedroom/bathroom concept into one combined area. Amenities will include personalized in-room check-in, goose down feather bed and goose down duvet, Egyptian cotton linens,plasma televisions, in-room LavAzza espresso machines and plush bathrobes. Phase two of the project will include a signature restaurant adjacent to the main hotel, a rooftop glass bottom pool and eight additional premium suites.

Call it schadenfreude but it's hard not to take a certain pleasure in watching the ill-gotten gains of disgraced Congressman Randy Cunningham hit the auction block.  Cunningham, who accepted bribes from defense contractors, is currently serving a long prison term. Cunningham had a lust for antiques and his Oriental rugs and marble-topped armories currently share space in a government auction warehouse with goods seized in smuggling and money-laundering operations. Cunningham's goods go on sale Thursday in Santo Dominguez, California. The proceeds from Cunningham's loot will FBI and the IRS (he still owes $1.8 million in back taxes). The list of everything available at the auction can be found here.