Chateau Marmont review: California confidential

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 14 years ago

Chateau Marmont review: California confidential

Hotel California ... "If you must get into trouble, do it at the Chateau Marmont".

Hotel California ... "If you must get into trouble, do it at the Chateau Marmont".Credit: David Peevers/Lonely Planet

Barry Divola channels the spirits of stars misbehaving in a Los Angeles hotel as famous as its clientele.

So there I was, floating on my back in the pool, gazing up at a blue Los Angeles sky and a sixth-floor penthouseapartment that the reclusive Howard Hughes called home in the 1950s. The weather is fine; the water is warm; breakfast is imminent and life is good. But something is troubling me.

I'd come to stay at the Chateau Marmont for all the obvious reasons. Sure, it's a grand old dame; an 80-year-old building in a city obsessed with youth and modernity, its architecture based on the castle in the Loire Valley in France. But it's more than just a fine-looking hotel from another era tucked into a hillside on Sunset Boulevard.

Loading

Back in 1939, the head of Columbia Pictures, Harry Cohn, famously said: "If you must get into trouble, do it at the Chateau Marmont." Ever since, a stream of actors, musicians, writers, directors and other showbiz types have acted upon his advice.

Over the years, the staff have followed anunofficial "what happens in the Marmont stays in the Marmont" policy but, even so, the stories are legendary. It's where James Dean crawled through a window to meet Natalie Wood and audition for Rebel Without a Cause; where Liz Taylor took Montgomery Clift to recuperate after his 1956 car accident, and where Greta Garbo went to be alone. Jean Harlow spent her honeymoon here, although much of it was spent with Clark Gable, who was not her husband.

Led Zeppelin once rode their motorbikes through the lobby and Jim Morrison said he used up the eighth of his nine lives when he hung from a drainpipe while trying to swing into his apartment window. William Goldman wrote Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid here and Robert De Niro liked it so much after his first stay that he moved in for a couple of years.

It's just as famous for who checked out as who checked in: F. Scott Fitzgerald had a heart attack here; Helmut Newton crashed his car into a wall in the driveway in 2004 and died, and, most famously, comedian John Belushi said his final farewell in 1982 after taking a speedball of cocaine and heroin in one of the bungalows.

"I've seen people get put up here by movie studios for a week, and they end up neverwanting to leave," the assistant front-office manager, Steven Amador, told me the previous day, as we stood on the balcony of the two-bedroom, two-bathroom penthouse, taking in the view of the city, (a view worth $3700 a night). "They do business here but it feels like home and they get the privacy they need."

Advertisement

He says famous guests become so comfortable here that they'll come down to the courtyard for breakfast in their pyjamas.

Would he like to name names?

"No," he says, with a smile. "But anyone you can think of, you'd probably be right."

Much like the Chelsea Hotel in New York, the Chateau Marmont has a reputation for being both cool and shabby-chic. It has a faded beauty that appeals to artistic types and famous folk accustomed to faceless upmarket hotels. Arefurbishment by hotelier Andre Balazs, who bought the place in 1990, didn't mess with theoriginal. Balazs, who is well known for his other high-profile properties, The Standard and The Mercer in New York, brought the place into the 20th century by introducing room service but he kept the old-world feel of the 50 rooms, four bungalows and nine Spanish-style garden cottages.

Walking into the lobby bar, with its stuffed armchairs, old ornate lounges and grand piano, is like stepping on to the set of a 1930s film. In fact, Sofia Coppola has set her next film, Somewhere, in the Marmont.

So why am I floating in the pool on my last morning at the hotel feeling vaguely unfulfilled, despite a very pleasant stay?

Well, I still haven't seen anyone famous. The previous evening, I ventured down the hill to the neighbouring Bar Marmont. A well-heeled, good-looking crowd filled the plush velvet banquettes, so I took a seat at the bar to eat dinner - roast chicken and "killer mashed potatoes", according to the menu from Carolynn Spence, the former chef at The Spotted Pig in New York. I took in the hundreds of butterflies pinned to the ceiling and chatted to the friendly bartender, a girl from northern Queensland.

All the while I failed to spot even a B-grade star. Not even David Spade, or the bass player from Bon Jovi, or that guy who isn't Charlie Sheen in Two and a Half Men.

I soon discovered who did hang out here. After dinner I was swept into animated conversation and much back-slapping and bonhomie with a group of TV types - Steve was the host of a show called Tough Love, where he tries to rehabilitate women who are terrible at dating; Mike was the creator of Scavenger, where couples compete against each other, searching a city for clues to the whereabouts of a hidden $20,000 diamond ring; and Rebecca and Debbie were publicists for Trauma, a medical drama that was premiering the following week. Shots were bought, tales were told, business cards exchanged, then finally the guys had to call it a night for an early call the next day and the girls had to go ride a mechanical bull in a downtown bar with work colleagues.

When I returned to the hotel after midnight, I spotted two paparazzi photographers at the end of the driveway.

"Who are you waiting for?" I asked.

"You just missed Benicio Del Toro coming out," one of them told me and then showed me the pictures of the baseball-capped and bleary-eyed star of Traffic and The Usual Suspects.

I went to bed resigned to the fact that I'd missed my chance.

After my morning swim, I have breakfast in the courtyard. Sitting in the colonnade area is the geeky, bespectacled comedian who plays the part of the PC in the Mac PC ads. It wasn't much of a star-spotting coup - I can't even remember his name. And neither can the people at the table next to me, who are in animated discussion,trying to identify him. In fact, they're so involved with that task that they don't notice the skinny guy with scruffy hair and one droopy eyelid who is scouting for an empty table.

It's Thom Yorke from Radiohead. I smile at him as he walks past, finish my coffee and go to check out, happy that my stay at the Chateau Marmont is complete.

Barry Divola travelled courtesy of V Australia, the California Travel & Tourism Commission and Chateau Marmont.

FAST FACTS

Getting there

V Australia flies nonstop from Sydney and Melbourne (14 hours) for about $1120, low-season return, including tax. Australians must apply for US travel authorisation before departure on the secure website

//esta.cbp.dhs.gov

Staying there

Chateau Marmont has rooms from $US370 ($415), suites from $US480, cottages from $US520, bungalows from $US1800 and penthouse suites from $US2200. At 8221 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood. See chateaumarmont.com.

Sign up for the Traveller newsletter

The latest travel news, tips and inspiration delivered to your inbox. Sign up now.

Most viewed on Traveller

Loading