Chateau Marmont Hotel

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The Chateau Marmont

The Chateau Marmont is a hotel built in West Hollywood, California in 1927 and modeled after the Château d'Amboise in France's Loire Valley. It has served as the backdrop for a number of events in the lives of well-known rock stars and actors. Fred Horowitz, a local attorney, began construction on the hotel in 1927. His project turned into the Chateau Marmont, named for the street running across the back of the property. The Chateau Marmont opened in February 1929 as an apartment house, but high rents and the Depression kept renters away. In 1931 the building was changed to a hotel.^[1] The hotel was bought in 1990 is currently owned and managed by Hotels AB, run by celebrity hotelier Andre Balazs.

The Chateau Marmont was designed and constructed as earthquake proof, and has survived major earthquakes in 1933, 1953, 1971, 1987, and 1994 without sustaining any major structural damage. Nine cottages were built in the 1930s next to the hotel, which were acquired by the hotel in the 1940s. Two of the 4 bungalows at the Chateau Marmont were designed by Craig Ellwood in 1956 after he completed Case Study Houses. The bungalows are like miniature case study houses.^[2]

1 Notable people associated
2 Other notable residents
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Notable people associated

Featured on the cover of Gram Parsons' solo album, GP released in 1973. Gram Parsons also lived there for a time in the early 1970s.
In 1982, John Belushi died of a drug overdose in one of its garden bungalows.
Jim Morrison of The Doors used up what he called the eighth of his nine lives after he hurt his back here while dangling from a drain pipe, trying to swing from the roof into the window of his hotel room.
James Dean hopped in through a window to audition with Natalie Wood for Rebel Without a Cause.
In 1992, Demi Moore, Annie Leibovitz and Joanne Gair shot Demi's Birthday Suit at the hotel.
Johnnie Ray lived within walking distance from the hotel.
Led Zeppelin rode their motorcycles through the lobby one evening to cheering guests, causing modest damage.
When Montgomery Clift was almost killed in a 1956 auto accident near her home, Elizabeth Taylor brought him to the Chateau Marmont, where she leased the penthouse as a place for him to recuperate.
Fashion photographer Helmut Newton died when his car crashed into a wall on the driveway of the hotel.
Judy Garland sang by the lobby's grand piano with Kay Thompson during a party held by director George Cukor where she exclaimed to Thompson, "Oh, Kay, let's just sing real loud!".
Vivien Leigh, estranged from her husband, Laurence Olivier, had every surface space in her suite, 5D, covered with photographs of him. In the bedroom, however, there was only one: placed near her pillow was a photograph of she and Olivier together.
Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers recorded his vocals for By the Way in this hotel.
It is the setting for the majority of the book What's A Girl To Do?.
Where FOX series Fastlane character Officer Donovan Ray lives in order to maintain his undercover alias Van Strummer.
It appears in the HBO series Entourage when director Billy Walsh meets with Vincent Chase to discuss Queens Boulevard.
Was briefly managed by former silent film actress Ann Little in her later years.
The Hotel is referenced in the Grateful Dead song "West LA Fadeaway"
Hunter S. Thompson was often a guest at the hotel.
Harry Cohn, founder of Columbia Pictures, told William Holden and Glenn Ford; "If you are going to get in trouble, do it at the Chateau Marmont".
Lindsay Lohan stayed at the hotel following her July 24, 2007 arrest for drunk driving.
English author Nigel Williams documents his stay at the hotel in his 1994 travelogue From Wimbledon to Waco.
Britney Spears was reportedly kicked out of the hotel.
Singer Ville Valo of the Finnish rock group HIM recorded the song "Song or Suicide" at this hotel for their 2007 album Venus Doom.
Executive Chef Carolynn Spence was formerly Chef de Cuisine at The Spotted Pig in New York.

The Chateau Marmont web site describes it as "the one and only", but in reality, there is at least one other Chateau Marmont located in Châtillon sur Seine, France, and named after Auguste Marmont.

In a video shown by The Insider and Entertainment Tonight on January 30, 2008, Heath Ledger is seen at a party where other people appear to be taking drugs. Eventually only promos were shown out of respect for his friends and family. Heath had died a week earlier.