Sunset Tower
Encyclopedia
Sunset Tower, previously known as The St. James's Club, The Argyle, and The Sunset Tower Hotel, is a historic building and hotel
located on the Sunset Strip
in West Hollywood, California
. Designed in 1929 by architect Leland A. Bryant, opened in 1931, it is considered one of the finest examples of Art Deco
architecture in the Los Angeles area. In its early years, it was the residence of many Hollywood celebrities, including John Wayne
and Howard Hughes
. After a period of decline in the early 1980s, the building was renovated and has been operated as a luxury hotel under the names The St. James's Club, The Argyle, and most recently the Sunset Tower Hotel. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places
in 1980.
form of Art Deco
architecture in Southern California. In their guide to Los Angeles architecture, David Gebhard and Robert Winter wrote that "this tower is a first class monument of the Zig Zag Moderne and as much an emblem of Hollywood as the Hollywood sign
." It is situated in a commanding location on the Sunset Strip with views of the city and is decorated with plaster frieze
s of plants, animals, zeppelins, mythological creatures and Adam and Eve
. Originally operated as a luxury apartment hotel, it was one of the first high-rise reinforced concrete buildings in California. When it was completed in August 1931 at a cost of $750,000, the Los Angeles Times
reported: "What is described to be the tallest apartment-house in Los Angeles County, rising 15 stories or 195 feet, was completed last week at Kings Road and Sunset Boulevard by W.I. Moffett, general contractor, for E.M. Fleming, owner."
Marketing the building to Hollywood celebrities, an advertisement in the February 1938 issue of the Screen Actors Guild magazine read: "Faultless in Appointment-The Ultimate in Privacy . . . Hollywood's Most Distinguished Address." In 1933, the Los Angeles Times ran an article about the trend toward luxurious penthouse apartments in the city and noted that Sunset Tower boasted the city's highest penthouse: "It is the highest in the city and due to the location of the fifteen-story structure that supports it, its tenants live on a level with the tower of the Los Angeles City Hall. Imagine the view!" John Wayne
, Howard Hughes
, Frank Sinatra
, Jerry Buss
and novelist James Wohl lived in the penthouse at different times, and Hughes reportedly also rented some of the lower apartments for his girlfriends or mistresses. John Wayne reportedly once brought a cow up to his penthouse apartment at 3 a.m. telling his party guests who were gathering for coffee that they would have to go directly to the source if they wanted cream. Other former residents include Clark Gable
, Errol Flynn
, Marilyn Monroe
, Michael Caine
, Quincy Jones
, Roger Moore
, Zsa Zsa Gabor
, Billie Burke
, Joseph Schenck
, Paulette Goddard
, Zasu Pitts
, George Stevens
, Preston Sturges
, and Carol Kane
.
In 1944, resident Bugsy Siegel
, described by the Los Angeles Times as a "Hollywood sportsman", was charged with running a bookmaking operations from his apartment at Sunset Tower. Siegel called it "a bum rap," and witnesses testified that Siegel and his friends were only playing "a friendly game of gin rummy." Siegel later pleaded guilty, paid a $250 fine, and was "asked" by management to leave his apartment at Sunset Tower.
The building was also the site of a publicized "Battle of the Balcony" involving bandleader Tommy Dorsey
in 1944. Dorsey became involved in a fistfight with actor Jon Hall
after the actor "paid undue attention to (Dorsey's) actress-wife Pat Dane" at a party held in Dorsey's apartment. The Los Angeles Times reported that actor Eddie Norris "darn near got killed . . . during the celebrity-infested brawl . . . when he tried to act as peacemaker" between Dorsey and Hall, who "came out of the fracas with his classic nose almost severed from his suntanned face."
In 1947, Truman Capote
wrote in a letter: " I am living in a very posh establishment, the Sunset Tower, which, or so the local gentry tell me, is where every scandal that ever happened happened." Others report that the Sunset Tower was "notorious for having the best-kept call girls in Hollywood."
The hotel has also appeared in several feature films, including "The Italian Job
", "Get Shorty
", "The Player
" and "Strange Days
."
(Col. Klink from Hogan's Heroes
) said of the building: "Welcome to Beirut West."
gave the owners an award for their work in preserving the Sunset Tower. The St. James's Club operated an upscale hotel for several years, popular with celebrities, including David Bowie
.
reviewed the renovated Sunset Tower and noted: "This isn't a place that needs to declare itself 'hip' because its grand history speaks for itself—and has been successfully carried forward to the present." London's Daily Mail
noted: "Bill Murray
and Penelope Cruz
are often spotted in the restaurant, where, on most nights, you can hear 84-year-old Page Cavanaugh, who played for Sinatra and Doris Day in the 1940s, tinkle the ivories."
As part of the 2006 restoration, the Tower Bar was reconfigured to have a more turn of the century ambience. After the Tower Bar opened in 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that it had become one of the trendiest in Los Angeles: "On a recent night at the intimate Tower Bar, Jennifer Aniston
dines 10 feet away from Joaquin Phoenix
and white-coated waiters weave between tables like players in a Broadway musical. A $155 bottle of Pinot Noir is uncorked here, chilled oysters delivered there and a bow given every now and then." The New York Times also reported on the transformation of the hotel: "The striped silk-and-walnut Tower Bar restaurant is already a retro clubhouse for the mature Hollywood set (think Brian Grazer
and Barbara Walters
), complete with $13 martinis and the octogenarian former Sinatra pianist Page Cavanaugh tickling the ivories. On a Friday night in mid-December, Anjelica Huston
and Courtney Love
swanned by to dine with a 30-something crowd far more sophisticated than the teenyboppers roaming Sunset Boulevard outside." Other celebrities visiting the Tower Bar include Sean Penn
, Victoria Beckham
, Tom Cruise
and Jennifer Lopez
. In February 2007, the New York Post reported that the hotel's front desk manager was nearly fired when Britney Spears
tried to book three rooms. Owner Jeff Klein was reportedly overheard yelling at the manager, "If that piece of trailer trash so much as enters my driveway, you are fired. She can't come here with all my chic guests, she'll ruin the place." Also in 2007, Sean "Diddy" Combs
showed up with an entourage to attend a Golden Globes party, and was told his name wasn't on the list. When Combs was reported to have become "verbally abusive," owner Jeff Klein personally asked Combs to leave. When Klein said he would call the police if Combs did not leave, the New York Post reported that Combs was heard shouting, "Just try it - I'll spend the rest of my life hunting you down!" In February 2009, Vanity Fair
hosted its Oscar party
at the Sunset Tower.
in 1980.
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...
located on the Sunset Strip
Sunset Strip
The Sunset Strip is the name given to the mile-and-a-half stretch of Sunset Boulevard that passes through West Hollywood, California. It extends from West Hollywood's eastern border with Hollywood at Harper Avenue, to its western border with Beverly Hills at Sierra Drive...
in West Hollywood, California
West Hollywood, California
West Hollywood, a city of Los Angeles County, California, was incorporated on November 29, 1984, with a population of 34,399 at the 2010 census. 41% of the city's population is made up of gay men according to a 2002 demographic analysis by Sara Kocher Consulting for the City of West Hollywood...
. Designed in 1929 by architect Leland A. Bryant, opened in 1931, it is considered one of the finest examples of Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
architecture in the Los Angeles area. In its early years, it was the residence of many Hollywood celebrities, including John Wayne
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
and Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
. After a period of decline in the early 1980s, the building was renovated and has been operated as a luxury hotel under the names The St. James's Club, The Argyle, and most recently the Sunset Tower Hotel. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1980.
Construction and architecture
The art deco Sunset Tower is considered one of the finest examples of the Streamline ModerneStreamline Moderne
Streamline Moderne, sometimes referred to by either name alone or as Art Moderne, was a late type of the Art Deco design style which emerged during the 1930s...
form of Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
architecture in Southern California. In their guide to Los Angeles architecture, David Gebhard and Robert Winter wrote that "this tower is a first class monument of the Zig Zag Moderne and as much an emblem of Hollywood as the Hollywood sign
Hollywood Sign
The Hollywood Sign is a landmark and American cultural icon in the Hollywood Hills area of Mount Lee, Santa Monica Mountains, in Los Angeles, California. The sign spells out the name of the area in and white letters. It was created as an advertisement in 1923, but garnered increasing recognition...
." It is situated in a commanding location on the Sunset Strip with views of the city and is decorated with plaster frieze
Frieze
thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...
s of plants, animals, zeppelins, mythological creatures and Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...
. Originally operated as a luxury apartment hotel, it was one of the first high-rise reinforced concrete buildings in California. When it was completed in August 1931 at a cost of $750,000, 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....
reported: "What is described to be the tallest apartment-house in Los Angeles County, rising 15 stories or 195 feet, was completed last week at Kings Road and Sunset Boulevard by W.I. Moffett, general contractor, for E.M. Fleming, owner."
Hollywood landmark
John Wayne
Marion Mitchell Morrison , better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive calm voice, walk, and height...
, Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Jerry Buss
Jerry Buss
Gerald Hatten "Jerry" Buss Ph.D., M.S. is an American businessman, real estate investor, and a former chemist. He is the majority owner of the Los Angeles Lakers professional basketball team along with other professional sports franchises in Southern California...
and novelist James Wohl lived in the penthouse at different times, and Hughes reportedly also rented some of the lower apartments for his girlfriends or mistresses. John Wayne reportedly once brought a cow up to his penthouse apartment at 3 a.m. telling his party guests who were gathering for coffee that they would have to go directly to the source if they wanted cream. Other former residents include Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
, Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn
Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...
, Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
, Michael Caine
Michael Caine
Sir Michael Caine, CBE is an English actor. He won Academy Awards for best supporting actor in both Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules ....
, Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...
, Roger Moore
Roger Moore
Sir Roger George Moore KBE , is an English actor, perhaps best known for portraying British secret agent James Bond in seven films from 1973 to 1985. He also portrayed Simon Templar in the long-running British television series The Saint.-Early life:Moore was born in Stockwell, London...
, Zsa Zsa Gabor
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Zsa Zsa Gabor is a Hungarian-born American stage, film and television actress.She acted on stage in Vienna, Austria, in 1932, and was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936. She emigrated to the United States in 1941 and became a sought-after actress with "European flair and style", with a personality that...
, Billie Burke
Billie Burke
Mary William Ethelbert Appleton "Billie" Burke was an American actress. She is primarily known to modern audiences as Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the musical film The Wizard of Oz. She was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance as Emily Kilbourne in Merrily We Live...
, Joseph Schenck
Joseph Schenck
Joseph Michael Schenck was a pioneer executive who played a key role in the development of the United States film industry.Born in Rybinsk, Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia to a Jewish household, he and his family-including younger brother Nicholas- emigrated to New York City in 1893, he and Nicholas...
, Paulette Goddard
Paulette Goddard
Paulette Goddard was an American film and theatre actress. A former child fashion model and in several Broadway productions as Ziegfeld Girl, she was a major star of the Paramount Studio in the 1940s. She was married to several notable men, including Charlie Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich...
, Zasu Pitts
ZaSu Pitts
ZaSu Pitts was an American actress who starred in many silent dramas and comedies, transitioning to comedy sound films.-Early life:ZaSu Pitts was born in Parsons, Kansas to Rulandus and Nellie Pitts; she was the third of four children...
, George Stevens
George Stevens
George Stevens was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer.Among his most notable films were Diary of Anne Frank , nominated for Best Director, Giant , winner of Oscar for Best Director, Shane , Oscar nominated, and A Place in the Sun , winner of Oscar for Best...
, Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges
Preston Sturges , originally Edmund Preston Biden, was a celebrated playwright, screenwriter and film director born in Chicago, Illinois...
, and Carol Kane
Carol Kane
Carolyn Laurie "Carol" Kane is an American actress. Kane has worked on the stage, on the screen and in television. She appeared on the television series Taxi in the early 1980s, as the wife of the character played by Andy Kaufman. She received two Emmy Awards for her work...
.
In 1944, resident Bugsy Siegel
Bugsy Siegel
Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was an American gangster who was involved with the Genovese crime family...
, described by the Los Angeles Times as a "Hollywood sportsman", was charged with running a bookmaking operations from his apartment at Sunset Tower. Siegel called it "a bum rap," and witnesses testified that Siegel and his friends were only playing "a friendly game of gin rummy." Siegel later pleaded guilty, paid a $250 fine, and was "asked" by management to leave his apartment at Sunset Tower.
The building was also the site of a publicized "Battle of the Balcony" involving bandleader Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
in 1944. Dorsey became involved in a fistfight with actor Jon Hall
Jon Hall
Jon Hall was an American film actor.-Biography:Born Charles Felix Locher in Fresno, California, and raised in Tahiti by his father, the Swiss-born actor Felix Locher, he was a nephew of James Norman Hall, one of the authors of Mutiny on the Bounty...
after the actor "paid undue attention to (Dorsey's) actress-wife Pat Dane" at a party held in Dorsey's apartment. The Los Angeles Times reported that actor Eddie Norris "darn near got killed . . . during the celebrity-infested brawl . . . when he tried to act as peacemaker" between Dorsey and Hall, who "came out of the fracas with his classic nose almost severed from his suntanned face."
In 1947, Truman Capote
Truman Capote
Truman Streckfus Persons , known as Truman Capote , was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction are recognized literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's and the true crime novel In Cold Blood , which he labeled a "nonfiction novel." At...
wrote in a letter: " I am living in a very posh establishment, the Sunset Tower, which, or so the local gentry tell me, is where every scandal that ever happened happened." Others report that the Sunset Tower was "notorious for having the best-kept call girls in Hollywood."
The hotel has also appeared in several feature films, including "The Italian Job
The Italian Job
The Italian Job is a 1969 British caper film, written by Troy Kennedy Martin, produced by Michael Deeley and directed by Peter Collinson. Subsequent television showings and releases on video have established it as an institution in the United Kingdom....
", "Get Shorty
Get Shorty (film)
Get Shorty is a 1995 crime-comedy film based on Elmore Leonard's novel of the same name. Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and starring John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, and Danny DeVito, the plot remained true to the book except for a few minor details....
", "The Player
The Player
The Player is a 1992 American satirical film directed by Robert Altman from a screenplay by Michael Tolkin based on his own 1988 novel of the same name....
" and "Strange Days
Strange Days (film)
Strange Days is a 1995 cyberpunk science fiction film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and produced and co-written by James Cameron and Jay Cocks, starring Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, Michael Wincott and Vincent D'Onofrio. Despite positive reviews, the film was a...
."
Decline in the 1980s
By 1982, a plan to convert the building to condominiums failed, and construction was halted abruptly with residents still living there. The building had deteriorated and was described as "like something from a war-ravaged land." At the time, resident Werner KlempererWerner Klemperer
Werner Klemperer was a comedic and dramatic actor, best known for his role as Colonel Klink on the CBS television sitcom, Hogan's Heroes.-Early life:...
(Col. Klink from Hogan's Heroes
Hogan's Heroes
Hogan's Heroes is an American television sitcom that ran for 168 episodes from September 17, 1965, to March 28, 1971, on the CBS network. The show was set in a German prisoner of war camp during the Second World War. Bob Crane had the starring role as Colonel Robert E...
) said of the building: "Welcome to Beirut West."
The St. James's Club
The building was saved from deterioration and possible demolition when it was purchased in 1985 from architect David Lawrence Gray, FAIA by Peter de Savary who promised to "lovingly restore" the building to its former glory by spending $25 million to convert the building into the first American branch of his luxury hotel chain, the St. James's Club. David Gray's firm handled the historic restoration of this treasure and in 1988, the Los Angeles ConservancyLos Angeles Conservancy
The Los Angeles Conservancy is an historic preservation organization in Los Angeles, California. It works to document, rescue and revitalize historic buildings, places and neighborhoods in the city. The Conservancy is the largest membership based historic preservation organization in the country...
gave the owners an award for their work in preserving the Sunset Tower. The St. James's Club operated an upscale hotel for several years, popular with celebrities, including David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
.
Restoration and operation by Jeff Klein
The Lancaster Group purchased the hotel from de Savary in 1992, renaming it the Argyle. In 2004, Jeff Klein purchased the hotel. Klein hired designer Paul Fortune to renovate the hotel, adding more modern amenities, and restored its original name. In 2006, Toronto's The Globe and MailThe Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
reviewed the renovated Sunset Tower and noted: "This isn't a place that needs to declare itself 'hip' because its grand history speaks for itself—and has been successfully carried forward to the present." London's Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
noted: "Bill Murray
Bill Murray
William James "Bill" Murray is an American actor and comedian. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack , Ghostbusters , and...
and Penelope Cruz
Penélope Cruz
Penélope Cruz Sánchez is a Spanish actress. Signed by an agent at age 15, she made her acting debut at 16 on television and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón, jamón , to critical acclaim...
are often spotted in the restaurant, where, on most nights, you can hear 84-year-old Page Cavanaugh, who played for Sinatra and Doris Day in the 1940s, tinkle the ivories."
As part of the 2006 restoration, the Tower Bar was reconfigured to have a more turn of the century ambience. After the Tower Bar opened in 2006, the Los Angeles Times reported that it had become one of the trendiest in Los Angeles: "On a recent night at the intimate Tower Bar, Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Aniston
Jennifer Joanna Aniston is an American actress, film director, and producer, best known for her role as Rachel Green on the television sitcom Friends, a role which earned her an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.Aniston has also enjoyed a successful film career,...
dines 10 feet away from Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Rafael Phoenix , formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, is an American film actor. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and his family returned to the continental United States four years later...
and white-coated waiters weave between tables like players in a Broadway musical. A $155 bottle of Pinot Noir is uncorked here, chilled oysters delivered there and a bow given every now and then." The New York Times also reported on the transformation of the hotel: "The striped silk-and-walnut Tower Bar restaurant is already a retro clubhouse for the mature Hollywood set (think Brian Grazer
Brian Grazer
Brian Thomas Grazer is an Academy Award-winning American film and television producer who co-founded Imagine Entertainment in 1986 with Ron Howard. Together they have produced many acclaimed films, including Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind .- Career :Brian Grazer began his career as a producer...
and Barbara Walters
Barbara Walters
Barbara Jill Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. She has hosted morning television shows , the television newsmagazine , former co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, and current contributor to ABC News.Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news...
), complete with $13 martinis and the octogenarian former Sinatra pianist Page Cavanaugh tickling the ivories. On a Friday night in mid-December, Anjelica Huston
Anjelica Huston
Anjelica Huston is an American actress. Huston became the third generation of her family to win an Academy Award, for her performance in 1985's Prizzi's Honor, joining her father, director John Huston, and grandfather, actor Walter Huston. She later was nominated in 1989 and 1990 for her acting in...
and Courtney Love
Courtney Love
Courtney Michelle Love is an American rock musician. Love is the lead vocalist, lyricist, and rhythm guitarist for alternative rock band Hole, which she formed in 1989, and is an actress who has moved from bit parts in Alex Cox films to significant and acclaimed roles in The People vs...
swanned by to dine with a 30-something crowd far more sophisticated than the teenyboppers roaming Sunset Boulevard outside." Other celebrities visiting the Tower Bar include Sean Penn
Sean Penn
Sean Justin Penn is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his political and social activism...
, Victoria Beckham
Victoria Beckham
Victoria Caroline Beckham is an English singer-songwriter, dancer, model, actress, fashion designer and businesswoman. In the late 1990s, Beckham rose to fame with the all-female pop group Spice Girls and was dubbed Posh Spice by the July 1996 issue of the British pop music magazine Top of the Pops...
, Tom Cruise
Tom Cruise
Thomas Cruise Mapother IV , better known as Tom Cruise, is an American film actor and producer. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards and he has won three Golden Globe Awards....
and Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lopez
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American actress, singer, record producer, dancer, television personality, and fashion designer. Lopez began her career as a dancer on the television comedy program In Living Color. Subsequently venturing into acting, she gained recognition in the 1995 action-thriller...
. In February 2007, the New York Post reported that the hotel's front desk manager was nearly fired when Britney Spears
Britney Spears
Britney Jean Spears is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album...
tried to book three rooms. Owner Jeff Klein was reportedly overheard yelling at the manager, "If that piece of trailer trash so much as enters my driveway, you are fired. She can't come here with all my chic guests, she'll ruin the place." Also in 2007, Sean "Diddy" Combs
Sean Combs
Sean John Combs , also known by his stage names Diddy and P. Diddy, is an American rapper, singer, record producer, actor, and entrepreneur. He has won three Grammy Awards and two MTV Video Music Awards, and his clothing line earned a Council of Fashion Designers of America award. He was originally...
showed up with an entourage to attend a Golden Globes party, and was told his name wasn't on the list. When Combs was reported to have become "verbally abusive," owner Jeff Klein personally asked Combs to leave. When Klein said he would call the police if Combs did not leave, the New York Post reported that Combs was heard shouting, "Just try it - I'll spend the rest of my life hunting you down!" In February 2009, Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
hosted its Oscar party
Oscar party
An Oscar party is any of the various parties, usually held by entertainment-media corporations, immediately following the broadcast of the Academy Awards ceremony. Some sponsors, such as Vanity Fair magazine, are known for holding such a party year after year, and the influence of the sponsor can...
at the Sunset Tower.
Historic designation
The building was listed on the National Register of Historic PlacesNational Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
in 1980.