HOLLYWOOD’S NO-TELL HOTEL

BY: Michael Arkin

You’ve undoubtedly heard of the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Earthly Delights and the Olive Garden (aka the Garden of Eating), but if you’re under 50, chances are you’ve never heard of the Garden of Allah, the legendary Los Angeles hotel that occupied the Southwest corner of Crescent Heights and Sunset Boulevard. Although not dubbed the Crossroads of the World (that title was bestowed on an open-air mall further east on Sunset), the Garden was the spot where the biggest names in movies intersected with the most renowned members of New York’s literati. The combination proved to be incendiary and Hollywood’s most notorious haunt was born.

 

It was built in 1913 on the site of a former avocado and orange grove by real estate mogul, WH Hay for his wife, Catherine. At that time the Spanish Colonial Revival estate, originally called Hayvenhurst, was so remote that its northeastern corner marked the end of the Sunset Boulevard trolley line. From there, if your sights were set on Beverly Hills, you had to travel a gravel road westward.

In 1918 Mr. Hay leased the property to silent screen star Alla Nazimova who, in a humorous tip of her hat to both her name and the title of Robert Hichens’ 1905 bestseller, dropped the ‘h’ and renamed it The Garden of Alla. She purchased the house a year later for $65,000 and, inspired by her native Yalta, installed a 65 x 45-foot pool in the shape of the Black Sea. There, the sexually amorphous actress hosted poolside ‘sewing circles’, code for Sapphic gatherings frequented by lesbian and bisexual actresses who worked just as hard hiding their true sexuality as they did landing parts. Before long, Nazimova’s house became the center of what was known as ‘Lavender Hollywood’. Although she claimed to have been married to British actor Charles Bryant (no proof of their nuptials was ever found), she had affairs with Mercedes de Acosta, actress Eva Le Gallienne and director Dorothy Arzner.  She even played matchmaker to Rudolph Valentino, introducing him to both of his wives after giving each of them a personal test run.

 

A Hollywood career is a fickle thing and by 1921 Nazimova, who as filmdom’s highest paid actress once earned more than Mary Pickford, couldn’t find work. Her business manager convinced her to turn the house into an income-generating enterprise. Taking what remained of her nest egg (rumored to be $1.5 million), she built 25 rental villas surrounding the original house which she had refurbished to accommodate a restaurant, a bar, and a front desk in order to set up shop as a hotel. 

Renamed the Garden of Allah, the hotel opened on January 27, 1927. Befitting the roaring twenties, the opening night fête was glittering with stars including Marlene Dietrich, John Barrymore and Samuel Goldwyn. As the Los Angeles Times reported, “There was joy afoot, caviar at hand and bubbles in the air – for 18 hours. By midnight, the waiters were harmonizing with the guests and wandering troubadours played madrigals from the middle of the pool. It was climax piled upon climax, including a virtual state dinner at which the mistress of the Garden of Allah dedicated the lush three-acre plot.”

 

While an alluring presence, Nazimova was no hotelier and soon was bankrupt. No longer Hollywood’s hostess with the mostess, she was forced to sell the hotel back to Mr. Hay. She packed up and headed to Broadway until 1938 when she returned to LA with her girlfriend, actress Glesca Marshall. The pair took up permanent residence in Villa 24 of what had become a smashingly successful hotel. In the intervening years, the pool she designed had reached legendary stature, exemplifying the freewheeling decadence that was part of the hotel’s DNA. At night the stars came out and, led by “It Girl” Clara Bow (the subject of prurient gossip that accused her of every libidinous act one could imagine), jumped in the pool in their evening gowns or pushed their tuxedo-clad escorts into the water. Some were merely drunk and fell in, while others, like the actress Tallulah Bankhead, (said to be the inspiration for Disney’s Cruella de Vil) dove in wearing a beaded gown that once wet, was so heavy she had to emerge from the pool naked. While a guest at the Garden, Ms. Bankhead who described herself as “pure as the driven slush” is alleged to have bedded an array of guests ranging from Joan Crawford, to Tarzan’s Johnny Weissmuller, trysting with Barbara Stanwyck, Delores Del Rio and Gary Cooper along the way.

 

Fifty years before Studio 54 kept crowds at bay behind its velvet ropes, guards at the Garden of Allah’s front gate and its roaming private security detail (including K-9 patrols), kept the lush grounds safe and insulated. For those that did gain entry, a scandalous wonderland awaited.

Protected from the press, the looky-loos, and the police – it was Prohibition-era Hollywood after all — the guests included many famous writers lured west by the talkies. The in-residence intelligentsias included Algonquin round table members Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woolcott and Robert Benchley along with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Garson Kanin. Benchley, a heavy-duty drinker, was known to have himself rolled from party to party in a wheelbarrow. Writing in GQ magazine, Kirk Silsbee said “Once warned that alcohol consumption was a slow poison, Benchley pulled his head out of a Martini by the pool long enough to reply, ‘That’s all right. I’m in no hurry’.”

 

A number of well-known musicians also took refuge at the Garden. Artie Shaw moved in with his wife, actress Ava Gardner, who met her future husband, Frank Sinatra living in the villa next door. Rachmaninoff’s late-night piano playing kept Harpo Marx awake for nights on end. Quoting music publicist Bernie Woods, Silsbee reported that one morning bandleaders Tommy Dorsey and Kay Kyser got into a heated debate as to who had the most devoted following. When their conversation got too heated, Mr. Dorsey said, “‘l’ll show you some real fans.’ With that two tall gals came out of the bedroom; they stood side by side naked as jaybirds as Mr. Kyser stared. The pubic hair on one was cut to spell a T while the other was cut to form a D.” 

 

Among the notable guests were frequent visitors Greta Garbo and Humphrey Bogart whose estranged wife attacked him with a butcher knife after finding him shacked up with Lauren Bacall. Orson Wells, Ginger Rogers, Laurence Olivier and Ronald Reagan all called the Garden home. The former president claimed to have woken up more than once next to a woman whose name he couldn’t remember.

 

Nothing good lasts forever and by the time World War II ended, the hotel was well on its way to resembling an aging movie queen — an all-but-forgotten has-been. With an influx of returning GIs, call girls invaded the bar and could often be found sunbathing topless at it the pool. Marijuana, opium and cocaine replaced alcohol as the Garden’s preferred party favors. Even Alla Nazimova departed, having died in her villa in July 1945. The early 50s saw an exodus of younger stars — James Dean, Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift who moved further west to the Chateau Marmont. During its heyday the Garden had discouraged what Variety called non-pros, but by the early 50s it was desperately trying to attract them.  Live music became a big draw for tourists who, if lucky enough, might spot Marilyn Monroe dancing on the sunken dance floor to the music of Jack Costanza’s band.

 

By late summer 1959 word came that the hotel, which was being sold to the Lytton Savings and Loan Company was being demolished to make room for the bank’s main branch, but not before one last party. It’s reported that 1,000 people came to the farewell celebration. Encouraged to dress in 1920s period costume, the party, like a scene out of Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard, was a valentine to a bygone era. Shortly thereafter, an on-site auction was held and the hotel was stripped clean by souvenir hunters. The wrecking ball followed.

Where what up until recently was a strip mall’s parking lot (erroneously assumed to be the inspiration for the one that replaced paradise in Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi), once sat the Black Sea-shaped swimming pool that symbolized the most decadent hotel in Hollywood’s history. In its place, the Garden of Allah will rise again from its ashes. Under the direction of renowned architect, Frank Gehry, the site is getting a makeover. The plan calls for a “frameless glass esthetic” inspired by the infamous hotel that is now nothing but a faded memory.

Copyright 2021 by Michael Arkin. All rights reserved.