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Where to Stay in Redlands, California
Redlands is a San Bernardino County city east of Los Angeles, holding two named historic districts and a pair of museums inside its older streets.
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Where to stay in Redlands
The right area depends on your trip — here's what each neighbourhood is best for.
Two named districts split the choice: the Redlands Santa Fe Depot District on the old railway ground, and the residential streets of the Smiley Park Historic District. Both reward walking. The depot quarter puts the Redlands Central Railway Company Car Barn within a block or two of the door, which makes it the natural base for a visit built around what the earlier decades left standing rather than around anything newer.
Collections pull the other way. The San Bernardino County Museum and the Historical Glass Museum sit apart from the protected streets, so a base near them suits days spent indoors more than days spent reading façades. Barton Villa, the Auerbacher Home and Church on the Hill are scattered across the grid between the two.
Beverly Ranch and the Mill Creek Zanja lie out on older ground where rooms thin and a car stops being optional. San Bernardino de Sena Estancia is the oldest name Redlands carries, and the Inland Empire Filipino Seventh-day Adventist Church is among the congregations that fill out the rest of the list. Los Angeles lies west of here.
Travellers using the city as a stop between Los Angeles and Indio will find the through-roads hold most of the capacity, while the two historic districts hold most of the reason to stop at all.
About Redlands
Heritage carries the city.
What is Redlands known for?
Redlands keeps two named historic districts, the Redlands Santa Fe Depot District and the Smiley Park Historic District, and the San Bernardino County Museum and the Historical Glass Museum together give it more indoor collection than a town of this size usually holds. Barton Villa and the Auerbacher Home survive from the same period. San Bernardino County stretches out past the last streets.
What are the main landmarks in Redlands?
San Bernardino de Sena Estancia is the oldest name here. Around it the city keeps an unusually long list for its size: Barton Villa, the Auerbacher Home, Beverly Ranch, the Redlands Central Railway Company Car Barn and the Mill Creek Zanja all carry protection, and two whole quarters are listed as the Redlands Santa Fe Depot District and the Smiley Park Historic District. Two churches join them.
Church on the Hill and the Inland Empire Filipino Seventh-day Adventist Church stand among the named buildings as well. Collections fill the rest, at the San Bernardino County Museum and the Historical Glass Museum.
What is the history of Redlands?
San Bernardino de Sena Estancia predates the city entirely. Redlands itself dates from 1888, and the ground it took in already carried the Mill Creek Zanja, which remains among the named features protected within the modern grid. Barton Villa, the Auerbacher Home and Beverly Ranch belong to the building stock of those first decades, and enough of that fabric survived intact that two separate historic districts were eventually drawn around what was left.
The names stayed. Rail shaped the plan. What survives of that period sits in the Redlands Santa Fe Depot District and the Redlands Central Railway Company Car Barn, where the depot ground is still legible as a quarter distinct from everything built after it.
Church on the Hill and the Inland Empire Filipino Seventh-day Adventist Church stand among the congregations the growing city gathered. Collections came later. The San Bernardino County Museum and the Historical Glass Museum turned some of that accumulated past into something a visitor can walk through, while the Smiley Park Historic District now protects the residential side of what the earlier decades left behind in this corner of San Bernardino County.
Where is Redlands?
The city stands east of Los Angeles, inland, with Indio a longer run away to the south-east and San Bernardino County spreading in every direction around it. The Mill Creek Zanja crosses the older ground. Beverly Ranch marks the agricultural edge, while the compact grid holds the Redlands Santa Fe Depot District and the Smiley Park Historic District close to one another.
No part of Redlands meets the sea.
What is the climate of Redlands?
Subtropical, and a long way from open water. Sitting well east of Los Angeles and out toward the country around Indio, Redlands gets little help from the sea through the middle of the year, so the warm months run long and dry while the cool ones stay mild enough to keep the historic districts walkable. Plan a shaded route through Redlands.
The Mill Creek Zanja is one of the oldest named features San Bernardino County has kept through all of it.
How do you get to Redlands?
Most people drive in from Los Angeles. The run east is the standard approach, with Indio a longer haul from the other direction, and San Bernardino County's distances make a car the assumed way to cover them. Redlands is small once reached.
The Redlands Santa Fe Depot District recalls the years when rail did this work, and the Redlands Central Railway Company Car Barn still stands from them, though the streets around both are now covered on foot.
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Updated August 2026