Week 6 Spectacular Elegance

Enlightened by the reminder at the start of the course that many students at UCI are not from California, I am inspired to comment on light, then transition this post into a one-post-wonder travel blog!
Pelican Hill Resort in Newport Coast, fifteen minutes from UCI if you are driving according to the speed of California traffic, offers lighting design that, in my humble opinion is nothing short of spectacular.  Loni explained that some businesses hire lighting designers to create a feel, an essence that is consistent with the thematic concept of the business, using the central idea to draw upon  for lighting design, enhancing the appeal of a venue by lighting that is alluring, inviting, and invoking.  Pelican Hill adopted this wisdom, hiring a lighting designer to compliment Palladian architecture that reflects the luxury of royals during the Italian Renaissance #nailedit.  While the dome of this gazebo has several lights placed strategically within its surface, the design of the structure makes it appear as though the luminosity of the draped white fabric has been created mainly by the hanging chandelier falling from the dome's center.  White fabric can be seen aglow even a mile away from the gazebo - and - when I approached the structure, breathtaking, awe-inspiring, radiant, spectacular, and yet (go with me here) simple were the responses of my mind and body from 'taking in' my environment.  Simplicity amiss a clearly POSH resort gazebo can be paralleled (I humbly ask that you be a good sport with this illustration) with a celebrity's red carpet gown that is indeed expensive [expensive - adj. -  stupidly overpriced by a talented designer who got a lucky break] but not decadent, not overly decorated or superfluously adorned, but beautiful in architectural simplicity, accented with "barley enough" with jewelry or hair design, motivating a large inhalation, taking air into the lungs as a natural response to the visual input.  These drapes reminded me of a gown, the chandelier, a necklace, the gazebo - the enchanting mystery of Venice and her many artistic inhabitants.  Brilliant collaborative efforts of lighting and architecture can be witnessed not only at this gazebo, but all across the Pelican Hill Resort.

Read only for TRAVEL interest:
For a DATE night, or a cohort celebration night - -  Pelican Hill isn't a resort to avoid simply because of the expense, let me assure you that I am on a diluted beer budget with crackers only.  If two split the cost of dinner it can be swung financially even in grad school.

*Vallet is the only option at the entrance so plan for $5.00 cash as a tip.

*Left of the lobby (on weekends there is a live band on the left hand side of the lobby in a living room with couches, a fireplace and dance floor) is a bar - and one option is to go for only one cocktail - peruse the resort, do a couple quick spins on the dance floor and peace out to a dive bar.

*Check out the Colosseum Grill   Plates range from $8.00 - $22.00 - - I got the steak quesadilla - it was TO DIE FOR (best original salsa recipe) and it was only $12.00.  My boyfriend ordered the Salmon which was the most expensive $22.00 plate, so with cocktails I believe it was about $35.00 each, but if we were forward thinking and brought a flask we could have shaved it down to $25 each.

*Around the pool is shaped like a colosseum.  Another spot with incredible lighting.  There are over one million hand placed glass tiles in the pool - the largest salt water pool in the U.S.



Definitely check it out!  Pelican Hill is a world famous golf resort, and has some of the most prime Real Estate in world.  We are lucky to be close to it to see what can be done if lighting designers and architects have millions of dollars to design with!
22701 S. Pelican Hill Rd
Newport Coast, Ca 92657