The Regal Biltmore Hotel is L.A.'s version of the Waldorf Astoria and, in fact, both were designed in a similar Italianate Beaux Arts style, in 1922-1923, by the architects Schultze & Weaver. The Biltmore opened as the largest hotel west of Chicago, boasting 1000 rooms. Its interiors are a rich meld of styles, leaning toward sumptuous Spanish Renaissance and Churrigueresque, and include a parade of elaborately painted and gilded ceilings and walls and marble-floored hallways, lobbies, meeting rooms and ballrooms. The cathedral-like ceilings, hand painted by Giovanni Smeraldi, started a rage, and Smeraldi went on to paint the ceilings of New York's Grand Central Station and the Blue Room at the White House. Particularly evocative is the three-story soaring Rendezvous Court at the hotel's east entrance facing Pershing Square, which was modeled after Queen Isabella's court. You can find portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella on the upper stairway looking over their domain. If the court and other settings seem familiar, it is because they have been used extensively for movies and television shoots including, Chinatown, Ghostbusters, The Sting and The Fabulous Baker Boys. The 11-flight ornate back staircase was used to dizzying effect in the Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece Vertigo.

The Olive Street entrance to the Biltmore Hotel was the location where the infamous "Black Dahlia," an aspiring 22-year-old actress named Elizabeth Short, was last seen as she exited the building, walked north on the busy sidewalk and into Los Angeles crime history. Her body was found in a vacant lot on January 15, 1947. The crime remains unsolved.

The Regal Biltmore also has been the scene of some other real-life dramas. The hotel has been the setting for eight early Academy Awards ceremonies from 1931 to 1942. In 1960 John F. Kennedy, from the presidential suite, directed his nomination as the Democratic candidate for president.

Regal Biltmore Hotel
506 South Grand Avenue
Open 24 hours

Exit back onto Olive and cross the street to...