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Overview

The Hollywood Plaza Hotel, opened in 1925 just south of the famous corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, and functioned as an elegant hotel catering to movie industry executives, traveling businessmen, families and actors during its most glamorous early decades between 1925 and World War II. A ten-story tower, it has functioned as a hotel, an apartment hotel and housing for the elderly. Interestingly, an original date palm grove planted by the Hollywood Plaza Hotel's owner, Jacob Stern, has remained on the property for over 100 years.

Building History

By 1889, landowner Jacob Stern (born 12/27/1871 in Russia-d. 12/29/1935 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA) operated a realty company and a fruit orchard in this area of Los Angeles. He built a grand house on his five-acre property, Casa De Las Palmas, and made a good living selling real estate parcels in the vicinity. His life would change rapidly after 1913. Stern, by 12/1913, made the fortunate business decision to lease a part of his ranch's barn to Cecil Blount DeMille (1881-1959), the film director, who would produce silent movies in this space. DeMille became a partner in the extremely successful Hollywood studio, Famous Players–Lasky Corporation, formed in 1916 (later to become Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation in 1927). The area around Stern's former agricultural fields filled with people, exploding in size from 5,000 in 1910 to about 100,000 by 1920, as the movie industry expanded and Stern became a very wealthy landowner almost overnight. Seeking to magnify the value of his property, Stern decided on building a hotel at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street, seeking to make it a glamorous meeting place for Hollywood businessmen and personalities. (See Steve Vaught, Paradise Leased.com, "The Hollywood Plaza--Hollywood's Forgotten Luxury Hotel," published 10/24/2012, accessed 08/01/2024.)

Stern's business saavy proved to earn generational wealth for his family. In 2024, Oppenheim Real Estate, run by Stern's great-great grandson, Brett Oppenheim, continued to manage the assets put in place by Jacob. Oppenheim's web page noted the wellspring of its good fortune: "No influence was greater than the Company’s development of a five-acre parcel at the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and Vine St. at the turn of the 19th Century. On that parcel Brett Oppenheim’s great-great grandfather, Jacob Stern, built his personal residence and one of Hollywood’s first great estates. However, it was the lease of the horse barn at the southwest corner of the property for $75 a month to three aspiring movie producers that would alter the course of Los Angeles. In that inauspicious horse barn, Cecil B. Demille, Jesse Lasky, and Samuel Goldwyn created Hollywood’s first movie studio, Paramount Pictures. The world’s first full-length feature film, 'The Squaw Man,' was produced and premiered in the barn. As Paramount Pictures began to thrive other production companies arrived, and film production grew into an economic force of early Hollywood. To accommodate this nescient industry the family further developed the Hollywood and Vine property, opening The Hollywood Plaza Hotel in 1925. The hotel cemented Hollywood and Vine as the premier destination of the entertainment industry and continued as Los Angeles’s most popular venue for film, radio and theatre stars of the1930s, 1940s and 1950’s." (See Oppenheim Real Estate.com, "About Oppenheim Real Estate," accessed 08/01/2024.)

Stern commissioned the Los Angeles architectural firm of Walker and Eisen to design Hollywood's second skyscraper hotel in the early 1920s. The H.M. Baruch Corporation served as the general contractor, commencing work on 09/16/1924. The hotel opened to the public on 10/15/1925.

In its early days, the Hollywood Plaza was set on verdant, landscaped grounds, laid out by the renowned landscape architect, A.E. Hanson. Of the building, Hollywood historian Steve Vaught said: "Herbert M. Baruch, the hotel’s contractor, managed to complete the ten-story reinforced concrete structure in a record thirteen months in spite of encountering major difficulties related to the sediment underlying the hotel’s foundation. Walker & Eisen designed the hotel in a vaguely Italianate/Spanish style with a rather austere façade relieved at intervals by artificial stonework. The most notable exterior aspect of the new hotel was, in fact, its landscaping, which had been overseen by one of Los Angeles’ foremost landscape architects, A.E. Hanson. Careful consideration had been given to the lush and mature grounds of the former Stern estate and incorporated into the new hotel’s design were two enclosed patios, or plazas, for which the hotel derived its name. One of the plazas, christened Patio de Los Palmas, included a dense grove of date palms and other rare specimen plants arranged around a large stone fountain." (See Steve Vaught, Paradise Leased.com, "The Hollywood Plaza--Hollywood's Forgotten Luxury Hotel," published 10/24/2012, accessed 08/01/2024.) As noted by Vaught, the palm grove also was the setting for an outdoor restaurant, the Russian Eagle Garden Café, that catered to many stars and industry moguls of the early 1930s.

Stern's investment in the Hollywood and Vine corner paid off. As noted by the Hollywood Heritage Preservation Resource Center.org: "By 1930, the intersection boasted three skyscrapers and soon the surrounding blocks were home to more film studios, theatres, and eventually the Capitol Records building in 1956. Over the years the Hollywood Plaza experienced alterations to the renowned lobby and environs. By the 1970s it became derelict and was converted into a retirement community in that same decade. Yet despite all the changes, it is said that original palm trees from the Stern Ranch can be found near the rear of the building." (See Hollywood Heritage Preservation Resource Center.org. "Then and Now, Jan. 18: 1629 Vine Street," accessed 08/01/2024.)

In 1937, Thomas E. Hull served as the Hollywood Plaza's managing director.

Building Notes

For many years, the Hollywood Plaza Hotel maintained a popular barbershop in its basement.

By 1937, the hotel operated the Cinnabar Restaurant, an elegant dining spot.

The City of Los Angeles designated the hotel building and its sign as Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #665 on 09/29/1999.