Chateau Marmont is a historic hotel located at 8221 Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. Completed in 1929, the hotel was designed by architects Arnold A. Weitzman and William Douglas Lee.
The hotel is known as both a long- and short-term residence for celebrities
History
Design and construction
In 1926, Fred Horowitz,
a prominent Los Angeles attorney, chose the site at Marmont Lane and
Sunset Boulevard to construct an apartment building. Horowitz had recently traveled to Europe for inspiration and returned to California with photos of an ancient château (the Château d'Amboise, where Leonardo da Vinci is buried) located along the
Loire River. In 1927, Horowitz commissioned his brother-in-law, European-trained architect Arnold A. Weitzman, to design the seven-story, L-shaped building based on his photos from France. When deciding upon a name for the building, Chateau Sunset and Chateau Hollywood were rejected in favor of Chateau Marmont, after the small street running in front of the property.
On February 1, 1929, Chateau Marmont opened its doors to the public as the newest residence of Hollywood. Local newspapers described the Chateau as "Los Angeles's newest, finest and most exclusive apartment house ... superbly situated, close enough to active businesses to be accessible and far enough away to ensure quiet and privacy." For the inaugural reception, over 300 people passed through the site, including local press.
Conversion to hotel
Due to the high rents and inability to keep tenants for long-term commitments during the
Great Depression, Horowitz sold the apartment building in 1931 to Albert E. Smith, co-founder of Vitagraph Studios, for $750,000 in cash ().
Smith converted the building into a hotel, an investment which benefitted from the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
The apartments became suites with kitchens and living rooms. The property was also refurbished with antiques from Depression-era estate sales. During the 1930s, the hotel was managed by former silent film actress
Ann Little.
During World War II, the hotel served as an air-raid shelter for residents in the surrounding area.
Designed and constructed to be Seismic retrofit, Chateau Marmont survived major earthquakes in 1933, 1952, 1971, 1987, and 1994 without sustaining any major structural damage. Nine Spanish cottages, as well as a swimming pool, were built next to the hotel in the 1930s and were acquired by the hotel in the 1940s. Craig Ellwood designed two of the four bungalows in 1956, after he completed Case Study Houses.
Acquisition by Sarlot-Kantarjian
Business was good for the hotel,
although by the 1960s, the building was in disrepair, and the owners attempted to sell it multiple times.
News articles about the hotel from the 1960s and 1970s described it as an "elderly castle",
a "dowdy hotel",
"rundown",
and "shabby-genteel".
After sitting on the market for two years, the hotel was sold in 1975 to Raymond R. Sarlot and Karl Kantarjian of Sarlot-Kantarjian, a real estate development firm, for $1.1 million.
Restoration and operation under Balazs
The hotel was acquired in 1990 by André Balazs.
Balazs needed to modernize the hotel while also preserving Chateau Marmont's character. For the restoration, Balazs strove to create the illusion that the hotel had been untouched, notwithstanding renovations. The entire facility was re-carpeted, repainted, and the public spaces were upgraded.
To preserve the privacy of the hotel and bungalows, higher fences plus coverings were used to discourage the public from looking into the grounds.
On July 28, 2020, Chateau Marmont announced plans to convert to a members-only hotel, although at least one restaurant would remain open to the public.
On September 16, 2020, The Hollywood Reporter published a report involving accounts from more than thirty former hotel employees that accused the hotel's management and Balazs of fomenting racial discrimination and sexual harassment practices at the hotel; they also accused Balazs of neglecting to provide them with adequate health insurance during the COVID-19 pandemic and suspected the hotel's members-only conversion as an attempt to Union busting among the hotel's employees.
Dining
The hotel restaurant terrace features market-fresh California cuisine from chef Dean Yasharian.
The restaurant Bar Marmont closed in 2017.
In July 2018, Chateau Hanare, a new restaurant, opened in a former residential building on the eastern edge of the property.
In popular culture
Throughout the years, Chateau Marmont has gained recognition.
,
,
Tim Burton,
,
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
,
,
, Lana Del Rey,
,
,
,
,
,
Hunter S. Thompson,
and Bruce Weber,
among others, have produced work at the hotel.
Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor married the band's hairdresser Tracey Wilson at the hotel in 1982.
On film
Director
Sofia Coppola shot her film
Somewhere at the hotel in 2010.
The hotel also appears in the
Academy Awards-winning films
La La Land (2016)
and
A Star Is Born (2018),
as well as
The Night Walker (1964),
(1951)
, (1970),
(1973),
(1991),
(1993),
(2003),
and
Maps to the Stars (2014).
The opening scene from
The Canyons (2013) was shot at the now-closed Bar Marmont.
In literature
The Chateau has been used a setting in many books, including
Martin Amis's
Money (1984) (as the Vraimont),
's
Eve's Hollywood (1974)
and
Slow Days, Fast Company (1977),
's
The Big Nowhere (1988),
's
An Inconvenient Woman (1990)
and
Another City, Not My Own (1997),
's
Hollywood (1989),
's
Bad Luck and Trouble (2007),
Lauren Weisberger's
Last Night at Chateau Marmont (2010),
and
Michael Connelly's
The Drop (2011).
It is also the office of fictional
Paparazzi Patrick Immleman in the
Panel Syndicate web comic
The Private Eye.
In music
The hotel has been referred to in many songs, including the title track "Plastic Hearts" by
Miley Cyrus from her
Plastic Hearts, "chateau" by blackbear from his 2017 album
Digital Druglord,
Panic! At The Disco's "Dying in LA", the
Grateful Dead's "West L.A. Fadeaway" from the album
In the Dark,
Lana Del Rey's
2011 single "Off to the Races" from
Born to Die, Father John Misty's "Chateau Lobby #4 (in C for Two Virgins)" from
I Love You, Honeybear (2015),
Angus & Julia Stone's 2017 single "Chateau" from
Snow,
's 2017 single "
Trigger Bang" from
No Shame,
and
Joshua Radin's 2020 single "Chateau."
In 2017,
Jarvis Cocker and
Chilly Gonzales collaborated on a concept album of music inspired by the hotel, named
Room 29, after one of the rooms with a piano.
The cover photos for various albums have been taken at the hotel, including
Gram Parsons's
GP and
Death Grips's infamous
No Love Deep Web, and many musicians have performed live at the hotel, including Miley Cyrus
and
Anne Pigalle.
In art and fashion
Actor
James Franco created a replica of the Chateau's Bungalow 2 for his
Rebel Without a Cause exhibit at MOCA in 2012.
The hotel's stationery has featured in work by artists André,
,
,
Martin Kippenberger,
and
Claes Oldenburg,
among others. The Chateau's branding was featured in a capsule collection from fashion label
Gucci in 2018.
In video games
Hotels in the video games
(2004) and
Grand Theft Auto V (2013)
are based on Chateau Marmont.
Deaths
John Belushi died of a drug overdose in Bungalow 3 on March 5, 1982.
Photographer
Helmut Newton died on January 23, 2004, after suffering a heart attack and crashing his car when pulling out of the driveway.
See also
-
Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments in Hollywood
- Notes
- Citations
- Works cited
- Further reading
External links
