25 Los Angeles Hotels, From the Strip to the Sea
The ballroom where the Academy was founded, a 1922 bank tower, the Sunset Strip’s ‘Riot House’, and a Santa Monica beach club turned hotel.
Los Angeles turned a bank tower, a studio office building, a railway headquarters, and a Santa Monica beach club into hotels, alongside its Old Hollywood grands. This list has the Biltmore ballroom where the Academy was founded, the 1922 Bank of Italy tower that is now Hotel Per La, the Sunset Strip hotel the touring bands called the ‘Riot House’, and the 1926 beach club that became the Casa del Mar.
The list is grouped by character, not ranked. Most of the hotels link to their own site, where the rate is current and you book direct; a few of the chain houses are listed without a link.
The grand old names
The Beverly Hills Hotel · Beverly Hills
The Beverly Hills Hotel opened in 1912, two years before the city of Beverly Hills was incorporated. Known as the ‘Pink Palace’, its Polo Lounge and garden bungalows became a long-running spot for Hollywood dealmaking. It has been part of the Sultan of Brunei’s Dorchester Collection since 1987.
Hollywood Roosevelt · Hollywood
The Roosevelt opened in 1927, its backers including Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Louis B. Mayer. The first Academy Awards were held in its Blossom Room on May 16, 1929. David Hockney painted a mural on the bottom of the hotel pool in 1988.
Millennium Biltmore Hotel · Downtown
The Biltmore opened in 1923, a Beaux-Arts and Spanish-Italian Renaissance building by Schultze & Weaver. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was organized at a banquet here in 1927, and the hotel held the Academy Awards eight times in the 1930s and 1940s. It is often named as one of the last places Elizabeth Short, the ‘Black Dahlia’, was seen alive in 1947.
Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel · Beverly Hills
The Beverly Wilshire opened in 1928 as the Beverly Wilshire Apartment Hotel, designed by Walker & Eisen. It was the main filming location for the 1990 film Pretty Woman. Warren Beatty kept the penthouse for years, and Elvis Presley stayed while filming in the 1960s.
The Langham Huntington, Pasadena · Pasadena
The Langham Huntington opened in 1907 as the Hotel Wentworth; the railway magnate Henry E. Huntington bought and renovated it, reopening it in 1914 as the Huntington Hotel. Its covered Picture Bridge, lined with painted panels of California scenes, was added in 1932. It closed in 1985 over earthquake-safety concerns, and the main building was rebuilt and reopened in 1991.
Hotel Bel-Air · Bel-Air
The Bel-Air opened as a hotel in 1946, on the former sales-office and stables site of the Bel-Air Estates, built in Mission Revival style around Swan Lake. Marilyn Monroe did a well-known photo session here in 1962, shortly before her death. It closed from 2009 to 2011 for a two-year renovation and runs under the Dorchester Collection.
Downtown in old walls
Hotel Per La · Downtown
Hotel Per La is in Giannini Place, the 1922 Bank of Italy Building by Morgan, Walls & Clements, built as the Los Angeles headquarters of A.P. Giannini’s bank, the forerunner of Bank of America. It opened as NoMad Los Angeles in 2018, with interiors by Jacques Garcia, and was rebranded Hotel Per La in 2022.
Stile Downtown Los Angeles · Downtown
Stile is in the United Artists Building, a 1927 Spanish Gothic office tower built for the studio founded by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith. The attached United Artists Theatre, modeled on a Spanish cathedral interior, opened in 1927. It ran as the Ace Hotel from 2014 until it closed in January 2024, then reopened as Stile Downtown Los Angeles.
Freehand Los Angeles · Downtown
The Freehand is in the Commercial Exchange Building, a 1924 office block by Walker & Eisen. It opened as the Freehand in 2017, with the rooftop Broken Shaker bar and interiors by Roman and Williams.
The Hoxton, Downtown LA · Downtown
The Hoxton is in the former Los Angeles Railway Building on Broadway, built in the mid-1920s as the headquarters of the city’s streetcar system. It opened in 2019, the Hoxton’s first hotel on the West Coast.
Hotel Figueroa · Downtown
The Figueroa opened in 1926, developed and financed by the YWCA as a safe downtown place for women travelers. It was promoted as the largest hotel of its day financed and run by women. It was built in a Spanish Colonial and Mediterranean Revival style.
The Mayfair Hotel · Downtown
The Mayfair opened in 1926, one of downtown Los Angeles’s tall hotels of the 1920s. It is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, restored and reopened in 2018. A persistent local account ties its building to lodging visitors for the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics.
The Strip and the music world
Chateau Marmont · West Hollywood
Chateau Marmont opened in 1929 as an apartment building, loosely modeled on the Château d’Amboise in France, and was turned into a hotel in the 1930s. The comedian John Belushi died in Bungalow 3 in March 1982. The studio chief Harry Cohn’s line, ‘If you must get in trouble, do it at the Chateau Marmont’, became its unofficial motto.
Sunset Tower Hotel · West Hollywood
The Sunset Tower was finished in 1931, one of Los Angeles’s great Art Deco towers on the Sunset Strip, designed by Leland A. Bryant. Early residents included Howard Hughes, John Wayne, Errol Flynn, and, by repute, the mobster Bugsy Siegel. It ran for years as the Argyle Hotel and is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.
Andaz West Hollywood · West Hollywood
The Andaz opened in 1963 as the Gene Autry-backed Continental Hyatt House on the Sunset Strip. It was nicknamed the ‘Riot House’ for the touring-band antics of the 1960s and 1970s, from Led Zeppelin riding motorcycles in the halls to a television said to have gone out a window. It was rebranded Andaz West Hollywood under Hyatt in 2009.
Sunset Marquis · West Hollywood
The Sunset Marquis opened in 1963 as a quiet hideaway just off the Sunset Strip, and became a fixture for touring musicians. Its basement holds NightBird Recording Studios, where many rock acts have stayed and recorded.
Santa Monica by the sea
Hotel Casa del Mar · Santa Monica
Casa del Mar opened in 1926 as the Club Casa del Mar, one of the era’s most lavish private beach clubs on the Santa Monica sand. It served as a military rest hotel in the Second World War and later as a Synanon headquarters, before it was restored and reopened as a hotel in 1999.
Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows · Santa Monica
The Miramar stands on the former oceanfront estate of U.S. Senator John P. Jones, a founder of Santa Monica, dating to 1889. A giant Moreton Bay fig tree at the entrance is said to date to the estate era, around 1889. By local legend, a young Marilyn Monroe lived in one of its bungalows early in her career.
The Georgian Hotel · Santa Monica
The Georgian opened in 1933, an eight-story Art Deco landmark on Ocean Avenue. A ground-floor speakeasy in its early years is said to have drawn Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, and Bugsy Siegel. It was restored and reopened in 2022.
The Eden Hotel · Santa Monica
The Eden was built in 1939 in Streamline Moderne style and was known for decades as the Shangri-La Hotel. It relaunched as the Eden under new management in 2024, after closing as the Shangri-La.
Around the metro
The Culver Hotel · Culver City
The Culver Hotel was built in 1924 by the Culver City founder Harry Culver, a six-story flatiron that was the area’s first high-rise. The actors who played the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz lodged here during the 1938 filming. By local legend, Charlie Chaplin once held the hotel and lost it to John Wayne in a card game.
The Beverly Hilton · Beverly Hills
The Beverly Hilton opened in 1955, designed by the modernist architect Welton Becket. It has hosted the Golden Globe Awards since the early 1960s. The entertainer Merv Griffin owned it from 1987 to 2003, and the singer Whitney Houston died in a guest room on February 11, 2012.
Hotel Normandie · Koreatown
The Normandie opened in 1926 at Sixth Street and Normandie Avenue, in what is now Koreatown. It is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, left run-down for years before a restoration reopened it as a boutique hotel in the mid-2010s.
The Pasadena Hotel & Pool · Pasadena
The Pasadena Hotel & Pool is in the 1926 building long known as the Hotel Constance, at Colorado Boulevard and Lake Avenue. It reopened as the dusitD2 Hotel Constance after a 2000s restoration, then relaunched as the Pasadena Hotel & Pool under MCR in 2022.
Safari Inn · Burbank
The Safari Inn is a 1950s Googie-era roadside motel on San Fernando Boulevard in Burbank, known for its vintage neon sign. It appeared as a filming location in the 1993 film True Romance. It runs now as ‘Safari Inn, a Coast Hotel’.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are these hotels ranked?
No. The groups sort them by character, and the order within each group carries no meaning.
What made a hotel interesting enough for this list?
A story. Every entry was an Old Hollywood grand, a downtown bank or studio building, a Strip landmark, or a beach club with a past. Comfort alone did not qualify a hotel.
Why are there no prices?
Rates change daily and a priced list goes stale in a month. Where a hotel runs its own site, its name links there, so you see the current rate and book direct.
Which hotel puts me closest to the day trips on this site?
Most day trips from Los Angeles leave by road, up the coast to Santa Barbara, out to the desert, or down to San Diego, with Union Station downtown the hub for the trains. The Downtown and Hollywood hotels sit most central.
Do the small hotels book out faster than the grand ones?
Usually. The smaller hotels — the Georgian, the Culver, Hotel Normandie — hold fewer rooms than the Beverly Hills and Santa Monica grands and fill first. Book those well ahead.