Pelican Hill's 2026 Renovation: What's Open and What's Ahead

Pelican Hill’s renovation is part of a larger transition for the resort.

The short version: Newport Coast's signature resort is in the middle of becoming a St. Regis Estate, the first property in a new luxury portfolio Marriott built around the St. Regis name and the Astor family history behind it. The Irvine Company still owns the land. Marriott took over day to day operations on July 1, 2024, and the resort is expected to formally carry the St. Regis Estate name by 2027. What that means on the ground this fall is a property working through a sequenced, year-long renovation that has already closed some things, reopened others, and left at least one long-running local tradition without a confirmed date.

The Course Nobody Recognized in June

Golf came first. In October 2025, Pelican Hill announced that architect Brian Curley of Curley-Wagner Golf Design would rework both 36-hole courses, the first major refresh since Tom Fazio's own "two-year re-perfection" of the layout back in 2005. That's a two-decade gap between meaningful changes to a course that's ranked among the country's best resort layouts since it opened in the early 1990s.

The construction was staged so nine holes closed at a time, keeping 27 playable throughout. The South Course finished first and reopened on May 18, 2026, with more than a mile of concrete cart paths repaired and widened and over 2,000 fairway sprinkler heads raised for better conditioning. Golf writer Scott Kramer played the restored South Course for Forbes in June and noted it was his first round there in about fifteen years, calling the refresh the course's first real update since 2005. The North Course is the second phase, targeted for completion by fall 2026.

If you golf there occasionally rather than as a member, the practical note is this: through most of 2026, call ahead rather than assume both courses are fully open. Pelican Hill's own booking line, (855) 212-9677, has been the number to check availability against the construction calendar.

Renovation Work by Area

The golf work is the most visible piece, but it's one phase of a larger sequence. Here's how the project has broken down by area and rough timing, based on the resort's own published schedule:

The Coliseum Pool, the one with more than a million hand-cut glass mosaic tiles lining the bottom, is one of the areas still ahead in the queue rather than behind it. So is the main estate building itself. The resort has said publicly that all of these dates are guidelines subject to change, and that the current schedule is what's posted on its own site rather than a fixed contract.

The Restaurant Question Everyone Is Actually Asking

If you've lived near Pelican Hill for a while, you probably have a memory of Andrea Ristorante, the resort's Northern Italian restaurant that closed at the start of the pandemic and never reopened. That closure predates this renovation by years, but Andrea's fate is now tied directly to it. According to reporting from the Orange County Business Journal in January 2026, the Andrea Restaurant & Bar space is next in line for renovation once the golf work wraps, ahead of the main estate, the Coliseum pool complex, the clubhouse, and the spa.

That's a meaningful data point for anyone who has been quietly hoping Andrea would just come back as it was. The sequencing suggests the space is being folded into the larger repositioning rather than treated as a standalone reopening, which likely means whatever occupies that spot next will carry the St. Regis dining program rather than the old Andrea name and menu.

Why This Is Happening Now

The renovation isn't cosmetic maintenance. It's preparation for a brand change that Marriott announced in December 2025: Pelican Hill will become the first property in St. Regis Estates, a new tier the company built around the St. Regis founding family, the Astors. Managing Director Kevin Kelly, recently promoted from general manager, described the property's role in the new collection as setting the tone for the whole portfolio, tied to what he called the same spirit of elegance, warmth, and care that runs through every property in it.

The full brand transition is expected by 2027, roughly nineteen years after the resort first opened its doors on November 26, 2008. The Irvine Company remains the long-term owner throughout, so the land underneath the resort and its relationship to the surrounding Newport Coast community isn't changing. What's changing is the operating brand layered on top of it, and the physical spaces being renovated to match.

The One Fall Tradition With No Date on the Calendar

Since October 2011, Pelican Hill has hosted Festa dell'Autunno, an Italian harvest weekend built around a street festa, live music, bocce tournaments, an artisan market, and a jazz brunch to close things out. It ran for years as an anticipated fixture of the resort's fall calendar, typically landing in October.

As of this writing, there's no confirmed 2026 date for it. A Newport Beach Indy column from October 2025 referred to Festa dell'Autunno in the past tense, describing it as an event formerly held at the resort and noting it was normally scheduled in late October, language that reads more like an open question than a confirmed cancellation. Given that the renovation calendar has the main estate and clubhouse spaces still ahead in the construction queue rather than behind it, a festival that depends on those outdoor spaces being fully operational is a reasonable thing to double check before building a weekend plan around it.

Festa dell'Autunno's 2026 date remains unconfirmed, and renovation work continues in phases across the property.

For now, the most reliable way to know what's actually running at Pelican Hill on any given week is still a phone call to the resort directly rather than a search result from a year or two ago.

Newport Coast has always been a neighborhood where the resort at the end of the road matters to daily life, not just to visitors. If you're weighing what a property near Pelican Hill is worth while all of this plays out, or you just want a straight read on how a changing landmark affects the homes around it, Julianne Pierzak is glad to talk it through.