Chateau Marmont

In 1926, Fred Horowitz,[18] 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 a Gothic Chateau (Chateau 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 across the front of the property.[19]

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.[20]

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 (equivalent to $14,430,000 in 2022).[21][22] Smith converted the building into a hotel, an investment which benefitted from the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.[23] The apartments became suites with kitchens and living rooms. The property was also refurbished with antiques from Depression-era estate sales.[20] During the 1930s, the hotel was managed by former silent film actress Ann Little.[24]

During World War II, the hotel served as an air-raid shelter for residents in the surrounding area.[24] From about 1942 to 1963 the Chateau was owned by Erwin Brettauer,[25] a German banker who had funded films in Weimar Germany, and was noted for allowing Black guests, breaking the long-standing color line in Hollywood and Beverly Hills hotels.[26]

Designed and constructed to be earthquake-proof, Chateau Marmont survived major earthquakes in 1933, 1953, 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.[27]

Business was good for the hotel,[28] although by the 1960s, the building was in disrepair, and the owners attempted to sell it multiple times.[29][30] News articles about the hotel from the 1960s and 1970s described it as an "elderly castle",[31] a "dowdy hotel",[8] "rundown",[32] and "shabby-genteel".[6]

Chateau Marmont, June 1988

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.[9][13] Sarlot-Kantarjian planned to expand the hotel with a new wing.[2][3] They repaired and upgraded many elements of the hotel, but tried to stay true to the hotel's character and history.[9] In 1976, after their acquisition and improvements began, the Chateau was named a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument.[1][9] In The New York Times, writer Quentin Crisp praised the Chateau's "avoiding undue modernization and stayed deliberately in the romantic past."[33]

The hotel was acquired in 1990 by André Balazs.[34] 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.[27][35]

In order 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, the Chateau Marmont announced plans to convert to a members-only hotel, although at least one restaurant would remain open to the public.[15][16]

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 prevent unionization among the hotel's employees.[36] Despite the denial of the allegations by the hotel management and Balazs, multiple employment discrimination lawsuits were filed against the hotel, with the hotel facing picketing from labor union UNITE HERE and boycotts from numerous celebrities; in support of the boycott, a night shoot at the hotel for Aaron Sorkin's Being the Ricardos was canceled just hours before the intended start of production.[37]

Director Sofia Coppola shot her film Somewhere at the hotel in 2010.[42] The hotel also appears in the Academy Award-winning films La La Land (2016)[49] and A Star Is Born (2018),[50] as well as The Night Walker (1964),[51] The Strip (1951),[52] Myra Breckinridge (1970),[8] Blume in Love (1973),[6] The Doors (1991),[53] Dangerous Game (1993),[54] Laurel Canyon (2003),[55] and Maps to the Stars (2014).[56] The opening scene from The Canyons (2013) was shot at the now-closed Bar Marmont.[57]

The Chateau is featured—often as a setting—in many books, including Martin Amis's Money (1984) (as the Vraimont),[58] Eve Babitz's Eve's Hollywood (1974)[59] and Slow Days, Fast Company (1977),[60] James Ellroy's The Big Nowhere (1988),[61] Dominick Dunne's An Inconvenient Woman (1990)[62] and Another City, Not My Own (1997),[63] Charles Bukowski's Hollywood (1989),[64] Lee Child's Bad Luck and Trouble (2007),[65] Lauren Weisberger's Last Night at Chateau Marmont (2010),[66] and Michael Connelly's The Drop (2011).[67] It is also the office of fictional paparazzo Patrick Immleman in the Panel Syndicate web comic The Private Eye.[68][69][70]

The hotel has also been referred to in many songs, including the title track "Plastic Hearts" by Miley Cyrus from her 2020 album, "chateau" by blackbear from his 2017 album digital druglord,[71] Panic! At The Disco's "Dying in LA", the Grateful Dead's "West L.A. Fadeaway" from the album In the Dark,[72] Lana Del Rey's[73] 2011 single "Off to the Races" from Born to Die,[74] Father John Misty's "Chateau Lobby #4 (in C for Two Virgins)" from I Love You, Honeybear (2015),[75] Angus & Julia Stone's 2017 single "Chateau" from Snow,[76] Lily Allen's 2017 single "Trigger Bang" from No Shame,[77] and Joshua Radin's 2020 single "Chateau."[78] 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.[79] 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 Anne Pigalle.

Actor James Franco created a replica of the Chateau's Bungalow 2 for his Rebel Without a Cause exhibit at MOCA in 2012.[80] The hotel's stationery has featured in work by artists André,[81] Gary Baseman,[82] Robert Gober,[7] Martin Kippenberger,[7] and Claes Oldenburg,[7] among others. The Chateau's branding was featured in a capsule collection from fashion label Gucci in 2018.[83]

Memorial plaque at site of Helmut Newton's accident, marking the spot where his car hit the wall

John Belushi died of a drug overdose in Bungalow 3 on March 5, 1982.[84][85] Photographer Helmut Newton died on January 23, 2004, after suffering a heart attack and crashing his car when pulling out of the driveway.[42][86]