Sunset Tower Hotel
Howard Hughes took the penthouse, Marilyn Monroe spent weekends in residence, and Frank Sinatra famously drank in the bar — the Sunset Tower Hotel has been the most storied address on the Sunset Strip since Leland Bryant completed it in 1931.
At a glance
The Sunset Tower Hotel at 8358 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood, was completed in 1931 as a luxury apartment building on the stretch of Sunset Boulevard that would become famous as the Sunset Strip. Designed by architect Leland A. Bryant, the building is one of the finest Art Deco towers in Southern California — a white ziggurat-stepped structure whose rounded corners, bas-relief friezes, and vertical pylon projections are characteristic of the Hollywood Art Deco style of the late 1920s and early 1930s. The tower has been designated a California Historical Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It operates today as one of the most prestigious hotels on the Sunset Strip.
Key facts
- Address: 8358 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood, California
- Completed: 1931
- Architect: Leland A. Bryant
- Style: Art Deco
- Original purpose: Luxury apartment tower
- Current use: Luxury hotel (Sunset Tower Hotel)
- Historic designation: California Historical Landmark; National Register of Historic Places
History
Leland A. Bryant designed the Sunset Tower apartment building at a moment when the Sunset Strip was transitioning from a rural road on the edge of Los Angeles into one of the most glamorous addresses in the world. The building opened in 1931, just as the Hollywood studio system was producing its most extravagant output, and its luxury apartments attracted exactly the clientele its developer had hoped for: film stars, producers, musicians, and the wealthy transients of a city that had made glamour an industry.
Howard Hughes was among the building’s most famous residents, occupying the penthouse for a period and using it as one of several bases in Los Angeles. John Wayne, Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, and Frank Sinatra were among the celebrities associated with the building over the decades. The Sunset Tower’s bar, the Tower Bar, became one of the most celebrated watering holes in Hollywood, a place where the film industry conducted informal business and celebrated informal victories for generations.
The building changed hands and names several times over the decades — it was known as the St. James Club for a period in the 1980s and 1990s — before being restored and reopened as the Sunset Tower Hotel. The restoration preserved the building’s original Art Deco exterior and much of its interior, returning it to the luxury standard of its original conception while adapting it for contemporary hotel operation. The tower remains one of the defining buildings of the Sunset Strip and one of the most intact examples of Hollywood Art Deco architecture still in active use.
What you see
The Sunset Tower Hotel presents its distinctive profile from Sunset Boulevard: a white stepped tower with rounded corners and vertical pylon projections that frame each face of the building. The setback profile creates the characteristic Hollywood Art Deco silhouette — a series of horizontal bands and vertical projections that read as a composition in light and shadow as the California sun moves across the building’s surfaces throughout the day. The bas-relief friezes between the setback levels depict stylized naturalistic motifs — animals, plants, and geometric forms — in the manner of 1930s Hollywood decorative art. The rounded corners are a hallmark of the Streamline Moderne tendency within Art Deco, softening the building’s profile and giving it a distinctly Californian fluency.
From below on Sunset Boulevard, the building rises above the street level in a way that emphasizes its verticality. From the hills above West Hollywood, it appears as a compact, precisely composed white tower set against the broader backdrop of the Los Angeles basin. The best interior experience is the Tower Bar, whose original fabric — the dark wood, the upholstered banquettes, the low lighting that has changed little since the days of the studio system — remains one of the most atmospheric bar interiors in Los Angeles.
Practical information
- Status: Active luxury hotel; Tower Bar open to non-guests for food and drink
- Access: Hotel exterior freely visible from Sunset Boulevard; the Tower Bar is accessible during operating hours
- Historic designation: California Historical Landmark; National Register of Historic Places
- Best time: Late afternoon, when the California sun illuminates the white facade from the west; the Tower Bar is at its most atmospheric after dark
Getting there
The Sunset Tower Hotel is at 8358 Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, on the section of the Sunset Strip between Doheny Drive and La Cienega Boulevard. By public transit, Metro Local Line 2 runs along Sunset Boulevard; the bus stop nearest the hotel is on Sunset Boulevard at Sweetzer Avenue. From Downtown Los Angeles, the drive along Sunset Boulevard takes approximately 30 minutes in light traffic. From LAX, the drive via the 405 and Sunset is approximately 45 minutes depending on traffic. West Hollywood is adjacent to Beverly Hills and the Hollywood Hills, and the Sunset Tower is walkable from the main commercial strip of West Hollywood along Santa Monica Boulevard.
Nearby
- Chateau Marmont (1929) — the castle-like hotel at 8221 Sunset Boulevard, a few hundred meters west, another iconic Sunset Strip address with its own storied Hollywood history
- Schindler House (1921–22) — the pioneering modernist residence by Rudolf Schindler at 835 North Kings Road in West Hollywood, now a museum of architecture and design, about a mile south
- The Comedy Store — the historic comedy club at 8433 Sunset Boulevard, across the street and a short distance east, where generations of American comedians developed their craft
- Greystone Mansion and Park (1928) — the Doheny family estate at 905 Loma Vista Drive in Beverly Hills, a Neo-Tudor mansion with commanding views and a public park, about two miles south
Sources
- Wikipedia: Sunset Tower Hotel
- California Office of Historic Preservation designation records
- National Register of Historic Places nomination documentation
- Gebhard, David & Winter, Robert, An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles (5th ed., Gibbs Smith, 2003)
Find it on the map
See this place and what’s around it →📷 Diventa un fotografo di Cultural Heritage Online
Condividi le tue foto dei luoghi: restano pubblicate con la tua firma come autore. Più vengono viste, più ti fai conoscere — e presto un concorso premierà le foto più apprezzate.
Accedi o registrati gratis per aggiungere una foto