Travel is not immune to routine. Airports generally look the same, your coffee order doesn’t change, and checking in to a hotel is usually perfunctory no matter where you land. In order to make your accommodation feel distinctive, hospitality turns to design.
For its 10th anniversary, Behr Paint announced the 2027 Color of the Year: Grounded, a warm olive green. And the company made the announcement among the outstretched oaks and rolling vineyards of the Montage Healdsburg Resort in Sonoma County, California.
“I find the most compelling hotels are specific to place,” says Kayla Kratz, head of color at Behr Paint Company. “They don’t feel as though they could simply be lifted from one property and applied to another. There’s some relationship to the landscape, the architecture, the culture, or even the quality of light particular to that destination.”
Kratz is part of the team behind Behr’s annual Color of the Year, a data-meets-crystal-ball endeavor that determines where the company thinks consumer trends will be in the next 12 months. As part of the unveiling, the team chooses a hotel that embodies the shade.
Related: Your Perfect Weekend Getaway in Sonoma Wine Country
The Montage Healdsburg looks over vineyards in Sonoma County, and uses the surrounding views as inspiration for the design inside.
Courtesy of Montage Healdsburg
What is the Behr color of the year?
Grounded is the standout color in an overarchingly natural palette from the brand, featuring a range of blues, browns, greens, and yellows.
“People want comfort to come with more personality,” Kratz says. “Selecting Grounded reflects a broad shift of how our collective definition of calm is becoming richer. The inspiration for choosing Grounded came from that quiet moment when the sun dips below the treeline and everything seems to exhale,” she explains. “Layered with wood, stone, aged metal, and tactile textiles, Grounded holds those elements together with the same quiet order you find in nature.”
That pursuit of something deeper similarly applies to selecting the ideal getaway. As Kratz and the team sought a property to showcase the Color of the Year, the Montage Healdsburg presented a match—for both the color and the philosophy.
The design trend on display at Montage Healdsburg
“The color palette of Montage Healdsburg was inspired completely by the destination,” says Azadeh Hawkins, Montage’s global creative director. “Browns, greens, and neutral hues integrate into the environment authentically, telling the story of the locale.”
The 130 bungalow-style rooms and suites of the resort have floor-to-ceiling panes, and the verdant hues outside act as a backdrop that reappears in linens, rugs, and furniture. The dining spaces and spa are equally attuned to an indoor-outdoor lifestyle, with soft and earthy fabrics providing texture against more glass and wood.
Outside, grapevines and trees are integrated into the resort’s pathways, connecting guests to the area’s defining features. Kratz says that mossy Grounded fits right in with these materials, and would do just as well within a residence.
(Note: Behr originally planned to reveal the Color of the Year at Ventana Big Sur, but changed to a more northern venue due to the Big Sur timber fire. Ventana Big Sur plans to reopen at the end of August.)
Montage Healdsburg has vineyard-, forest-, and mountain-view rooms, plus the Guest House (pictured), a three-bedroom compound with a private Jacuzzi, private kitchen, dining area, and outdoor firepit.
Courtesy of Montage Healdsburg
Behr’s Color of the Year choice illustrates an interior-design trend in homes and hotels, and it hints at a potential souvenir for travelers too: A stay in a design-forward hotel that uses color to connect guests to a setting might just inspire a makeover at home.
“The calm feeling of being surrounded by nature is increasingly shaping how we want to live within private spaces,” Kratz says. “In hospitality, there’s a real opportunity to make that same desire for calm feel specific. The most memorable retreats don’t rewrite where you are, they deepen your connection to a place.”
