The Hollywood Roosevelt

The Hollywood Roosevelt is a twelve-story hotel at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard, directly across from the TCL Chinese Theatre. Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Louis B. Mayer opened it in 1927, and the first Academy Awards happened in its Blossom Ballroom two years later, a fifteen-minute ceremony for 270 guests. Marilyn Monroe lived in a poolside cabana for two years, and David Hockney painted the bottom of the Tropicana Pool in 1988. The hotel is a designated Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, and it still runs as an independent property with more than 300 rooms.

Show listings here point at the rooms inside the hotel. The Cinegrill Theater is the hotel's restored 1930s cabaret theater with a full bar, and the site books it Thursday through Saturday with tickets required for live music, comedy and cabaret; the hotel's own pages list its theater-style seating as 100 on one page and 150 on another. Teddy's is the hotel's nightlife and event space, and the Tropicana Pool runs weekend DJ sets in season. The Spare Room adds two restored 1920s bowling lanes next to a cocktail bar, and it's 21+ in the evening.

Getting there is easy without a car: the B Line's Hollywood/Highland station is next to the front door. If you drive, valet is the hotel's option and event parking runs $25.