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Overview

Completed in 1931, the Sunset Tower Apartment tower was sited on a promontory that commanded sweeping views of Los Angeles. Its owner, E.M. Fleming, also sited the property outside of Los Angeles's city boundaries at the time, enabling him to exceed its height limits. Its height was said to be equal to that of the Los Angeles City Hall, the building that set the city's height limit. The Sunset Tower had a very modern appearance for its time, making it stand out from contemporary period revival buildings, and very modern technologies for the day. It has been billed as Los Angeles's first fully electric building.

Building History

Designed in the late 1920s by noted apartment building designer Leland A. Bryant, (1890-1954), the Sunset Tower was one of his most distinctive and successful efforts. Bryant devised its design during the Art Deco era but just as the Streamline Moderne chapter began to unfold in Los Angeles. The Sunset Tower had characteristics of both modes, being geometricized and freed of most clichéd period ornamentation. Some elements still derived from Classical precedents, such as volute forms (common to the Art Deco) on the parapet frieze, but Bryant also assembled an eclectic and strange assortment of other decorative motifs, some exotic, taken from nature and modern life, including male and female figures, stags, goats, fighter planes, an eagle, elephant, sun, zeppelin, submarine, and pagoda. Aside from these sculptural friezes, its decorative scheme, in general, had a predominantly Art Deco flavor, chevrons being very apparent, but the faceted corner windows hinted at the wrap-around aesthetic that would define the Streamline Moderne. The hotel's hybrid Art Deco/Streamline Moderne character also can be seen in Seattle's Edmond Meany Hotel (1929-1931), constructed contemporaneously. The Meany was shorn of the ornamental friezework.

Constructed at a cost of $750,000, the Sunset Tower Apartments opened in mid-August 1931, just as the Depression began to be felt in earnest across most of the US. Due to the presence of the film industry, however, Los Angeles was shielded somewhat from its worst economic effects, leading people from across the world to seek work here.

The Sunset Tower Hotel's web site stated of the tower's history: "Designed in 1929 by architect Leland A. Bryant, the Sunset Tower (as it was originally called) was a trendsetter from the moment it opened. Its dramatic setting on the Sunset Strip and elegant Art Deco styling, together with its proximity to famous restaurants and nightclubs of the 1930s & ’40s, contributed to its landmark status. Leland Bryant specialized in luxury apartments, but the Sunset Tower was his crowning achievement. His work was predominantly in Period Revival, but with this building he proved that he was equally adept with the then contemporary Deco style." (See Sunset Tower Hotel.com, "About Sunset Tower," accessed 11/05/2020.) Bryant became well-known in Los Angeles for his other luxury apartment high-rises, including the Afton Arms Apartments, Los Angeles, (1924), Trianon Apartments, Los Angeles, (1929-1930), and Colonial House Apartments, West Hollywood, (1930-1931).

The building with its rental apartments began to fall into disarray during the 1970s amidst efforts to turn it into condominiums. In 1994, the Los Angeles Times.com noted that "...the Sunset Tower went downhill in the 1970s, falling victim to failed condo conversion plans and eventually standing empty for years." (See Mathis Chazanov, Los Angeles Times.com, "High Society: History: Landmark hotel towers over Sunset Strip--and Hollywood lore. Owners hope new name will revive its glory," published 10/02/1994, accessed 11/05/2020.) In 1982, architect David Lawrence Gray purchased the property, hoping to refurbish it.

Mathis Chazanov, in the Los Angeles Times.com story of 1994, elaborated on Gray's story: “'It was a mess, legally. There were probably 20 to 25 lawsuits against it,' recalls architect David Gray, who mortgaged his house to acquire the hulk. 'I used to live by there and it was just falling apart and it was just sad, and one day I just made up my mind I was going to fix it.' A mutual acquaintance introduced him to de Savary, who was looking for a West Coast branch to add to his collection of real estate, which included St. James’ clubs in Paris and Antigua, as well as the original club in London. After unraveling the legal knots, Gray sold de Savary the building but stayed on as architect for the $40-million project, adding a parking garage, two townhouses and the restaurant space." (See Mathis Chazanov, Los Angeles Times.com, "High Society: History: Landmark hotel towers over Sunset Strip--and Hollywood lore. Owners hope new name will revive its glory," published 10/02/1994, accessed 11/05/2020.) Gray sold the property to British capitalist Peter John de Savary, (born 07/11/1944 in Essex, England), in 1985, who presided over an ambitious renovation campaign. While owned by de Savary, the West Hollywood Saint James’s Club was affiliated with a men's club in London of the same name founded in 1857.

Peter de Savary sold his Saint James's Club properties to another British firm, the Norfolk Capital Group, Ltd., in 07/1987, and offered the buyer an option on the California club. Norfolk paid for $34.5 million in cash for the Sunset Tower just after the hotel reopened in 05/1988. (See Ruth Ryon, "Hot Property: Miracle Mile Will Get Touch of Hollywood,” Los Angeles Times, 05/01/1988, p. H1.)

The Sunset Tower operated as the "Saint James’s Club and Hotel" when it was owned between 02/1988 and 1994 by Norfolk Capital, and a later British owner, Queen's Moat Houses, PLC, (which took over Norfolk in 1989-1990). Queen's Moat was forced to sell properties, including Sunset Tower, after accounting irregularities were made public in 1993. Subsequently, another owner, the Houston-based Lancaster Group Hotel Management, Incorporated, renamed the property, "The Argyle" in 1994.

In 2004, hotelier Jeffrey Michael Klein, (born 04/24/1970 in New York, NY), and an investor, Peter Krulewitch, bought the Sunset Tower and converted it into the "Sunset Tower Hotel." Klein, though the minority partner, managed the hotel and maintained its exclusive brand image. In 2015, Krulewitch sold his investment, to a holding company known as "ER Hollywood," which contributed $60 million to the hotel. The money behind ER Hollywood came from billionaire Thai investor, Thosapong Jaruthavee, nicknamed "Mr. T," who, in turn, sold his 80% stake in the property to Ukrainian investor Len Blavatnik, (born 06/14/1957 in Odessa, Ukraine), for approximately $100 million in late 05/2017.

Building Notes

During the early-to-mid-twentieth century, a range of actors and other celebrities including Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Paulette Goddard, Billie Burke, Errol Flynn, Zasu Pitts, John Wayne, Howard Hughes, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Preston Sturges, Truman Capote, Jerry Buss, Werner Klemperer, Quincy Jones, Tina Turner, Carol Kane and Roger Moore, resided in the Sunset Tower Apartments. Its location, views, modern amenities, unusual aesthetic and proximity to other celebrities attracted those seeking the limelight.

Klein redesigned a ground-floor apartment owned by gangster Bugsy Siegel in 2005 and rechristened the space the Tower Bar and Restaurant. The hotel's web site said of the space in 2020: "A cozy rendezvous inspired by early Hollywood, The Tower Bar and Restaurant offers an elegant haven for the discerning. The Tower Bar also offers casual dress poolside dining with a unique indoor/outdoor setting and incredible, sweeping views of the city. Steeped in the mystery of a glamorous Hollywood long past, walnut-paneled walls frame sweeping views of the city. Here guests can sip cocktails in flattering rose-colored light, lulled by the playing of famed jazz pianists. The Tower Bar is the chicest and most welcoming room in town, with a fireplace and discreet niche seating for privacy. Housed in Bugsy Siegel's former apartment on the ground floor and connected to the newly expanded Terrace Bar-- the experience is elegantly choreographed by Maitre D' Gabé Doppelt." (See Sunset Tower Hotel.com, "The Tower Bar," accessed 11/05/2020.)

In 2017, the Sunset Tower Hotel contained 81 rooms. The sale price by ER Hollywood attained in that year, meant that each room had an approximate value of $1.2 million, very high for Southern CA.

Tel: 800.225.2637 or 323.654.7100.

Alteration

Peter de Savary supervised a renovation and expansion of the Sunset Tower, costing somewhere between $25 and $40 million between 1985 and 1988. The restoration team consisted of former owner and architect David Lawrence Gray, interior designer, David Becker, and former Disney designers Shawn Barrett, Gary Bell and William Sly. Becker created new interior features including, "...gondola-shaped beds and mini-bars that rose at the push of a button from cabinets made of exotic woods." (See Mathis Chazanov, Los Angeles Times.com, "High Society: History: Landmark hotel towers over Sunset Strip--and Hollywood lore. Owners hope new name will revive its glory," published 10/02/1994, accessed 11/05/2020.)

Hotelier Klein worked with interior designer Paul Fortune in 2004 to restore and reanimate the hotel's rooms and common areas. Unlike many "hip hotels" of the 1990s and 2000s, Klein and fortune took a slightly more conservative, less frankly Modern approach, retaining and enhancing many existing features and employing a more restrained, earth-toned palette. The result was an elegant and up-to-date look, but one that kept enough existing details to project a slightly nostalgic appeal. It was Modern Los Angeles with an overlay of Old Hollywood mixed together.

The JK Hotel Group directed a renovation of the hotel and its amenities in 2018. At that time, the hotel contained 81 bedrooms and suites. Klein transformed John Wayne’s former apartment into a 3,000-square-foot Mansion Fitness gym, and a spa managed by New Yorker Joanna Vargas was also added in 2018.