Hollywood Plaza Hotel | |
 Hotel in 2015 | |
  Location of building inLos Angeles County | |
| Location | 1633–37 NorthVine Street,Hollywood, California |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 34°6′3″N118°19′37″W / 34.10083°N 118.32694°W /34.10083; -118.32694 |
| Built | 1925 |
| Architect | Percy A. Eisen Albert R. Walker |
| Architectural style | Renaissance Revival |
| Part of | Hollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment District (ID85000704) |
| LAHCM No. | 665 |
| Significant dates | |
| Designated CP | April 4, 1985 |
| Designated LAHCM | September 29, 1999 |
Hollywood Plaza Hotel, also known asPlaza Hotel, was a 200-roomhotel located at 1633–37 NorthVine Street inHollywood,California, just south ofHollywood and Vine. A popular venue for film, radio, and theatre stars of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, the building was converted into a retirement home in the 1970s.
Hollywood Plaza Hotel, built in 1924 and opened to the public on October 15, 1925,[1] was one of four major hotels built in Hollywood in the 1920s.[2] Designed byWalker & Eisen,[3] the hotel consisted of ten stories, and cost $750,000 ($13.4 million in 2024) to construct, $250,000 more than was budgeted.[4]
When the hotel opened, it consisted of 198 rooms and a ground floor that included a restaurant, beauty parlor, barber shop, ballroom, two garden plazas, and a lobby designed byGeorge G. Benedict.[4][5] Date palms surrounded the outdoor swimming pool[5] and the name "Plaza" was featured on a large neon sign atop the roof.[2]
Due to Plaza Hotel's proximity to theFamous Players-Lasky motion picture studio, the hotel's original restaurant, Klempter's Blue Plate Cafe, became a de facto studio annex.Greta Garbo was a regular and anytime an actor could not be located at the studio, call boys were dispatched to the restaurant.[4]
In 1928, the Pig 'n Whistle Cafe, a new location in the chain most notable for itsother location in Hollywood, replaced Klempter's Blue Plate Cafe. In 1933, the restaurant changed to The Russian Eagle Cafe and Garden, in 1936, to theG. Albert Lansburgh designed Cinnabar, and in 1937, to theClara Bow andRex Bell owned It Cafe.[4]
Considered one of Hollywood's most glamorous nightspots, It Cafe drew clientele that includedGene Autry,Milton Berle, andPat Buttram. Despite this, the cafe closed in 1943, after the owners lost interest in it.[2][6]
In 1928,Edward Everett Horton had his newly purchased convertible delivered to his suite on the fourth floor of Plaza Hotel, as a publicity stunt for the dealership.[7]Bette Davis resided with her mother and dog in Plaza Hotel when she arrived in Hollywood in 1930, andAva Gardner also stayed in the hotel at the start of her career, but then had to move to a cheaper hotel nearby.[5]
During the 1940s and 50s, the hotel became popular with radio performers,bandleaders, andlive theatre actors. Those who stayed at the hotel includeJackie Gleason,Doris Day,Joe Frisco,Edward Everett Horton,Harry James,Paul Whiteman,Hal McIntyre, and more.[6][8][9] Additionally,Johnny Grant broadcast daily from the hotel's bar,[2]Frank Sinatra frequented abarber shop in the hotel's basement,[9][10] andGeorge Burns had an office at the top of the hotel, where he was introduced to "the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen":Marilyn Monroe.[5]
Other notable hotel guests includeJoe Di Maggio,Babe Ruth,Howard Hughes, andErnest Hemingway.[5]
The hotel had its share of notoriety. In 1937,Ern Westmore, released after a drunk-driving charge, checked into a 10th-floor room and threatened to leap out the window; his brotherFrank came to calm him down.[11] That same year, an airline stewardess was found dead in her room.[12] In 1954, an Alaskan woman released on bail after being indicted for the murder of her husband committed suicide in her room,[13] and in 1959 a woman survived an 8-story fall down the hotel's stairwell.[14]
By the early 1970s, the hotel had become derelict,[15] and in 1972, it was converted to an apartment hotel. In 2004, it was converted again, this time to senior housing. These renovations made the building "unrecognizable from the once elegant hotel of the 1920s and 1930s."[4]
In 1984, theHollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment District was added to theNational Register of Historic Places, with Plaza Hotel listed as acontributing property in the district.[3] In 1999, the building and its neon sign were collectively designatedLos Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument No. 665.[2][16]
Hollywood Plaza Hotel is T-shaped in plan and built withreinforced concrete and artificial stone.[4] The building was designed in theRenaissance Revival style and features second-floorCorinthian pilasters, a floralfrieze that separates the second and third floors, and mostly unadorned third through eighth floors.Quoins are featured on the corners of the building and the upper-levels feature windows encased in two storyarches.[3]
In severalI Love Lucy episodes, Plaza Hotel can be seen as a silhouette throughLucy Ricardo's apartment window.[17]
In the 1950s, thegame showQueen for a Day set up a liveremote broadcast location in the hotel's ballroom.[18]
[note: publication date is as of addition of HCM #1301 Venice Lifeguard Station 4/26/2024]
Media related toHollywood Plaza Hotel at Wikimedia Commons