The Chateau Marmont

When Los Angeles Attorney, Fred Horowitz was looking into building the Chateau Marmot, he hired Arnold A Weitzman and William Douglas Lee as the architects. The architecture for the Chateau Marmont was inspired by the Chateau d’Amboise in the Loire Valley, France.

The Chateau was to be built on the northwest side of Sunset Boulevard and Marmont Lane in West Hollywood. It was to be constructed with an earthquake proof combination of concrete and reinforced steel.

On the outside, the Chateau was in a L shape with a turret and steeply pitched slate roof. It sat above a garage and had valet parking. Within the walls of this new building was 43 apartments with several different floorplans and the décor was gothic.

When the Chateau opened in February of 1929, it offered furnished apartments with anywhere between one to six rooms. You were able to rent out the most spacious penthouse for just $750 a month, which in today’s money would be $13,453 a month.

The Chateau took a massive hit when the 1930s came. With the great depression taking a toll on everyone, Horowitz sold the property in 1931 to Albert E Smith for $750,000. Albert was the founder of Vitagraph, a motion picture company. When Los Angeles hosted the 1932 Summer Olympics, Albert used it to his advantage and turned the Chateau into a hotel.    

Silent film actress, Ann Little was hired by Smith to be in charge of the new found hotel. She took advantage of her new role and decided to make some changes. She re-decorated with different pieces from different estates in Southern California in hopes that she could make up for the losses people faced from the great depression. She added basic room service and other amenities.

By 1937, Albert had bought more land that sat east of the Chateau. The land already had existing 2-story rental buildings. He turned them into what is now the bungalows. It gave celebrities more privacy when it came to visiting the hotel.  

In 1942, Erwin Brettauer, a German banker bought the hotel for $350,000. Over time, he had invested a lot into the hotel. Costume designer, Don Loper was hired to work on the penthouse. In 1947, Erwin added a small pool and in 1951, he purchased more land just on the northwest corner of the property. It was on that land that two more bungalows were built which opened in 1952.

Throughout the 1960s and the 1970s, the hotel was sold several times and saw different owners. It was then the hotel started to show its age. In 1975, a real estate development and construction firm named Sarlot-Kantarjian bought the hotel for $1 million.

Raymond Sarlot and Karl Kantarjian who owned the company saw that the hotel was in poor condition and had a plan to fix the hotel finances. They had found that the hotel had a warm and real atmosphere. They fell in love with it. More property was bought and was turned into garden bungalows and in 1976, Karl and Raymond had declared the hotel a Historic Cultural Monument. 

Raymond and Karl sold the hotel once again in 1990 to Andre Balazs for $12 million. He also owned the Chiltern Firehouse in London and Sunset Beach on Shelter Island in New York. Andre gave the hotel a new look by adding a gym, full room service and outdoor seating.

In 1995, Andre hosted Leonardo DiCaprio’s 21st birthday when Balazs had opened a bar called “Bar Marmont.” After a few years, he opened up the hotel’s first restaurant in one of the bungalows, but in 2018, both the bar and the restaurant closed. Andre wanted to turn the Chateau into a members only hotel, but it was abandoned in 2022. It was that same year that the staff of the hotel was able to unionize.

A lot of celebrities have stayed at the hotel for one reason or another.  Some stayed longer then they should. It was their way of getting away from the fame and the paparazzi.

Jim Morrison was staying there for a while in 1970, but he wasn’t the best of guests. He was known to swing from windows and balconies. He once fell two stories.

It was rumored that the drummer, John Bonham from Led Zeppelin rode his motorcycle through the halls the Chateau Marmont, but there’s been reports that the stunt took place down the street at a nearby Hyatt House, also known as the “Riot House.”

Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate stayed at the Chateau Marmont when they first got married. When Sharon got pregnant, they gave up their apartment at the hotel and leased the house on Cielo Drive. The house that Sharon was murdered in by the Manson Family.

Lindsay Lohan threw herself a birthday party at the infamous hotel where she racked up a bill of $3,563.67. She was staying at the Chateau when she was filming a movie about Elizabeth Taylor. She assumed that the production company would pay the bill, but she later found out that wasn’t true.

The most famous death to come out of the Chateau Marmont was John Belushi. John had been staying at the hotel for a few days prior to his death. He was hoping for a comeback. His career wasn’t doing so well in the last couple of years. He had starred in some films that didn’t do too well and he was hoping to get into the swing of things.

John had a meeting regarding a screenplay called “Noble Rot”, but the production studio, Paramount wanted John to do it something called “The Joy of Sex” but John presented himself in a way that deemed to be unprofessional. He had a limited attention span; he wasn’t bathing, and his clothes were dirty and unkempt. He wasn’t taken care of himself.

At the Chateau, he was staying in bungalow number 3 and it was chaotic. He didn’t keep it clean. It was a disaster.

In 1980, when he was filming “The Blues Brothers”, there was drugs on set especially at night when they had to do night shoots; it was a way to stay awake, but his drug use started before the movie began filming. He was living in a time where drugs and alcohol were everywhere and since John was such a character and everyone knew who he was, it was easy for him to have access to stuff. He went harder on the drugs than anyone he knew. People knew when to stop, but John kept going and unfortunately, it had cost him his life.

When the clubs closed at 2am, John’s bungalow was the place to be. Robert De Niro and Robin Williams were the last two people to see John alive. De Niro did a few lines of cocaine and left while Williams came by later, got a weird vibe from Cathy Smith, the woman that had supplied John with the fatal dose of drugs, (she was an addict and sometimes a drug dealer.) Robin didn’t stay, he knew that something was off about the woman, he ended up leaving not knowing that it was the last time he would see John alive.

John’s widow, Judy was back in New York. When she spoke to her husband during the last few days of his life, she said that he sounded better, but she knew that he was using. It was rumoured that John had spend more the n $2,500 a week on drugs.

By the early morning hours of March 5, 1982, John was complained of feeling unwell and was complaining about chest congestion. He went to bed and slept while Cathy had gotten breakfast. At about 10:15am, Cathy checked on Belushi who by that point was still breathing, grabbed what she could like the syringe and spoon they used and took off. It wasn’t until noon when John was found when his trainer entered the bungalow and found him.

John Belushi’s cause of death was a combination of heroin and cocaine, also known as a speedball. John was only 33 years old. He left being his wife, Judy, 2 brothers, a sister, and his nephew Robert, who was just a little over a year old.

Dan Aykroyd heard about the death of his friend and was the one that told his widow because he wanted Judy to hear it from him and not from somewhere else.

Even after 42 years, John’s death still stays with the people who knew him and loved him. John had everything. By the time he was 30 years old, he starred in a movie that was number one, he had a number one album, and he was on the number one TV show.

If the walls of the Chateau Marmont could take, I wonder the stories they would tell. Imagine the things the hotel has seen and the secrets that were told. As long as the Chateau Marmont is around, there is going to be a lot more misadventures within its walls. A lot of things have happened and it’s no secret that celebrities went there to hide and do things that they wouldn’t do anywhere else. What happens at the Chateau Marmont, stays at the Chateau Marmont.