Chateau Marmont

The Chateau Marmont, designed by architect Arnold A. Weitzman in 1927 as a block of rental apartments and converted into a hotel four years later, exhibits a Châteauesque style modeled after the Château d'Amboise in France's Loire Valley while incorporating Spanish-style elements in its ceiling and arches. The building was engineered to be earthquake-proof and has withstood several significant Los Angeles earthquakes since its construction. Photographers should note the hillside setting just off Sunset Boulevard, where the surrounding streets are narrow and winding, and be aware that the structure was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1976.

Opened in February 1929 as the first deluxe high-rise on Sunset Boulevard, the Chateau Marmont has operated continuously on the Sunset Strip ever since. The streetscape around it has shifted considerably: the Garden of Allah Hotel, which appears beside the Chateau in mid-1930s photographs, has been demolished, and the Players Club nightclub run by Preston Sturges, next door in the 1940s and 50s, is also gone. The property has been owned by André Balazs since 1990, when he paid more than $12 million, and photographers documenting the facade can frame a building whose guest list has run from Greta Garbo and Clark Gable to Led Zeppelin.

The Chateau Marmont, a French-inspired hotel that opened in 1929 on Sunset Boulevard and was conceived by attorney Fred Horowitz, remains a Hollywood landmark nearly a century later and is currently owned by André Balazs. Its lobby features dramatic gothic vaulted ceilings and dark wood, a setting where Carmen Miranda once declared the property too beautiful for words and where actress Debra Paget hosted coffee klatches. The hotel's long roster of guests, from silent-film regular John Gilbert to Jim Morrison, Sofia Coppola, and Helmut Newton, gives photographers a subject rooted in layered celebrity history.