By Katie Driscoll
When a man tires of London, he tires of life — but when he tires of Hollywood, he goes to Chateau Marmont, or so I imagine. Hollywood is a town with no history, only lore, and Chateau Marmont is its symbol, the LA hotel that’s more like a castle nestled atop the Sunset Strip, looking down on the debauchery below.
Opened in 1929 and still going strong, the history of the Marmont is a roll call of the bedazzling ghosts who once roamed its halls, the hangout of everyone from Led Zeppelin to Joan Didion. Jim Morrison swung from the balconies, Tarzan-like. “Mama” Cass Elliot booked a suite especially for acid trips. Dustin Hoffman lounged around the pool while making The Graduate.
The Marmont feels like the stable fixture in an ever-chaotic, spinning world of Hollywood mischief and La La Land foibles, a place you can always go to Sleep It All Off. I want to be where the wild people are, always, but I also want to be alone, forever, and the Marmont does both lurid excess and luxurious anonymity perfectly.
Whenever I’m getting bogged down by the minutiae of living back home with my family as a 31-year-old, I think ah, how dreamy to dramatically pack a suitcase and haul myself into the cosy embrace of the Marmont, the “bastion of grace holding on by its fingernails against time,” as described by trailblazing documenter of LA life Eve Babitz in her essay collection I Used To Be Charming.
And for someone whose family has mastered the art of bursting unannounced into rooms, the Marmont’s “privacy, laxity, eccentricity and thickness of walls” that allow you to “enjoy your trouble away from prying ears and eyes” especially appeals. It’s a world away from my ex-teen bedroom in the suburbs, where writing at my desk is often interrupted by a family member, or disturbed by the glowing ember of my phone. In the Marmont’s 1970s heyday, there were no phones, certainly no Instagram or TikTok, and it is still forbidden to take photos while staying or dining there today — nor can you post on social media. Heaven!
The Marmont was home to the beautiful, rich and famous, but it was not a paean to perfection. Its lampshades didn’t match and it had an aura of “romantic depressiveness” according to Babitz.
It wasn’t a place that exuded polished glamour either — she wrote that it was frequented and loved by the “kind of people who liked to spill things, things like wine, blood, whisky, cocaine, ashes and bodily fluids”. Like Babitz, I have never been one for perfection and have ruined more carpets than I care to remember. My perfect stay at the Marmont would include ordering the eggs Florentine, then heading down to the pool for a swim — in the same pool where Sofia Coppola celebrated her 21st birthday party, and where much of her film Somewhere was shot. After that I would pen my girl-about-town vignettes, regarding men with champagne eyes and wolfish smiles. I’d do this sitting at a desk overlooking the huge Marlboro Man sign, just as actor and writer Griffin Dunne used to while living there.
At night I would lounge in the velvet-draped bar, listening to live piano, with no one to bother me, the ping of my WhatsApp notifications fading like a bad dream.
Photography: Michael Montfort/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images; American Zoetrope
