The Hollywood Hotel was a famous hostelry and landmark

Landmark

This is a list of landmarks around the world.Landmarks may be split into two categories - natural phenomena and man-made features, like buildings, bridges, statues, public squares and so forth...

 located on the north side of Hollywood Boulevard

Hollywood Boulevard

-Revitalization:In recent years successful efforts have been made at cleaning up Hollywood Blvd., as the street had gained a reputation for crime and seediness. Central to these efforts was the construction of the Hollywood and Highland shopping center and adjacent Kodak Theatre in 2001...

 between Highland and Orchid Avenues in Hollywood, California

Hollywood, Los Angeles, California

Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...

.

History

The first section of the hotel

Hotel

A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...

 was built in 1902 by H.J. Whitley who was eager to sell residential lots among the lemon ranches then lining the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains

Santa Monica Mountains

The Santa Monica Mountains are a Transverse Range in Southern California, along the coast of the Pacific Ocean in the United States.-Geography:...

 and opened in December of that year. Flanking the west side of Highland Avenue, the small stucco structure fronted on a dusty, unpaved road with pepper trees that would eventually become Hollywood Boulevard. Whitley was instrumental in the completion of the boulevard. Within less than three years he would be compelled to build an additional wing onto this elegant hotel. The first forty-room wing of the hotel was just completed when Whitley was determined it was time to expand. He began construction of an additional 104 rooms and the work would continue for the next three years. He enlarged it to cover the entire block, installing a wide lobby, a chapel, a music room, the famous ballroom and 125 guest rooms. Whitley surrounded the hotel with wide lawns and carefully cultivated gardens, stretching over 3 acres (1.2 ha). He operated the establishment as a resort hotel while the tiny community of Hollywood struggled to live.

Soon after the Hollywood Hotel was opened, an eccentric millionaire spinster from Iowa

Iowa

Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...

, Almira Hershey

Almira Hershey

Almira Hershey was a Hollywood hotel proprietor and property developer.-Early life:Almira, better known as Mira, was the fourth and youngest daughter of Benjamin Hershey , a lumber and farming magnate....

, who was then staying in a hotel at Grand Avenue and 4th Street in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, rode out to see the new hotel in Hollywood that was being advertised in the Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

. She then became a guest; lured, the legend goes, by the cuisine, particularly the apple pie. She fell in love with the hotel and bought shares, eventually becoming sole owner.
The fame of the Hollywood Hotel, like that of Hollywood, came from its identity with the people of motion pictures

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

. Giants of the industry first stayed at the hotel, such as Jesse Lasky, Carl Laemmle

Carl Laemmle

Carl Laemmle , born in Laupheim, Württemberg, Germany, was a pioneer in American film making and a founder of one of the original major Hollywood movie studios - Universal...

, Louis B. Mayer

Louis B. Mayer

Louis Burt Mayer born Lazar Meir was an American film producer. He is generally cited as the creator of the "star system" within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in its golden years. Known always as Louis B...

, Harry Warner

Harry Warner

Harry Morris Warner was an American studio executive, one of the founders of Warner Bros., and a major contributor to the development of the film industry. Along with his three brothers Warner played a crucial role in the film business and played a key role in establishing Warner Bros...

 and Irving Thalberg

Irving Thalberg

Irving Grant Thalberg was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and his extraordinary ability to select the right scripts, choose the right actors, gather the best production staff and make very profitable films.-Life and...

. Producers, directors, writers and technicians held conferences on the broad verandas.

And there was a continuous stream of the idols of the silver screen arriving daily. Many of the great silent

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 movie star

Movie star

A movie star is a celebrity who is well-known, or famous, for his or her starring, or leading, roles in motion pictures. The term may also apply to an actor or actress who is recognized as a marketable commodity and whose name is used to promote a movie in trailers and posters...

s made their homes in the Hollywood Hotel and attended the dances held every Thursday night in the ballroom. It was considered "the" place to be seen. To identify where certain people regularly sat and dined, the hotel had stars with the names of celebrities painted on the ceiling above their tables.

Among the scores of movie stars who stayed at the Hollywood Hotel through the years was Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino

Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...

, who lived in room 264; he met his first wife, Jean Acker

Jean Acker

Jean Acker was an American film actress with a career dating from the silent film era through the 1950s. She was perhaps best known as the estranged wife of silent film star Rudolph Valentino.-Early life and career:...

, in the hotel; they were married there in 1919 and spent their honeymoon in his room. Other stars included Norma Shearer

Norma Shearer

Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress. Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in North America from the mid-1920s through the 1930s...

 and Alla Nazimova

Alla Nazimova

Alla Nazimova , was a Russian American film and theatre actress, a screenwriter and film producer. She is perhaps best known as simply Nazimova, but also went under the name Alia Nasimoff.-Early life:...

.

The hotel also housed nobility

Nobility

Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...

 from many lands. Songwriter Carrie Jacobs Bond composed and sang her famous A Perfect Day while she was a guest at the Hollywood Hotel.

Mira Hershey died in 1930. In the early 1940s, Charles E. Toberman acquired all the stock of the Good Hope Company, which then owned the historic hotel. They wanted to tear it down and redevelop the block, but were halted because of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, having to wait until the release of building materials. By the 1950s, the hotel was run down and faded, only a relic of its former glory. The developers were adamant that renovating and restoring the property was out of the question.

Though the Hollywood Hotel housed many of the great stars in its day, it was razed in August 1956 to make way for a development, with a twelve story office building for the First Federal Savings & Loan Association of Hollywood, a shopping center and parking lots.

In 2001, the Hollywood and Highland

Hollywood and Highland

The Hollywood & Highland Center is a shopping mall and entertainment complex at Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue in the Hollywood district in Los Angeles. The center also includes Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Kodak Theatre, home to the Academy Awards. The historic site was once the...

 entertainment complex, which includes the Kodak Theatre

Kodak Theatre

The Kodak Theatre is a live theatre in the Hollywood and Highland shopping mall and entertainment complex on Hollywood Boulevard and North Highland Avenue in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles...

, the current home of the Academy Awards

Academy Awards

An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

, was constructed on the site.