The Alexandria Hotel

The Alexandria Hotel

The Alexandria Hotel in its current state

By Erik Jay

In its heyday, Downtown’s Alexandria Hotel added both architectural charm and a touch of Hollywood Golden Era class to the L.A. mix.

Serving the social, political, and entertainment elite – diners at its upscale eateries and guests in its palatial rooms included Charlie Chaplin, Winston Churchill, King Edward VIII, Enrico Caruso, and various American Presidents – it was among Southern California’s premier destinations after it opened in 1906. Within just a few decades of opening day, however, the Alexandria had become a desolate, even foreboding building.

Construction was booming in the 1920s and the city was expanding – toward the Pacific for business and homes, toward Hollywood for studios and moviedom’s new cultural capital. Textile companies began to move into the stretches of industrial land bordering Downtown, and the nightlife and cultural energy of the area slowly yielded to factories and bus stops. The Alexandria’s fortunes rose and fell with the times, and in the last few years has passed through various hands as a few restoration plans have proceeded with fits and starts.

Fifth and Spring, pre-Alexandria Hotel, was a dry dusty spot owned by the man for whom the building was named, Harry L. Alexander. Before he bought it, it had been the site of Al Levy’s oyster house and a bakery owned by August Ulyard. In 1904, new owner Harry Alexander (from whom the building got its name) engaged architect John Parkinson to design the Alexandria Hotel, which was built by the Bilicke-Rowan Fireproof Hotel Building Company. Costing more than a million dollars, real money in those days, the 360-room palace opened its register on February 12, 1906 at noon. For a time, the Alexandria was among the few premier hotels in the West, a “gem set in tile, steel and marble” – until the Biltmore came along a few years and a few blocks away.

The Alexandria’s Palm Court – known through the years as the Grand Ballroom, the Franco-Italian Room, and the Continental Room – was Downtown’s certified “hot spot” from about 1910 to the early 1920s. U.S. Presidents Woodrow Wilson and William Howard Taft, as well as WWI hero Gen. John J. Pershing, all gave important speeches there, and it is also where bandleader Paul Whiteman got his start in 1919. The nation’s first "Jazz King" and Bing Crosby’s first band boss, Whiteman provided the music for Rudolph Valentino to dance and cavort with starlets during the most socially important balls of Hollywood’s early days.

After the Biltmore opened in 1923, followed by the Ambassador and a string of ever-more-opulent hotels, the Alexandria was washed up as L.A.’s most prestigious spot. These luxurious competitors put an immediate dent in the Alexandria's business, and by 1932 its owners, the Alexandria Hotel Realty Company, were bankrupt. With millions in unpaid bonds, the Alexandria closed its doors in February 1934, a mere 30 years after construction had commenced. Its fine furnishings and fixtures – a famed million-dollar rug, countless chandeliers, acres of gold leaf, marble columns – were stripped and sold.

The black paint on the windows was scraped off for a reopening in 1937, but within 15 years the Alexandria had declined once again into a transient hotel. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the ballroom that we revere today as the fabled Palm Court was a training ring for boxers. In fact, in 1958 the featherweight phenom Pajarito Moreno drew crowds of up to 1,000 people to his training sessions there, just prior to a title match with Kid Bassey. Again in 1960, the Palm Room was the training room for both world bantamweight champion Jose Becerra and welterweight fighter Battling Torres, whose fights were later held at the Coliseum. A dollar bought admission to watch the workouts.

Restoration attempts in 1970 and 1980 made for several multimillion-dollar facelifts, but no triumphant return to grandeur for the Alexandria. Still, with its Tiffany stained-glass skylight, the Palm Court was considered by Los Angeles columnist Jack Smith to be “the most beautiful room in Los Angeles,” and was designated City of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument #80 in 1971.

Most of the information about the Alexandria Hotel on the Internet (even some of the verbiage on its own site) is dated, incorrect, or both. Public relations releases from 2007 through 2009 touted the “$14 million rehabilitation” undertaken by the building’s new owner, the Amerland Group of San Diego. However, in June of this year five top executives were charged with manslaughter and elder abuse for a fire that killed four residents of Casa de Vallejo, a 136-unit residential elder-care complex in Vallejo in Northern California.

While these execs will face a preliminary hearing this October in Solano County Superior Court, Amerland co-founder Colin Rice and partner Casey Haeling were not charged and have formed their own company, C&C Development. They are still involved in renovations in San Diego, but their association with the Alexandria Hotel is unclear. What is quite clear, however, is Amerland’s poor performance in Downtown L.A. The Los Angeles City Attorney filed criminal charges against the firm in May 2008 for fire code violations at both the Alexandria and another of its properties. In addition to being convicted in that case, Amerland was forced to settle various civil claims alleging harassment and illegal evictions of tenants, multiple forms of discrimination, and issues of basic habitability.

Yet, through it all, the Alexandria Hotel stands tall and strong, even stoic. It has seen harder times than these. Current tenants speak well of the latest changes and upgrades, and the Downtown social scene is enriched by its ongoing evolution. It is a survivor, like many of its tenants, businesses, and fans.

The Alexandria is now home to the Company of Angels theater troupe, The Gorbals restaurant (whose chef won Bravo's "Top Chef" competition in its second season), and a Bar 107 offshoot called The Down & Out that replaces Charlie O's on the corner. The Alexandria Hotel has many, many stories to tell, and wants to share them with you. Perhaps you should come introduce yourself sometime.

The Alexandria Hotel, 501 S. Spring Street, Los Angeles, 90013. www.thealexandria.net/

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