Monday, February 16, 2015

Luxury Hotel Tower Rising in Beverly Hills


The modest Beverly Hills skyline will soon be augmented by a striking five-star hotel tower.

Earlier this year, a team of investors lead by the Alagem Capital Group broke ground on the new Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills.  The $200 million project, located at the high-profile intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards, will consist of a 12-story tower with 170 guest rooms, luxury retail establishments, and other ancillary uses.

Designs from architecture firms Gensler and Pierre-Yves Rochon call for a structure primarily clad in white stone, featuring strong horizontal lines and curving forms which are typical of the Streamline Moderne style.  The building's interior will maintain a similar aesthetic, featuring a "rich palette of burnished bronze, warm white stone, [and] Lalique installations throughout."

Beverly Hills Waldorf Astoria (All images: Waldorf Astoria)

Each guest room will feature floor-to-ceiling windows and private balconies, offering unobstructed views of the cityscape in all directions.  These accommodations will be complemented by generous amenities, including garden patios, a luxury spa and a spacious rooftop pool deck.

When finished in 2017, the Beverly Hills location will be the Waldorf Astoria's first new build on the West Coast of the United States.  The project is a prime component of an approximately $2 billion development wave currently underway along the Beverly Hills-Century City border.







8 comments:

  1. Beautiful, although that intersection sucks and with the Richard Meier/WANDA Group project going up behind on the other side of the Hilton, that intersections is going to be hell.

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    1. We'll see how bad the traffic impacts are. I don't know if there are plans to close lanes during construction.

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    1. Corrected version: Every time while driving eastbound to the office, waiting in front of Trader Vics for the light to change, I'd look around at all of the very shiny, luxurious wheels. There'd been that unforgettable morning in December that I was two cars behind a black Range Rover. The light turned red and I and the car in front of me stopped between big and little Santa Monica boulevards. The driver of the Range Rover proceeded to shoot the red light and horror ensued. A pedestrian stepped off the curb in front of CAA and the driver was on their cell phone. Thru the windows of the car in front of me one could see a human rag doll tossed forward out of this world - just like those bodies I'd seen tossed to the wind in Santiago in the wake of Kissinger's coup. Utter horror, courtesy of an industry type concentrated on their conversation. THAT, as well as the good-guy contractor sending a thug to fire shorts outside my window (1:30 a.m.) to ward me off from the showdown scheduled later that morning decided it for me and I got the hell out of L.A.

      However, one day while sitting in my car in front of the Hilton waiting for the light to change, seeing all of those shined up automobiles left me to start singing Janice Joplin's 'Mercedes Benz.' Granted, none of you are going to believe this, but just as I finished singing that tune, up pulls a beat up old Benz and stops just to the left of me with smoke and fumes erupting from its engine compartment. No shit!

      That was like the concert at the Hollywood Bowl one summer night that I attended with my brother and his girlfriend. During the intermission I mentioned how Bernheimer often would write about empty wine bottles rolling and clanking downwards towards the stage during performances. It was an all Beethoven night. About five minutes into the Fifth Symphony, a bottle began to roll and clank about ten rows behind us. Clank, clank, clank it came and stopped right behind the bench we were sitting on. No Cabernet!

      Too much syncopation can get your brains blown out - when lots of dough is getting tossed around. Either that or you'll end up on the bottom of the Catalina Channel - or six feet under out by the San Andreas Fault.

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  3. What community should be so lucky as to have a Waldorf- Astoria? Only in BEVERLY HILLS would people complain about it!

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    1. I haven't heard about any significant organized opposition to the Waldorf. Some grumbling about traffic congestion, but that's about as far as it goes.

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