Jane's Addiction at The Chateau Marmont

Jane’s Addiction is an L.A. rock band that has never really been on my radar. I couldn’t even name one song that they did. However, when I saw a few vintage transparencies for sale featuring them on the balcony of the Chateau Marmont’s room 54, I paid attention!

Edited from Wikipedia:

In mid-1985, Perry Farrell was to Eric Avery and the pair bonded over a mutual appreciation of Joy Division and The Velvet Underground. They began to practice together and formed a new band called “Jane's Addiction” after Farrell’s housemate, Jane Bainter, who was their muse and inspiration. “My girlfriend [Casey Niccoli] and I were sitting in the car…” Farrell recalled, “and we started to think about band names. She threw in Jane’s Heroin Experience. I thought it wasn’t vague enough. If you want to invite people in, you don’t want to put heroin on your door.” The band consisted of vocalist Perry Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro, drummer Stephen Perkins, and bassist Eric Avery. Jane's Addiction was one of the first bands from the early 1990s alternative rock movement to gain both mainstream media attention and commercial success in the United States.

In these photos from 1990, drummer Perkins is on the left, Farrell on the right.



A closeup of the view of Sunset Boulevard at the time. The 1960 Chase Bank/Lytton Savings building was still standing at the time, able to be seen because of its unique folded plate concrete roof. Unfortunately, this photo missed capturing Schwab’s Drugstore by just two years.



The shot I took from the same balcony circa April 2022, showing the still vacant lot that was once the Garden of Allah, Lytton Savings, and then Chase Bank. I couldn’t find any news on the internet about its status since the Gehry monstrosity planned to be built there went belly-up.



Same balcony, different light fixtures, and awning, but the patio chair could be the same!



Anthony Perkins posed on the same balcony back in the 1960s, as did Sharon Tate.



Next to the Penthouse in 64, it’s definitely one of the coolest rooms in the hotel.

See more Chateau Marmont photos at my main website.

8150 Goes Bust!

It was no surprise to me when I saw last night on the Esotouric Tours instagram account that the Frank Gehry monstrosity that was to replace the midcentury modern Lytton bank building (which replaced the Garden of Allah hotel) was now officially kaput. Gonzo. Belly-up. Finito. The lot is now up for sale, according to a WEHO times article.

Here’s a pictorial history of this lot, beginning with the Garden of Allah hotel (1927-1959) shown above, followed by the Chase/Lytton Bank (1960-2021), designed by architect Kurt Meyer:



…followed by an overhead view I shot just before it was leveled:



After the bank was removed:



…and then the rest of the strip mall was removed, too. This is how it looked when I photographed it last month:



I surmised a few months ago that when the lot stayed bare with no construction going on that something was amiss with the Gehry-planned development.

Why did this occur? Very simple. A lot with a building that could be considered “historic” is a headache for developers. It equals bad press because of the potential loss of the historic building and it often means expensive and lengthy legal battles to overcome the demolition pushback. Townscape Partners secured legal approval to demo the bank in 2018; they revised the original Gehry plan to incorporate some historic touches to appease both bank and hotel fans. And then the pandemic hit. The way business is done changed and the need for another mixed use property with an expensive piece of poo on it decreased. 

Still…the bank had to be removed, otherwise the potential for future legal battles to save it could have returned. Thus, the empty lot you see now that is up for grabs again.

Here’s a vintage shot of Robert Benchley and Charlie Butterworth that seems appropriate for this story. The accompanying publicity blurb said that they “…kept open house in the Garden of Allah and invited passing friends in for drinks all night long. Here they are posing as they might have looked by dawn’s early light.”



The silver lining? This design is DOA.



See more photos at my main website.

Sunset Boulevard Update

This bird’s eye from the seventh floor of the Chateau Marmont gives a wonderful panorama of Marmont Lane (on the left) where the infamous John Belushi bungalow is located; at center is the Marmont pool, where Howard Hughes “allegedly” ogled sunbathing females from his sixth floor penthouse suite; and on the right, is Sunset Boulevard, aka “The Strip.”



Zooming in you can see a construction fence surrounding the property that once housed the Garden of Allah Hotel from 1927-1959; it was replaced by the Lytton Savings bank, which has now been torn down to make way for a mixed-use development designed by Frank Gehry, who claims his renderings were inspired by the Garden of Allah.

I was in LA when the Garden of Allah existed, and with this project, I wanted to capture the feeling of the experience of that place which was vibrant and memorable. It has always been important to me to respect this history while also creating something of our time.

Based on the renderings that have been revealed so far, I do not see any correlation between the two projects.



So for now, the lot sits empty, awaiting its fate.



Will the Gehry project ever get off the ground? Or now that the Lytton Savings has been torn down, avoiding any future obstacles with the preservationists, will it appear back on the market for sale again?



Here’s what the property looked like during my last visit in April (above) and from 2017 (below).



Directly across the street from the Chateau is the former office of Jay Ward Productions, where the famous statue of Rocky and Bullwinkle once rotated for all to see along Sunset Boulevard. Hollywood Hounds and PoshPetCare have “left the building” and this place also has a construction fence around it. 



Unfortunately my camera was on the wrong setting, so I didn’t get a detailed enough shot to be able to tell if the elbow prints left by local journalists and a few Jay Ward employees in 1961-1962 are still there, but it appears that they could be.



How the property looked in 2012 when it was Hollywood Hounds and Bullwinkle was still there with his little pal, Rocky (somewhat obscured by a palm tree):



See more of my Sunset Boulevard photos at my website.