Los Angeles has been experiencing a housing shortage for decades—with many of the new residential structures being built offering a larger proportion of luxury housing than affordable units. And that shortage has worsened in the wake of the January 2025 wildfires that wiped out nearly the entire communities of Altadena and the Pacific Palisades.
There was a severe need for housing in the U.S. in the 1940s, too—with building materials being rationed for the war effort and then all those soldiers coming home after World War II and starting families with much enthusiasm (launching the "baby boom" generation).
Back during the war, one answer to that housing shortage was offered by architect Wallace Neff: the Airform house, which could be constructed in just two days.
All it took was to cover a giant balloon (made of rubberized nylon) with chicken wire and spray it with concrete (a.k.a. gunite). Deflate the balloon and boom, you've got a house—or, as it was called, a "Bubble House."
Despite their speed and affordability, fewer than 3000 Bubble Houses (or "Balloon Houses") were built in this country. Only one of them remains, built at a cost of $16,000—and it just went on the market for a whopping $1.85 million.
I've toured the 111-year-old Los Angeles Athletic Club in Downtown Los Angeles twice now, including once in 2012 upon its centennial, but there's one spot I hadn't gotten to yet: the basement.
So, we took the opportunity to attend LAAC's Roaring Twenties Masquerade right before Halloween, which offered a "haunted underground tour" in addition to the masked revelry upstairs.
[Last updated 9/17/23 10:20 PM PT—Removed photo/mention of Alfred Hitchcock, as he's not buried at Hollywood Forever.]
Every year, around this time of year, I think I might like to go check out the Día de Muertos event at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California—the largest of its kind outside of Mexico. But the closer it gets to the date, the more reticent I become to deal with the festiveness of the festivities.
Well, this won't be my year to go, as the event—which usually occurs a few days before the Day of the Dead—is canceled for COVID-19.
But I'm kind of relieved. And kind of grateful, too. Because the pandemic has allowed me to visit Hollywood Forever a few times on a weekday, without the crowds, and with nothing special going on except the cemetery itself.
In the nearly 10 years that I've lived in LA, Hollywood Forever has really become a thing—partially because of its outdoor movie screenings and its concerts and other events at the Masonic Lodge.
Most of the building is part of the cemetery’s administration complex. It's the upstairs main meeting room—the "lodge"—that's got the most esoteric origins, with its wood beam ceilings and mystical energy.
Designated a national historic landmark, the Morgan, Walls and Clements-designed lodge was completed in 1931 with interiors (including lighting fixtures and furnishings) also designed by the firm in the Spanish Renaissance style.
On the outside, the Spanish Baroque-style structure has been stripped of many of its visible ties to freemasonry—but it once served as the home base for the members of the Southland Lodge No. 617, who used the entire complex as a community center until the 1960s.
That part of the cemetery stood essentially abandoned for three decades—despite being at the main entrance.
Hollywood Forever—which Isaac Van Nuys and his father-in-law Isaac Lankershim opened in 1899 as Hollywood Cemetery—is perhaps best-known for its celebrity grave sites. It is Hollywood, after all. And it's directly behind the Paramount Studios lot, too.
As with most cemeteries, I'm a bit more interested in the art and architecture (like of the chapel and the columbarium dome behind it, both circa 1928).
But Hollywood Forever (also formerly known as Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery) has the added bonus of peafowl, which have resided there for over 15 years.
clock tower (built 1930)
On the west side of Hollywood Forever—with entrances off of Gower Street (named after Hollywood pioneer Mary Love Gower, who once owned the land)—is the Beth Olam Jewish Cemetery.
That's where you'll find the final resting place of Mel Blanc, the "Man of 1,000 Voices" (Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester the Cat, Porky Pig)...
...and actress Estelle Getty, who was born the daughter of Polish Jews and not, like her character Sophia from The Golden Girls, Italians from Sicily.
Hollywood pioneers are buried at this cemetery, too...
...like Paramount co-founder Jesse Lasky, producer of The Squaw Man(also namesake of the Lasky-DeMille Barn, Hollywood's "first movie studio," which now houses Hollywood Heritage).
The Abbey of the Psalms Mausoleum, designed by Marston & Maybury, started out in the 1930s...
...and has grown over time to also include the Sanctuary of Memories (and of Faith, Light, Trust, and so on).
With the 8-foot, bronze statue of Johnny Ramone in 2004, Hollywood Forever also solidified its status as a destination for music fans...
...looking to pay tribute to their favorite punk idols...
...which also include Johnny's bandmate, Dee Dee Ramone, who's buried just down the way.
Johnny isn't actually buried there yet—his ashes will be interred there after his wife, who is holding onto them, passes away.
His neighbor in the (Sound)Garden of Legends will be fellow rocker Chris Cornell, who was buried next to the statue in 2017.
They're both near the south shore of Sylvan Lake—one of two original lakes (the other one, more centrally located, has since been filled in)—where the Classical Revival-style Clark Family Mausoleum (circa 1920, by Robert Farquhar) occupies Clark Island, both named after Los Angeles Philharmonic founder William Andrews Clark, Jr.
Facing the Italian carrera marble monolith is a likeness of Russian-born actor Anton Yelchin, who died at the age of 27 in 2016.
In addition to bronze statues, a number of other memorials can be created by Hollywood Forever's in-house studio of stonemasons.
That helps make each gravesite a special destination in its own right—like the one for Terry, the dog who portrayed "Toto" in The Wizard of Oz (though she was actually buried at a pet cemetery that was destroyed for the construction of the 101 Freeway).
The last new structure to be built is the Fairbanks Memorial Reflecting Pool in Fairbanks Gardens (circa 1939), named after swashbuckling sex symbol Douglas Fairbanks.
It sits just west of the Italian Renaissance-style Hollywood Cathedral Mausoleum, designed by the Pasadena architectural team Marston and Van Pelt. It was constructed out of California granite and completed in 1922.
That's where Mickey Rooney is buried, his interment visible from the exterior.
Inside, the crypts are covered in slabs of Alabama marble...
...some, like that of silent film-era Hollywood heartthrob Rudolph Valentino, flanked by bronze urns.
Tjere are shrines to those interred in the mausoleum, too—like to actor Peter Lorre in the Alcove of Reverence.
Even the darker corners of the mausoleum—where the niches are less often frequented by fans—there is vibrant color and light, thanks to panels of stained glass windows.
...while others don't carry an artist signature or maker's mark (though Judson Studios is known to have contributed art glass to the Cathedral Mausoleum, perhaps the skylights).
While Hollywood Forever was one of the first "lawn park"-style cemeteries in California, the burial plots currently aren't restricted to just low-profile markers. But Cecile B. DeMille's sarcophagus is surprisingly modest for such a heralded director. [Ed: Previously I had a photo here of a tombstone marked "HITCHCOCK" that I attributed to director Alfred Hitchcock, which is incorrect. Rookie mistake. I removed it on 9/17/23. ]
When I visit, I like to make a loop from the Santa Monica Boulevard gate entrance, through the cemetery, and back to the exit by passing the old pump house...
...so I can try to spot any of the feral cats that the cemetery helps feed and shelter.
The cats tend to hang out just east of the bird pens, where dozens of peacocks can escape the crowds or head out onto 64 acres of lawn for a little strutting and grooming.
Located in the Spring Street National Register Historic District, The Alexandria Hotel might appear to be a single hotel.
But a closer look reveals that it's a complex of three buildings, each with its own owner who leased the land they were built on—a total of seven separate parcels.
And it may soon lose one of those three historic structures. Because it turns out that they're not as seamlessly linked as you might think.
Named after owner Harry Alexander, the first (or "main") section of the hotel was constructed by the Bilicke-Rowan Fireproof Building Company—developers Albert Clay(A.C.) Bilicke, president of the Alexandria Hotel Company, and Robert Arnold (R.A.) Rowan—in 1906 for $2 million, an almost unheard-of cost at the time.
Architect John Parkinson (Bullocks Wilshire, Union Station, City Hall) created the 8-story, Beaux Arts hotel with 360 rooms—each with private bathrooms, central heating, and automatic do not disturb signs on the doors.
Although the pressed brick façade (by Pacific Clay Manufacturing Company) with terracotta balustrade may look relatively simple, The Alexandria Hotel was the most elaborate in LA at the time, offering luxury and drawing upscale clientele. Some decorative sculptures placed on top of the decorative parapet with balusters divided by columns were removed in the 1950s.
But the cast stone chimeras still provide a unique character to this corner lot at 5th and Spring in the Historic Core of Downtown Los Angeles.
Screenshot: Google Street View
The second part of the hotel to be built arose on the 5th Street side, essentially concurrently with the first—and the two sections were designed to function as one unit, with more or less indistinguishable façades (the line of demarcation noticeable only at the fire escapes). William Chick owned the land and had operated his Chick Brothers' livery stable there, until he tore it down upon partnering with the hotel.
Screenshot: Google Street View
But Chick made a grave error in its construction—he omitted "hoistways" (a.k.a. elevators) and stairwells. A dispute with the new owner of the reopened main hotel in 1938 resulted in the annex being sealed off ever since—now known as the "phantom" or "ghost" wing. (An update on this wing at the bottom of this post. In the meantime, the history is all very complicated—so for a full explanation, click here. And for contemporary photos click here.)
In 1911, a 12-story addition—technically, the "Second Addition," or "the Spring Street Addition"—was constructed out of reinforced concrete immediately to the south of the original steel frame "main" structure, also designed by Parkinson with his partner G. (George) Edwin Bergstrom.
This third and final addition helped bring the hotel's capacity up to about 500 rooms and kicked off a heyday that would last until about 1922, after which its popularity was eclipsed by the newly opened Biltmore Hotel a few blocks away.
But what a heyday it had, for those 11 years.
At the time, 5th and Spring was considered to be the "up-and-coming" shopping area, as the center of Los Angeles was moving west and south from its pueblo beginnings. Its proximity to Broadway's bustling nightlife didn't hurt, either.
The Alexandria Hotel became a hangout for Hollywood execs and silent film stars like Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, and Rudolph Valentino—so much so that the Persian rug in the lobby got nicknamed "million-dollar carpet" because of all the deals being made there.
The Spring Street addition's ground floor included a 196-foot long banquet hall called the Franco-Italian Dining Room, later known as the Grand Ballroom and the Continental Room, and now called the Palm Court. Of all the interior spaces in the hotel, it's the most intact.
Upon its opening, it was already the city's most prestigious ballroom—but speeches given by U.S. Presidents William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson and a wedding ceremony between Gloria Swanson and Herbert Somborn in 1919 cemented its reputation. (The couple also honeymooned at the hotel and even lived there for a few years after.)
The Palm Court's most distinguishing feature now is its stained glass skylight, widely attributed to Louis Comfort Tiffany. It was painted black during World War II (so as to not aid enemy aircraft) and forgotten about—but later rediscovered and restored. It's what helped earn the Palm Court its designation as a City of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM#80) in 1971—one of the few “interior-only” HCMs in the city.
Unfortunately, the original Italian and Egyptian marble has been removed from the hotel lobby—which, after several redecorations and a later gutting, has been rendered unrecognizable. But they kept a little bit of the marble on the walls at the stairs leading to the basement.
Across from a frieze of cherubs, you can climb the marble-floored staircase up to the mezzanine...
...holding onto its iron railing by an oak handrail...
...and emerging into a loft-like space called "The Mezz," now used as a venue for weddings and such as part of the Alexandria Ballrooms event planning service.
Upstairs you'll also find the former Rose Ballroom, its French windows opening out onto the Spring Street side of the building, with its original beamed ceiling and hardwood floors.
It's now called the "King Edward Ballroom"—incorrectly so, since apparently the rumor that King Edward ever visited the hotel has been debunked. Harry Houdini and his wife Bess, however, did celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary in that room.
Colloquially, some people still call the former Rose Ballroom the "Paula Abdul Room," because of the music video she shot there for the song "Cold-Hearted" in 1989, directed by David Fincher.
The video (above) gives a great glimpse into how the room looked 30 years ago—which is remarkably pretty much the same as now, except for the paint job on the walls.
Like any other successful hotel, The Alexandria boasted both private ballrooms and eateries for their guests and visitors—including the Peacock Inn Coffee Shop (now a private bar available to rent) and Gentlemen's Grill upstairs (which sometimes women weaseled their way into).
Down on the lower level, underneath the Spring Street Addition, was the Mission Indian Grill (a.k.a. Indian Grill Cafeteria). It was converted into an underground parking garage, the tile floor paved with asphalt. But foot and tire traffic have been wearing that blacktop coating away, revealing little bits of the original tile, piece by piece.
Despite its massive success, the Alexandria Hotel ultimately couldn't overcome the local competition (like from the Biltmore) combined with the Great Depression. It went bankrupt and closed in 1932.
It did reopen a few years later and experience somewhat of a revival—but as it changed hands time and again over the following decades, it was slowly stripped of its grandeur.
In the mid-1950s, boxing matches brought rowdy crowds. In the 1970s, the banks left the Spring Street financial district.
What once was a destination for fine dining now brought customers in with concepts like the Guv'Nor's Grille—a kind of British pub/surf n turf establishment on the corner of 5th and Spring at street level in the late 1960s/early 1970s. (It's now occupied by The Down And Out Bar, though a shield-shaped bronze bas relief still promotes steaks, chops, and seafood on the corner column. Prior to that, it was Charley O's Cocktail Bar, which seems to have closed in 2010.)
In addition to serving "California's Finest Salads," it also offered dishes named after Mary Pickford, Oliver Hardy, Rudolph Valentino, Sarah Bernhardt, Tom Mix, and Harold Lloyd—all of whom had been associated with the hotel at one time or another.
In the 1980s, the Alexandria Hotel had become overrun with drug dealers taking advantage of its weekly rates. By 1988, it was called "the worst drug-trafficking spot in Los Angeles" by city officials.
Rezoning it later as a low-income housing property/single room occupancy (SRO) didn't help the blight much. Neither did its proximity to Skid Row (5th Street a.k.a. "The Nickel").
It's now a mix of market rate and subsidized housing—and still a popular filming location.
None of those challenges have kept developers from trying to revitalize the Alexandria, much like other vintage buildings in Downtown Los Angeles have been given new life.
But for the Alexandria, that may come at the sacrifice of one of its three sections—the ghost wing.
That wasn't always the plan. In 2012, the sealed-off second building was sold and slated to be developed into the 35-room "Chelsea Building."
But since that time, the deterioration has been deemed "irreversible"—and developers argue that they'll need to entirely rebuild the interior to include some stairways and an elevator.
The result will be The Annex, with 31 residential units. Applications for the project to move forward were filed as recently as 2018. But no work has begun.
In the meantime, you can enjoy other public areas of The Alexandria (besides The Down And Out) by patronizing The Wolves on the ground level of the Spring Street Addition and The Little Easy, a subterranean spot below the main hotel.
People say the whole thing is haunted—and you can bet it's not by Rudolph Valentino (because if that were true, man does he ghost get around).
The Alexandria's most famous ghost is "the woman in black," who walks the halls for all eternity.
But it's possible that there's lots of other bad juju that hasn't been cleared out of the hotel—including some recent events, like when an 87-year-old man fell to his death in 2009 or another man died jumping from the 4th floor in 2013.
I don't plan to stick around long enough in that building to find out.
