Century Plaza Hotel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Century Plaza Hotel in Century City, California, June 2008

The Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles is a landmark 19-story luxury hotel forming a sweeping crescent design fronting the spectacular fountains on Avenue of the Stars adjacent to the twin Century Plaza Towers and the CAA building.

[edit] History

Postcard of the Century Plaza Hotel

The Century Plaza Hotel opened its doors in June 1, 1966 in the Los Angeles district of Century City on a former backlot of 20th Century Fox Studios. Fox still has its backlot in the district as well as its headquarters, Fox Plaza. Century City, known as the City of the Century (20th), was dominated for much of its early history by the Century Plaza Hotel, as it was the highest building on the hill, where the Presidential Suite looked all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

In 1961 developer William Zeckendorf and Alcoa bought about 180 acres from 20th Century Fox after the studio had suffered a string of expensive flops, culminating in the box-office disaster Cleopatra. The new owners conceived Century City as "a city within a city" with the arc-shaped, 19-story, 726-room Minoru Yamasaki designed Century Plaza as the centerpiece of the new city.^[1]

When the Century Plaza began operating in 1966, its doormen wore red Beefeater costumes. The hotel's ballrooms became the center for numerous high-profile events, including an opening charity gala in 1966 emceed by Bob Hope, who with singer Andy Williams entertained the likes of Ronald and Nancy Reagan and Walt and Lillian Disney. In 1967, 1,300 club-swinging police clashed with about 10,000 Vietnam War demonstrators as President Johnson spoke at a Democratic fundraiser at the hotel.

In 1984, the hotel added a 297-room tower increasing capacity to 1046 rooms. President Ronald Reagan was one of its first guests, and was such a frequent guest that a penthouse unit was named after him and the media named it his Western White House. The tower was razed to make way for the Century condominium high-rise now under construction and slated for completion in fall 2009.^[1]

The Century Plaza has played host to various celebrities, foreign dignitaries, and Presidents. Among them, Marshal Tito Josip Broz Tito, Moshe Dayan,Prince Phillip, and David Ben-Gurion. The hotel was the venue for the 1970 and 1971 Grammy Awards.

For its entire history, the Century Plaza was managed as a Western International hotel, or Westin hotel. However, in 2006, the property was taken over by the Hyatt brand and currently a Hyatt Regency. However, the hotel has an iconic value that surpasses whichever hotel chain is managing the property.

On June 1, 2008, Next Century Associates, bought the Century Plaza Hotel from Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc. for $366.5 million. The sale price of $505,000 per room is one of the highest paid for a hotel in California. Sunstone bought the Century Plaza for $293 million in 2005 and then spent $22 million upgrading the guest rooms and common areas.^[1]