Biz News: Westin South Coast’s Pinot Provence to close

French bistro Pinot Provence is closing this month after 18 years at the Westin South Coast Plaza hotel in Costa Mesa.

Owner Patina Restaurant Group did not give a date. It said plans for Pinot’s space at the hotel are being worked out.

Patina also runs Leatherby’s Cafe Rouge in the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa, the Market Cafe at Park Place in Irvine and several other Orange County restaurants.

Local home decor firm opens store in Costa Mesa

Haskell, a Costa Mesa-based home decor design firm with an emphasis on outdoor products, has opened a retail space in Costa Mesa in a rear-lot section of 445 E. 17th St., near the corner of Irvine Avenue.

The company, launched five years ago as an online retailer, targets residential, hospitality, architectural and ecologically sensitive clients.

“We wanted our line to be more accessible to local consumers,” Andrew Stoneman, Haskell vice president of business development, said in a statement.

“Orange County’s, and in particular Costa Mesa’s, tastes are maturing through a dynamic period of design development in all things retail, residential, restaurant and entertainment. The inherent eclectic character of this city has been the fuel pushing it to become a destination in its own right. We want our first foray into open-door retail to contribute to that end.”

Guild Mortgage opens office in Irvine

Guild Mortgage has opened a branch at 16259 Laguna Canyon Road in Irvine.

Clark Aliano, who has more than 27 years’ experience in the mortgage industry, will manage the new branch. Before joining Guild, he worked for Wells Fargo as a private mortgage banker in Irvine.

The branch is Guild Mortgage’s fourth in Orange County.

Costa Mesa law partner to lead statewide group

Robert Marticello, a partner at Smiley Wang-Ekvall, a Costa Mesa-based law firm that specializes in insolvency, real estate transactions and business litigation, has been installed as president of the California Bankruptcy Forum for 2015-16. The forum is an organization of professionals in insolvency law.

Irvine firm buys Maryland medical building

Irvine-based American Health Care Investors has bought a medical building in Glen Burnie, Md., for $18.6 million.

The sale was announced Monday by Baltimore-based Colliers International, which brokered the sale on behalf of the building’s former owner, Arundel Ventures.

The six-story, 75,718-square-foot building is near the University of Maryland Baltimore Washington Medical Center.

—From staff reports