The Beverly Hills Hotel

The Beverly Hills Hotel has been illuminating, housing, and enflaming all of Hollywood for over a century. It was imagined like a palace; an oversized architecture of 5,000 m² initiated by Elmer Grey in 1911, with surroundings of tropical gardens and exotic flowers – creations from landscaper Wilbur David Cook… The hotel would soon attract aesthetes the world over. Affectionately nicknamed the “Pink Palace” (a reference to its pink and green color scheme), the town of Beverly Hills literally saw its high society migrate into this fortress of colored walls. Also housed inside it was Al Christie’s first Hollywood studio. The Beverly Hills Hotel is a myth that has seen the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Sharon Stone, and Brad Pitt housed beneath its roof.

The hotel’s power of attraction hasn’t budged over the years. Elizabeth Taylor stayed in one of their bungalows while her father held the reigns of the Pink Palace’s art gallery. In the 40s, thanks to Will Roger and Spencer Tracy, who played polo and liked to fete their victories at the hotel’s restaurant, the name “The Polo Lounge” became preferred to that of “El Jardin Restaurant”. It’s within this same restaurant that a major revolution took place: Marlene Dietrich frequented it back in the day and changed the norms of the era when she made an appearance wearing pants – a dress code that was previously off limits to women. The swimming pool and the Cabana Club entered into legend after serving as the setting for a scene between Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall in the 1956 Vincente Minnelli film “Designing Woman”. At the end of the decade, the hotel became definitively sacred when Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand stayed there during the filming of “Let’s Make Love”. The Eagles would even choose a photo of the Beverly Hills Hotel for their 1976 album “Hotel California”…