Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / United States / Beverly Hills / Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills, A Four Seasons Hotel

Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills, A Four Seasons Hotel

Beverly Hills, California, United States · Four Seasons · Grand Luxury

Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills, A Four Seasons Hotel: ExteriorBeverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills, A Four Seasons Hotel: ExteriorBeverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills, A Four Seasons Hotel: Bedroom

Walter G. McCarty opened the Beverly-Wilshire Apartment Hotel on January 1, 1928 on the former Beverly Hills Speedway, once the nation's second-largest board track after Indianapolis. Walker & Eisen's Italian Renaissance E-plan of Tuscan stone and Carrara marble faced a city of fewer than 18,000 people at Wilshire and Rodeo. Paul Revere Williams renovated mid-century; Hernando Courtright doubled it with a 1971 tower; Pretty Woman later filmed the lobby and pool; Four Seasons has managed since 1992.

About Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills, A Four Seasons Hotel

History

The Beverly Wilshire was built in 1928 on a site with a history more colorful than almost any in Los Angeles: the lot at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive had previously been occupied by the Beverly Hills Speedway, the second-largest board-track automobile racing circuit in the United States after Indianapolis, where drivers in the early years of the sport roared around a steeply banked wooden oval before the track closed in 1924. Architects Walker & Eisen — the same firm that designed the Breakers Hotel in Long Beach, the James Oviatt Building, and dozens of other significant California structures of the era — designed the original building in the Italian Renaissance style, a twelve-story structure of cream-colored brick and ornamental stone that gave the intersection a grandeur commensurate with Beverly Hills' aspirations for itself. At the time of opening, Beverly Hills was a city of fewer than 18,000 residents; the hotel's address at the foot of Rodeo Drive was a statement of faith in what the neighborhood intended to become.

The hotel expanded over the decades, with a second wing added in 1971 that more than doubled the footprint and gave the property its current configuration around the courtyard Rodeo Drive facade. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 12, 1987, in recognition of its architectural significance and its role in the social history of one of the most mythologized places in American culture. Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts assumed management of the property in 1992, bringing with it the brand's service ethos and international marketing reach. The hotel received its current name — Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills, A Four Seasons Hotel — in 2006.

The cultural associations of the Beverly Wilshire are as dense as those of any hotel on earth. Warren Beatty lived in the Veranda Suite for a decade, conducting much of his professional and social life from its rooms. The lobby, pool, and corridors appear throughout the 1990 film Pretty Woman, in which Richard Gere's character resided at the hotel during a visit to Los Angeles — a piece of casting that gave the property a pop-culture immortality it likely could not have purchased. CUT by Wolfgang Puck, the celebrity chef's flagship steakhouse, opened in the hotel's dining space in June 2006 in a room designed by architect Richard Meier and hung with artwork by John Baldessari and celebrity portraits by Martin Schoeller, adding a serious gastronomic credential to a property that had always traded on glamour. BLVD, the street-level restaurant and bar with a terrace facing Rodeo Drive, opened in 2005 and serves as the hotel's more accessible social address.

The hotel sits at the base of Rodeo Drive's Golden Triangle, steps from Cartier, Tiffany, Gucci, and the other flagship boutiques that line the street, and holds the AAA Four Diamond distinction. Its position at the intersection of old-money Beverly Hills and the contemporary luxury retail landscape makes it a unique artifact of continuity in a city that frequently replaces its landmarks.

The setting

Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills, A Four Seasons Hotel commands the foot of Rodeo Drive at 9500 Wilshire Boulevard — the precise corner where Wilshire meets Rodeo Drive and the Golden Triangle begins. Built in 1928 as an Italian Renaissance landmark, it anchors the southern end of Rodeo Drive's three palm-lined blocks of global luxury flagships including Chanel, Hermès, Cartier, and Louis Vuitton, with Two Rodeo Drive's European-style promenade directly opposite. The hotel achieved additional cultural renown as the backdrop for the 1990 film Pretty Woman, cementing its image worldwide as the quintessential Beverly Hills address. LACMA is twenty minutes by transit and the Hammer Museum thirteen minutes. 7 miles from Getty Center.

Restaurants and bars

Experiences

Amenities

Awards

Open Beverly Wilshire, Beverly Hills, A Four Seasons Hotel in the atlas for live weekend rates, photos, and the full folio.

More Four Seasons hotels

More hotels in Beverly Hills

Four Seasons in The Maison: the brand's idea, history and every house on the atlas.

All luxury hotels in Beverly Hills

How the six LHA Tiers work