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Overview

This inconspicuous three-story motel lodged many passing musicians performing at the Troubadour or another of the clubs on the nearby Sunset Strip. Known for its "benign seaminess," the Tropicana Motel became a West Coast analog to the Chelsea Hotel in New York for youthful creative types. (See Robert W. Stewart, "Page From Rock 'n' Roll History Falls Prey to Wrecking Crews," Los Angeles Times, 10/19/1987, p. C1.) Singer Tom Waits resided here for four years during the 1970s, wedging an upright Steinway piano into the kitchen of his two-room suite without permission of ownership.

Building History

The Tropicana Motel opened on Santa Monica Boulevard in either late 1947 or early 1948. (The first classified ad for it in the Los Angeles Times ran on 01/25/1948.) Subsequent classified ads called it the "Tropicana Hotel," describing it as "new, luxurious and close to everything." Perhaps most appealing for young, would-be actors, it had a 24-hour switchboard that could accommodate casting calls at all hours of the day. (See Tropicana Hotel classified ad, Los Angeles Times, 07/20/1948, p. A17.)

The Los Angeles Dodger pitcher, Sandy Koufax (born 12/30/1935 in Brooklyn, NY), became the inn's fourth owner from 1962 until the late 1960s, when he sold it to an investment group led by Jerry Heiner (born c. 1928). An article by Alison Martino in Los Angeles Magazine.com summarized the motel's importance to rock musicians of the 1960s and 1970s: "The Dodger’s investment no doubt drew clientele to the Tropicana, but the hotel became even more popular after Jerry Heiner and his partners purchased it from Koufax in the late 1960s. The joint was just a hop, skip, and blurry-eyed stumble from the Troubadour and Barney’s Beanery, and as the rock music scene grew up around those venues, the Tropicana became its unofficial HQ. Janis Joplin, Bob Marley, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, and members of the Runaways, the Ramones, Blondie, the New York Dolls, and the Clash all passed through. When Jim Morrison couldn’t book his usual room at the Alta Cienega Motel around the corner, he’d pass out at the Tropicana instead. According to the Los Angeles Times, Poet William S. Burroughs was occasionally spotted in a lounge chair by the pool, and Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac reportedly landed their recording contact while staying at the motel." (See Alison Martino, Los Angeles Magazine.com, "The Tropicana Motel’s Totally Rocking Heyday," published 10/12/2015, accessed 08/09/2021.) It became a scene of reliable depravity, well-known to the counterculture and local police.

The Tropicana was central to the bars, night clubs and recording studios needed by musicians. It stood adjacent to the cultural ferment occurring in movie and recording studions as well as the Sunset Strip. Bbishop944, writing for Patch.com said of the neighborhood: "Compared with Sunset Boulevard's glamour and bright lights, Santa Monica Boulevard back then was gritty and dark. Trains still ran down the middle of the street, which was lined with various auto parts, repair and wreckage shops, lumber yards, liquor stores and warehouses. When Elektra Records built a state-of-the-art recording studio close to the motel in 1967 at 962 N. La Cienega Blvd., its artists were housed at the Tropicana. Janis Joplin, Bruce Springsteen, Frank Zappa, Alice Cooper, Led Zepplin, the Mamas and the Papas, the Beach Boys, Jim McGuinn of the Byrds and Martha and the Vandellas, the list goes on." (See Bbishop944, Patch.com, "Tropicana Was the Quintessential Rock 'n' Roll Motel," published 11/25/2016, accessed 08/09/2021.) The hotel gained a reputation for its all-hours partying, tolerance and periodic drug overdoses.

Building Notes

During the period Koufax owned the Tropicana, it contained 74 air-conditioned rooms. A postcard of the time advertised its "popular prices" and "family kitchenette suites and apartments."

The three-story hotel was U-shaped formed around a central, kidney-shaped swimming pool, trimmed in Astroturf. The pool's bottom was famously painted black, supposedly to hide its grime.

After 1968, the motel featured its own restaurant, Duke's, that served tasty diner food to hung-over, late-arising guests, hipsters and groupies. Los Angeles Times writer Pleasant Gehman wrote of it in 1982: “Duke’s Coffee Shop at the Tropicana Motel in West Hollywood gets the same dogged devotion from its patrons as El Coyote. Once you’ve eaten at Duke’s you’re hooked, because the food is delicious and the atmosphere is that of a congenial cafeteria. Duke’s clientele consists mainly of down-and-out actors, rock n’rollers who’ve been coming to the places since the Doors make [sic] it popular in the mid-‘60s, and occasional swanky Beverly Hills-types who enjoy the food and feel like slumming. Duke’s is long and narrow, with rows of table which the customers share, cafeteria style, and a bustling lunch counter. The walls are festooned with cartoons and paintings in bright colors, and photos of patrons and the staff. It’s always crowded, and the racket there is deafening—laughter, clanging pots and pans, orders being yelled back to the kitchen. The atmosphere is one of pandemonium.” (See Pleasant Gehman, “Rock Eateries—Fast ’N’ Furious: Rock Dining in L.A., Los Angeles Times, 02/28/1982, p. M86.) With the Tropicana threatened with demolition, Duke's managers, Richard Miller and Henie Burke, moved to a larger location at 8909 West Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood by late 1986. (See L.N. Halliburton, "Duke's: Nothing's Changed but the Address," Los Angeles Times, 03/27/1987, p. H16.)

Artist Andy Warhol (1928-1967) filmed two features at the Tropicana: Trash (1972) and Heat (1974).

In the 1970s, the musicians Rickie Lee Jones (born 11/08/1954 in Chicago, IL), Tom Waits (born 12/07/1949 in Pomona, CA) and Chuck E. Weiss (d. 07/20/2021 in Los Angeles, CA) resided at the Tropicana Motel in West Hollywood, CA. According to Weiss, "'It was a regular DMZ,' except everyone had a tan and looked nice." (See "Chuck E. Weiss, 76, Musician Who Inspired a '79 Hit Song," New York Times, 08/01/2021, p. Y19.) Waits became one the motel's most devoted guests, renting a bungalow there between 1975 and 1979.

Demolition

The Tropicana Motel was purchased by shopping center developer Yehuda Naftali (born c. 1945) in 1984. Although he was aware of the inn's historical importance, the years of sybaritic partying took its toll on the wood-frame building. It became irreparable, and Naftali decided to raze it in 10/1987. He erected shops and the $20 million, 178-room Ramada Plaza West Hollywood Hotel on the site.

PCAD id: 24105