The hotel was sold to nightclub owner Baron Long in 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression.[4] Long also owned the U.S. Grant Hotel in San Diego and had developed the Agua Caliente resort in Tijuana.[1] Long renovated the hotel and renamed it The Biltmore Hotel. He established the Biltmore Bowl, the world's largest nightclub, in the hotel's basement.[5]
In 1951, the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel Company was sold to Corrigan Properties for more than $12 million.[6] In 1969, The Biltmore Hotel was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument by the City of Los Angeles. The decaying hotel was sold for $5 million in 1976 to developer Gene R. Summers and his business partner Phyllis Lambert. They spent millions more to restore the hotel over the next five years, before selling it to Westgroup Inc. in 1984.[7] Westgroup redeveloped the property to designs by Seattle architect Barnett Schorr. The guest rooms in the rear portion of the structure, facing Grand Avenue, were converted to office space known as Biltmore Court. Directly adjacent on Grand Avenue, an adjoining 24-story office tower was constructed on the property, the Biltmore Tower. The remaining hotel portion facing Pershing Square was completely renovated.[8]
Regal Hotels purchased The Biltmore in 1996 and it was renamed the Regal Biltmore Hotel. Regal was sold to Millennium & Copthorne Hotels in 1999,[9] and the hotel was renamed the Biltmore Los Angeles on April 9, 2001.[10] The hotel has 70,000 square feet (6,500 m2) of meeting and banquet space. From its original 1500 guestrooms it now has 683, due to room reorganization.[11]
Architecture
Millennium Biltmore Hotel Lobby
The architectural firm Schultze & Weaver designed the Biltmore's exterior in a synthesis of the Spanish-Italian Renaissance Revival, Mediterranean Revival, and Beaux Arts styles, meant as an homage to the Castilian heritage of Los Angeles. The "Biltmore Angel" is heavily incorporated into the design—as a symbol of the city as well as the Biltmore itself. With a thick steel and concrete frame, the structure takes up half a city block and rises over 11 stories.
The interiors of the Biltmore Hotel are decorated with: frescos and murals; carved marblefountains and columns; massive wood-beamed ceilings; travertine and oak paneled walls; lead crystalchandeliers; cast bronze stairwells and doorways; fine artisanmarquetry and mill work; and heavily embroidered imported tapestries and draperies. Most notable are the frescoed mural ceilings in the main Galleria and the Crystal Ballroom, which were hand painted in 1922 by Italian artist John B. Smeraldi, known for his work in the Vatican and the White House. Smeraldi and his team famously painted the ballroom's colorful, seamless fresco over a period of seven months, decorating it with figures of Greek and Roman gods, angels, cupids and other mythological creatures. It was meticulously restored in the 1980s by Smeraldi's apprentice, Anthony Heinsbergen. The imported Austrian crystal chandeliers that adorn it are 12 feet (3.7 m) in diameter.
The Rendezvous Court, once the hotel's lobby but now used primarily for afternoon tea, is decorated with a Moorish Revival styled plaster ceiling painted with 24 Carat Gold accents, two original imported Italian chandeliers from 1923, and a grand Spanish Baroque Revival bronze doorway, whose astrological clock still keeps time today. Two figures appear on the stairwell front—on the left is the Roman goddess of agriculture Ceres, while on the right is the Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa. The current lobby at the hotel's Grand Avenue entrance still has its original travertine walls and oak paneling as well as the large artificial skylighted ceiling, reflected in the custom carpet below.
Millennium Biltmore Hotel Galleria
Each ballroom on the Galleria level is themed either after the room's original function or the hotel's overall California-heritage premise. The Emerald Room was once the hotel's main guest dining room; its decor features images of hunt and harvest, with hand-painted animals and fish on the cast-plaster ceiling beams. The Tiffany Room was formerly an open corridor used as a drop-off point for Crystal Ballroom functions. Now enclosed, the elegant space centers around exploration, with relief sculptures and panels depicting Queen Isabella I of Castile, and Christopher Columbus and other Spanish New World explorers. The split-level Gold Room, once a dining room for elite guests, features Prohibition-era hidden liquor compartments and panels along the ceiling for press photographers to take pictures of the event below. It is decorated with a gold cast-plaster ceiling, hand-oiled wood paneling, and nine mirrored windows along three sides.
The South Galleria is painted with floral friezes inspired by the decor of ancient RomanPompeii, and features a vaulted ceiling, marble balustrades and heavy Roman piers. Gold-painted wrought iron gates open to a staircase leading down to the Biltmore Bowl.
Also of interest is the hotel's health club and indoor pool, which was modeled after the decks of 1920s luxury ocean liners. Solid brass trim on windows, doors and railings, teakwood deck chairs and hand-laid Italian mosaic tile on the walls and in the pool are original.
The Los Angeles Biltmore is known for being an early home to the Academy Awards ceremony—the Oscars.[12] The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded at a luncheon banquet in the Crystal Ballroom in May 1927, when guests such as Louis B. Mayer met to discuss plans for the new organization and presenting achievement awards to colleagues in their industry. Legend has it that MGM art director Cedric Gibbons, who was in attendance, immediately grabbed a linen Biltmore napkin and sketched the design for the Oscar statue on it. Eight Oscar ceremonies were held in the Biltmore Bowl[13][14][15][16][17][18] during the Academy's early years of 1931, 1935–1939, and 1941–1942. The band leader Shep Fields conducted his "Rippling Rhythm Orchestra" during the 1939 ceremonies at the Biltmore.[19] Decades later in 1977, Bob Hope hosted the Academy's 50th Anniversary banquet in the same room.
In 1929, Germany's Graf Zeppelin airship soared over the hotel on its round-the-world voyage, sponsored by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Crew and passengers were fed by Biltmore culinary staff, who also replenished their on-board supplies.
The Los Angeles Biltmore hotel also featured notable recordings from the early 1930s on the Brunswick record label by Earl Burtnett & His Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel Orchestra, with songs such as the popular "Putting on the Ritz" being recorded with an orchestra attributed to the hotel.
During World War II, the Biltmore served as a military rest and recreation facility, with the entire second floor equipped with cots for military personnel on leave.
On March 7, 1952, the well-known yogi and author Paramahansa Yogananda, collapsed and died of a heart attack after finishing a speech in honor of the Indian ambassador Binay Ranjan Sen.[21][22] This site within the hotel is now revered by many as the place of the yogi's mahasamadhi, or conscious leave of the body.
The 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles chose John F. Kennedy as the party's presidential nominee. He set up his campaign headquarters in the Music Room (now the Lobby), with running mate Lyndon B. Johnson across the hall in the Emerald Room. Their press conferences in the Crystal Ballroom were heavily photographed and documented.
The Beatles paid a visit to the Presidential Suite in August 1964 during their first U.S. tour. Due to the overwhelming number of fans crowding the sidewalks in front of the hotel, the band was forced to access their room by landing atop the hotel in a helicopter.[citation needed]
