PARK Magazine

ESCAPES
‘‘THE ENTIRE OSBORNE
FAMILY HOLED UP WHEN
THEY FIRST MOVED TO
HOLLYWOOD AND BEGAN
THAT VILLA #2 TREND
BACK IN THE BIG ‘80S.’’
aging rock and roll chick with the junky pallor and
wrinkly lips to clean up and put down the whiskey.
She’s sobered up and re-invented herself with the
requisite nip and tuck, and more, for a whole new
groupie. And that is precisely what co-owner Mark
Rosenthal and his team at the Sunset Marquis have
done. Because this haven has never been more Zen,
more sublime and more the ultimate definition of
Hollywood cool.
I love hotel living, always have. So, after the quick
unpack and surmising the marvelously top-class
update to what is essentially my one-bedroom apartment
for the next few days, I jumped in the ultramodern
kitted out en-suite bathroom with the
blasting shower heads like the waterfalls of Niagara
and seriously spent the next hour meditating. I
didn’t want to leave the amazing bathroom of Villa
52 of the Sunset Marquis. Room service was ordered
in and the glass doors to my private bamboo garden
were swung open to embrace the cashmere weather
nights of Los Angeles in November as the quiet purr
of the usual L.A. traffic provided just enough of a
sign that yes, GW-- you’re in Hollywood, baby!
And it becomes evidently clear over the course
of the next few days with all the luxe new details
that this hotel has now fully re-imagined the narrative
of the raucous Rock & Roll hangout to a hotel
with even more charm and that word again- Zen
feel whilst still maintaining its roots as a major cornerstone
to L.A.’s culture of cool for 60 years. There
are more opulent hotels with more breathtaking
locations than this one. And there are other hotels
in this neighborhood where celebrities are known
to let loose. But none can rival the pedigree of ‘’The
SM’’ and its generational and unrivalled hip factor.
And that hip factor began at inception when the
cool hippies up in Laurel Canyon like Joni Mitchell
would begin venturing down to Sunset Boulevard
to mix and mingle and pretty quickly the Sunset
Marquis became the place for the true musical
genius to feel right at home. ‘’It became a place
where lots of things were accepted,’’ George Rosenthal,
the visionary behind the property once
quipped. George Rosenthal was a wild and crazy
guy with a heart of gold who had the grand fantasy
of creating his version of Alla Nazimova’s Garden
of Allah Hotel on this incredible swathe of land
he›d acquired in the heart of then un-defined West
Hollywood. He, and his business partner at the
time, Hugh Hefner, had been unable to obtain
financing for a Playboy Hotel to house the guests
and performers at the Playboy Club and office tower
on Sunset Boulevard. This failure gave rise to a
more realistic option just down the block, and so
the Sunset Marquis opened in 1963 as a low-cost
apartment hotel. Today it is a re-imagined secluded
and re-invented escape in the heart of bustling
WeHo with 154 superbly renovated suites and villas,
a restaurant, spa and recording studio spread
over almost four acres of lush flora and fauna under
the guidance of his son, heir apparent and inspiration
for the hotel’s name, Mark Rosenthal.
All through the ‘70s ‘80s and ‘90s this hotel truly
was the refuge for ALL of Hollywood’s most legendary
rock & roll creatives. Guns N Roses, and especially
Slash, practically lived at the hotel and many
did. At the height of Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston
love-life-mania, they kept the paparazzi at bay for
almost a year whilst living at the celebrity favorite
Villa #2 of the Sunset Marquis. Kate Hudson and
her ‘90s lover Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes
also lived for months in Villa #2, too, which was where
the entire Osborne family holed up when they first
moved to Hollywood and began that Villa #2 trend
back in the big ‘80s. Jeff Beck still loves to strum
his guitar in the gardens of his favorite Villa on the
The sumptuous gardens of this legendary
hotel is still a source of creative fecund for
the famous guitarist Jeff Beck.