photo by Gary Leonard
By Donna Evans Los Angeles Downtown News DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES -
The latest signal of Broadway’s renaissance stands in front of the 1927 United Artists Theatre building, clad in a newsboy cap and wool vest. The lithe doorman, young, bearded and smiling, welcomes those swarming about the sidewalk at 929 S. Broadway, where hip and history have converged to form the Ace Hotel. It’s a dramatic turn for a 12-story edifice that opened the day after Christmas in 1927 as a theater for a group of independent-minded actors and directors. The Ace and its 182 guest rooms and adjacent 1,600-seat theater/concert hall is the latest incarnation for a building that did time as the West Coast offices for Texaco, a Spanish language film house and eventually a church for televangelist Dr. Gene Scott. The 87-year-old theater’s strikingly preserved condition in an area where long-darkened marquees are slowly flickering to life made it the exact kind of property, at the exact right time, for Ace to purchase, said Brad Wilson, president of the Portland, Ore.-based chain. “Ace is about building neighborhoods,” Wilson said last week while standing in the theater’s lobby. “We go across the world and look for interesting neighborhoods with interesting buildings. I don’t know that you can do better than this one.” Originally scheduled to open Jan. 15, the hotel moved up the date to accommodate lodging for the Jan. 12 Golden Globes. The full hotel is set to operate this week. City officials and community stakeholders credit the announcement two years ago to bring a boutique hotel to the formerly desolate stretch of Broadway as paving the way for the area’s renewed interest in retail, residential and restaurants. Last month, Urban Outfitters and Swedish retailer Acne Studios opened outposts a block north. About two blocks south, developer Forest City is preparing to build two apartment structures adjacent to the historic Herald-Examiner building, and a joint venture including developer the Kor Group plans to turn the Case Hotel at 1106 S. Broadway into a 107,000-square-foot, four-star boutique hotel. Fourteenth District City Councilman José Huizar is among those enthusiastic about the hotel and its potential to usher further advancement onto the street. Last week, he called the Ace both the “gatekeeper” to Broadway and a “game changer” for the neighborhood. “This is a meshing of historic L.A. to new Downtown L.A., a direction we’ve been striving for in terms of a city vision,” said Huizar, who six years ago launched the Bringing Back Broadway initiative in an attempt to upgrade the faded corridor known for its collection of historic movie houses. Bruce Baltin, senior vice president of PKF Consulting, a hospitality industry consulting firm, said the Ace will help fill the void of hotel lodging in Downtown Los Angeles. He called The Standard the only other nearby “lifestyle hotel,” and believes the Ace will bring the leisure business and group business that has few other area options. “I think they’ll do well,” he said. “Broadway is filling in nicely, it’s maturing along with Spring and Main streets with a nice combination of residential and retail. There’s a lot happening Downtown.” Stay the Night The United Artists building has counted numerous owners, operators and tenants since film star Mary Pickford joined with Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith and Douglas Fairbanks to break away from the entertainment heavyweight of the day, Paramount Pictures, and form their own studio and build a Spanish-Gothic style theater in Downtown. The theater itself opened and closed many times over the decades, and had different lives as a first-run movie house, a showcase for older films and even a long period as a home for Spanish-language pictures. More recently it was owned by Scott, who erected the massive “Jesus Saves” sign on the roof. The building has been empty since Scott died in February 2005. Ace worked with local collective Commune Design to restore the building and theater. The rooms run from $200 a night to $600 for a 633-square-foot terrace suite (the presidential suite, at $900, offers a patio beneath the Jesus Saves sign). The minimalist decor features concrete ceilings with planks of soundproof fiberboard affixed to the walls. Electrical outlets abound near the dark gray-tinted furniture. All rooms offer free Internet access. Some include acoustic guitars and Ace’s own brand of turntables. On the roof is an indoor/outdoor lounge with sweeping views of the city and a pool roughly the size of a hot tub. There’s a fireplace, salvaged theater lights and cascading bougainvillea and Boston Ivy, which likely would’ve been found in the estate gardens of Pickford and her United Artist contemporaries. Guests enter through a lobby dominated by a reception desk made of wood reclaimed from the office building before the restoration. The reception area, which gives way to a gift shop, features large, hand-drawn murals. Nikolai and Simon Haas' cartoonish images and realistic illustrations of icons and California topography dot the walls. Private meeting and event rooms are adorned with a mix of Golden Age Hollywood glam and 1970s Los Angeles punk rock. The hotel also features a Stumptown Coffee bar. Its in-house restaurant, LA Chapter, opens Jan. 17 and has indoor space as well as a patio on Broadway separated from passersby by a line of planters. Ace partnered with restaurateur Jud Mongell, owner of Brooklyn’s Five Leaves, to open the eatery that will serve locally sourced vegetables and seafood. The Downtown location is the second California Ace, and the fifth in the United States (there are also outposts in Panama and London). Indoors and out, the proprietors want the hotel to be a focal point for Downtown, where people socialize and collaborate, said Yael Greenberg, whose title is “cultural engineer.” She explained the design concept as using the building’s “physical canvas” to tell a story of what happened in the past, as well as to create a space for the stories yet to be told. “The next phase of L.A. is now,” she said. Perhaps nowhere is that mix of past and present felt more than in the theater, where the highlight of the breathtaking features — which include wall murals depicting Pickford and other actors as semi-mythic heroes and villains — is the ceiling dome, dominated by hundreds of hanging crystal pendants. As part of the upgrades, the original murals and intricate plasterwork were restored, while theater seats were reclaimed and reupholstered. The new carpet boasts a yin/yang pattern that references the ceiling design. The theater opens Valentine’s Day weekend with a pair of concerts by English band Spiritualized. Perhaps fittingly for the restored venue, it won’t be a regular concert. Instead, the band will be accompanied by a full orchestra and choir. At 929 S. Broadway, (213) 623-3233 or acehotel.com/losangeles.
