The Town House is a large former hotel property built in 1929 on

Wilshire Boulevard Wilshire Boulevard is a prominent boulevard in the Los Angeles area of Southern California, extending from Ocean Avenue in the city of Santa Monica east to Grand Avenue in the Financial District of downtown Los Angeles. One of the principal ...

, adjacent to Lafayette Park in the Westlake district of

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

. After a long career as a hotel it operates today as low income housing. The Town House was developed by oil magnate

Edward Doheny Edward Laurence Doheny (; August 10, 1856 – September 8, 1935) was an American oil tycoon who, in 1892, drilled the first successful oil well in the Los Angeles City Oil Field. His success set off a petroleum boom in Southern California, a ...

as one of the most luxurious apartment-hotels in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

. Designed by Norman W. Alpaugh, and built at a cost of $3 million,http://features.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2013/12/15/connie-hiltons-hotel-empire-fortune-1953/ it opened on September 11, 1929. It is a very late example of the Beaux Arts style, with a brick and terra cotta facade with classical detailing. The building was converted to operate exclusively as a hotel in 1937, featuring one of the most glamorous bars in the city, the Zebra Room, with interiors by noted designer

Wayne McAllister Wayne Douglas McAllister (November 17, 1907 – March 22, 2000) was a Los Angeles-based architect who was a leader in the Googie style of architecture that embraced the automobile and the Space Age. Inspired by tail fins and gleaming chrome, ...

Conrad Hilton Conrad Nicholson Hilton Sr. (December 25, 1887 – January 3, 1979) was an American businessman who founded the Hilton Hotels chain. From 1912 to 1916 Hilton was a Republican representative in the first New Mexico Legislature, but became disil ...

bought the Town House in 1942, paying owner

Arnold Kirkeby Arnold Sigurd Kirkeby (June 12, 1901 – March 1, 1962) was an American hotelier, art collector, and real estate investor. He is now best known for owning Chartwell Mansion in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel Air which was the exterior set ...

$150,000 cash and assuming $830,000 of debt.

Elizabeth Taylor Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. ...

celebrated her first marriage, to Hilton heir Conrad Hilton, Jr., at the hotel in 1950. The Town House was sold to

Sheraton Hotels Sheraton Hotels and Resorts is an international semi-luxury hotel chain owned by Marriott International. As of June 30, 2020, Sheraton operates 446 hotels with 155,617 rooms globally, including locations in North America, Africa, Asia Pacific, Ce ...

in 1954 and became the Sheraton-Town House. In 1958, Sheraton renamed the hotel the Sheraton-West Hotel. Sheraton sold the hotel to the Kyo-Ya group in 1972, although Sheraton retained management. In 1976, the hotel added four tennis courts at the rear of the enormous property, which covered nearly an entire city block. In 1978 the hotel's name reverted to the Sheraton-Town House. From the 1960s through the 1980s, the area around Lafayette Park became less desirable and more dangerous and after the

1992 Los Angeles Riots The 1992 Los Angeles riots, sometimes called the 1992 Los Angeles uprising and the Los Angeles Race Riots, were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, in April and May 1992. Unrest began in S ...

, the hotel finally closed in February 1993. Just as it was about to be demolished, the property was purchased by developer Rob MacLeod. He enlisted the Santa Monica-based firm of Killefer Flammang Architects (KFA), noted for their renovations of historic buildings, to convert the 255-room hotel into 142 units of low-income housing, under a 55-year covenant. The building reopened in December 2001. In 2017, the north half of the massive 1.8 acre property, containing the long-abandoned tennis courts and the hotel parking lot, was redeveloped by Century West Partners as a new 398-unit apartment complex, Next on Sixth, also designed by KFA. The Town House is currently owned by the Central Valley Coalition for Affordable Housing. The Town House was designated a

Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments are sites which have been designated by the Los Angeles, California, Cultural Heritage Commission as worthy of preservation based on architectural, historic and cultural criteria. History The Historic-Cult ...

in 1994 and was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

, and in 1997. Other registered historic sites within one block of the Town House include the

Bryson Apartment Hotel The Bryson Apartment Hotel is a historic , ten-story apartment building on Wilshire Boulevard in the MacArthur Park section of Los Angeles, California. Built in 1913 in the Beaux Arts style, it was one of the most luxurious residential buildings i ...

Bullocks Wilshire Bullocks Wilshire, located at 3050 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, is a Art Deco building. The building opened in September 1929 as a luxury department store for owner John G. Bullock (owner of the more mainstream Bullock's in Down ...

, the

Felipe de Neve branch Felipe de Neve Branch Library is a branch library of the Los Angeles Public Library located in Lafayette Park in Westlake, Los Angeles. It was built in 1929 based on a Mediterranean Revival-Classical Revival design by architect Austin Whittlesey. ...

of the Los Angeles Public Library system, and the

Granada Shoppes and Studios Granada Shoppes and Studios, also known as the Granada Buildings, is an imaginative, Mediterranean Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival style block-long complex consisting of four courtyard-connected structures, in Central Los Angeles, California. ...

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Town House Hotel buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Los Angeles Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments Residential buildings in Los Angeles Hotels established in 1929 Mediterranean Revival architecture in California Westlake, Los Angeles Hotel buildings completed in 1929 Sheraton hotels

See also

References

External links