Charles’ 
Slide of the Week: October 12th, 2006
Beverly Hills Hotel, Beverly Hills, CA
But first…
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Life is full of typos…especially my life! Last week I called the Beverly HILton Hotel the Beverly HILLS Hotel. So I’m a lousy proof-reader! Maybe the two hotels can merge and become the Beverly HILLSTON Hotels– just an idea!
Anyway, this is If this were a perfect slide of the Beverly Hills Hotel that 1955 Oldsmobile, missing a hubcap, would be a white Roll-Royce. Oh well. Miraculously this oh-so glamorous hotel looks exactly the same today. The titty-pink and bluish-green color scheme, “handwritten” signage, and those palm trees lining the motor entrance like soldiers remain unchanged.
The Beverly Hills Hotel has been a landmark at the corner of Sunset and Beverly Drive since it was built in 1912. It really was the beginning of Beverly Hills. The “new wing” you see in the foreground was built in 1948, the year after the aging hotel was redecorated, painted pink and nick-named the “Pink Palace.”
The hotel’s coffee shop is one of my favorite “vintage” places to eat if and when I’m passing through the Hills of Beverly. The free-form breakfast and lunch counter is cozy. There are no booths or tables. And it too is virtually the same as it was when it opened in 1948.
A few years ago I ate breakfast there on what just happened to be the morning of the Academy Awards. As I sat down at the quaint coffee shop counter to eat I had a psychic vibe that someone famous was going to come in and plop right down on the stool beside me. Sure enough not twenty seconds later here comes -of all people- Joan Collins traipsing in. Yes, she sat down right next to me. The only other thing I remember is that she didn’t like the way her bacon was cooked! I would’ve eaten those savory, crispy pig slices. They looked fine to me. But they weren’t offered. Then the bill came. She refused to pay for the bacon.
Here’s to the typos, The Beverly Hills Hotel, bacon and YOU!
Charles Phoenix
Los Angeles
October 2006
Sets this Slide belongs to:
Los Angeles
13 Comments on “Beverly Hills Hotel, Beverly Hills, CA”
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October 13th, 2006 at 1:47 am
This particular shot is pure nostalgia for me. It was taken two years after my parents and I moved to Beverly Hills from Chicago. In fact we moved one block from this photograph. The amazing part to me is that in this ever changing, fast paced world, this landmark remains preserved forever in the past.
October 13th, 2006 at 1:49 am
The past is preserved in this photo as if it was the present.
October 13th, 2006 at 1:50 am
Loved the photo.
Why no comments on it directly?
October 13th, 2006 at 9:53 am
One fact you might not be aware of: The new wing, handwritten signage, and sinuous coffee shop counter to which you referred were all designed by Paul Williams, the well-known architect of many movie stars’ homes, not to mention Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills, and the futuristic restaurant tower at LAX.
October 13th, 2006 at 1:16 pm
Upscale Mr. Charles!
The difficulty with traveling and staying in lovely hotels like this one is that a lady must have the proper wardrobe! There are so many details to keep track of, a girl could get lost in the woods of good dressing. Imagine walking into the Beverly Hills Hotel wearing the wrong shoes! You can’t tip a bellman enough dimes to keep that faux pas a secret. So today, with the guidance of _Vogue’s Book of Etiquette_ by Millicent Fenwick (1948), I give the women in your audience a handy guide to proper clothing for travel.
“The ideal clothes for travel are those which would be worn for shopping in the town in the morning […] A tailored suit, a small neat hat, shoes that are halfway between the sturdiness of country walking shoes and the delicate lightness of town afternoon shoes, a loose overcoat that will slip on and off easily and if it is fur, of a fairly strong, practical fur — all these add up to the perfect clothes for travel. That summer version of this ideal picture is exactly like it in spirit: a practical, lightweight suit or dress which will wash or clean easily, the summer equivalent of winter’s small, neat hat and, perhaps, the very same pair of practical dark brown, dark blue, or black shoes; an overcoat, if necessary, of mixed woolen tweed, brown and beige, black and gray, or dark blue and white.”
Obviously Millicent is a bit of a tough taskmaster when it comes to clothing. I would certainly hate to meander down the street in country walking shoes and a green and white overcoat! Quelle horror! No doubt the good denizens of Beverly Hills would point me out to be a country rube. Oh wise Millicent! What else should we avoid?
“The essential point is that this conservative, practical attitude should be an automatic reflex to the word traveling. No white shoes, no floppy hats, no floating feathers or veils.”
Oh dear. I’m relatively certain I’ve worn a stray feather or two in a foreign clime. And perhaps even a white shoe. You see? Even I have work to do! But how shall I act while I’m on the town, Millicent?
“In it application specifically to traveling, decorum means no loud and jolly parties on trains and planes, where others cannot help but hear and see; no messy box luncheons when one has a near neighbor who is forced to witness the untidiness (a neat sandwich in waxed paper is one thing, a juicy orange quite another); no argument or laughter which others cannot help but hear, especially after bed-time hours.”
Do keep a neat sandwich in waxed paper with you at all times. I cannot tell you`how many times such a treat has come in handy for me!
xoxo!
Miss Sharon
October 13th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Ahhhh…memories…the site of my Senior Prom. The Crystal Room is always elegant! Thanks for the memories!
October 13th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
I am still driving my 56 Olds Rocket 88. Maybe I should take a pic in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel?
deja Vu all over again
October 13th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
Something about Joan Collins and bacon is not sitting well with me…
Fabulous photo though Charles!
October 16th, 2006 at 8:20 am
Charles,
I just love a pop in to the Beverly Hills Hotel. The coffee shop you mentioned is one of the quaint throwbacks still enjoyed by many of us that aren’t necessarily on the Hills guest list.
I also enjoy the Polo lounge for it’s simple and unchanging elegance. Its patrons seem to remain the decor as opposed to the wall hangings.
Of course my close associate and friend, Tiki Bob, reminds me that the battle for the title of “The Pink Palace” rages between The Royal Hawaiian on Waikiki and the BHH. The moniker for the Royal goes back to 1929.
Of course, who is to say we can’t have TWO Pink Palaces. Is that not what the world of opulence is all about?
Warmest regards,
BB
October 16th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Hi, Charles! Is that shot quintessential Southern California, or what?
Thanks for doing what you do. A while ago I caught your show at the Redcat theater in L.A. and had a blast. Great ambrosia, too!
October 16th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
I posted earlier, but it didn’t show…Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for your show at the Redcat awhile ago - a lot of laughs and great ambrosia.
October 16th, 2006 at 8:58 pm
I worked as a page boy at the Polo Lounge for about nine months back in ‘87…cell phones were still trickling in so I’d have to transfer calls for the lunching luminaries and then direct them to pick up one of the phones tucked away atop each booth.
A Countess, or some similarly deigned bit of demi-royalty once tipped me 15 bucks for fetching her a pack of Silk-Cut cigarettes from the gift shop downstairs. Smokes with silk covered filters…now that’s class.
October 18th, 2006 at 8:07 am
With the exception of the 50s car, this picture looks like it could’ve been taken in the present. Speaking of famous people, I saw Tiger Woods here in Columbus at the Muirfield Golf Tournament, talked with Richard Marcinko(author) in Indianapolis and got him to sign my books and a picture taken with him, saw Raymond Benson(author) in Illinois and got him to sign a business card, and also got to meet Erin Gray from Buck Rogers and Silver Spoons and David Carradine from Kung Fu as well as Buddy Hackett.