|
Los Angeles – Not long after
Andre Balazs bought the
marble and stainless-steel former Valhalla of Superior Oil, he sent a pirate
flag up a rooftop pole.
It’s as much a funny
bone gesture of the hotelier responsible for the chic ad cheeky temp quarters of
West Hollywood’s The Standard,
Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont and New York’s
Mercer, as it is a friendly overture
to the kind of cultural takeover Balazs hope his latest project – and latest
Standard – will be to the city’s reviving downtown.
“We just decided when we
moved here to put it up,” he enthuses, a few days before guests began checking
in on Thursday. “It was like the aliens were in town and we’re taking over.”
The invasion
unofficially began Saturday night. On the roof, with is synthetic grass strip
for bocce ball and Twister-dotted dance floor, 150 of Balazs’ closest and newest
Angeleno pals extended family were treated t o dinner along with a striking view
of the surrounding mirrored and concrete monuments in this district known as
Bunker Hill. On Tuesday night, Jane’s Addiction and Ja Rule will strike up the
bands for a Sony Playstation party, followed by Friday’s official opening pajama
featuring the Velvet Hammer burlesque troupe and cohosted by Charlize Theron,
Sofia Coppola, Kirsty Hume (hubby Donovan Leitch is helping organize the event)
and others.
While the night promises
all the “fun ad playfulness” that are clearly part of Balazs’ mantra for the
hotel (a foosball table is at the valet station), it’s also the kind of
nighttime recreation a swinging capitalist lord of the Sixties and Seventies
could’ve indulged in. And that, too, is Balazs’ plan.
Think Malcolm Forbes,
John DeLorean, he offers. “These were tremendously interesting businessmen,
mavericks, who also had a lot of style.” As did Superior Oil’s Keck family, who
had the mettle, or ego, to sign off on Claud Beelman’s modern design in 1956.
The Los Angeles architect erected a temple to business that parlayed all the
technological advancements, self-confidence and future optimism of corporate
America. Even the 12 stories of fire stairwell are sheathed in marble.
Neighboring landmarks include the Byzantine-Egyptian-moderne main campus of the
city public library and the very private power lodge , the California Club.
The S-shaped, bronze
door handles that once denoted Superior – and now
Standard – sealed the deal
when Balazs first visited the building 26 months ago and didn’t think twice
about snapping it up. The entrance is outfitted with corporate symbols such as
a 15-city wall clock and a frieze over the front doors illustrating the oil
process. “Isn’t this gorgeous,” declares Balazs, as frequently does throughout
the tour. He signed up the space, along with the exterior, with its white
marble and stainless-steel spandrels, on the federal registry of historical
landmarks.
|
 |
The imposing escalators
in the lobby were installed by the last tenants, the Union Bank of California.
But even these have been embraced by Balazs and his design coordinator, Hank
Koning of Koning-Eizenberg in Los Angeles, and Shawn Hausman, a former
production designer.
Overhead hangs a giant,
white Calder-style mobile. A 150-foot, hot pink sofa, the Omnibus, designed by
Vladimir Kagan, snaked sharply around the room, and at one point curls around
the DJ booth, boxing it in. Nearby is a mirrored pool table. A glass wall
peers out to the sunken seating area and fireplace in the courtyard. “With a
hotel, the public spaces should serve as your living room,” he notes.
The registration area –
attended by a great looking staff outfitted in YSL and Courreges-inspired looks
– is accented by a black Plexiglas flat map with red light points indicating
Standard Holdings, real, imagined and planned (branches are in he works for
Miami, London and New York).
“It’s very SPECTRE,
don’t you think?” he muses. The first of two restaurants is a sharp,
lemon-colored space that spills out onto he courtyard. There’s also a
“gentleman’s barbershop” called Flint, complete with a Dunhill-stocked smoking
lounge.
As for the rooms, they
are anything but the closets that have become customary in boutique hotels,
including the Mercer. Ranging from “cheap” ($95 for 280 square feet) to the
bigger penthouse ($500 for 1,000 square feet), they creatively maximize space
for the weekday business guests and weekend partyer. In the smallest rooms, a
glass shower wall also offers a voyeuristic view from the bed just a couple of
feet away.
There are the whimsical
and personable details that have become a signature of Balazs’ hotels: an
alphabet of amenities (DVD and CD players; T1 lines); Mr. Bubble and tiny Patron
bottles in the mini bar; specially designed icons, even for the toilet tissue
roll; a “plushie” stuffed animal for VIPs. There are white-tiled tubs and
8-foot-long beds large enough for four guests - or an NBA player. The Laker’s
Staples Center, after all, is only a mile or so away.
Back on the roof, Balazs
continues basking in his newest home away from home. He’s standing near the
long, slender pool, next to the three red painted, teardrop iron pods filled
with vibrating, heated water beds. Against the skyscrapers, it’s almost alien.
Then again, it’s also totally L.A. -
|
