LA Confidential: A Visit to the Newest Ace Hotel - Remodelista
Last week, on a snow escape in LA, my mother, sister, and I made a pilgrimage downtown to visit Dosa and inspect the overnight gentrification we’d been hearing about. Photographs by Laure Joliet for Remodelista. According to the Ace team, the Spanish Gothic design of its building, the 1927 United Artists theater and adjoining tower, was inspired by “Mary Pickford’s love for the ornate detail and stone spires of Spanish castles and cathedrals.” The 13-story structure served over the decades as Texaco’s headquarters and, more recently, as as a Christian ministry center (complete with giant neon “Jesus Saves” sign, still intact). The lobby’s new doors are adorned with stenciling and original Gothic trefoils–the Ace way is to combine historic details with affordable contemporary flourishes... ...which it terms “a mixture of reverent awe and irreverent independence.” The Ace LA is the sixth Ace (the upstart group also has locations in Portland, Oregon, NYC, Palm Springs, Seattle, and London). The entry has a cathedral-like feel. We recreated it from there, looking to LA’s mishmash of Gothic historic styles and also the work of LA modernists. A view of the lobby through a newly created arched entry with original restored plasterwork that once surrounded movie posters. Pencil drawings by the Haas Brothers–28 year old twins in LA who collaborate on art and design–adorn the walls. They responded with graphite glyphs of missile-like floating palms, personalities (Diane Keaton, Ed Ruscha, Abbot Kinney), and local mountain ranges (visible over the front door). The reception desk was built by the Haas brothers using carved paneling salvaged from an office in the building; they carved their own swirling pattern into the wood and inset oil paintings of palm trees in the smog. “The lobby was an exercise in covering up ugly ducts and mechanical stuff,” confides Alonso. The grand looking paneled ceiling is a stage set of sorts: inexpensive black-painted homasote crowned with shelves that display theater books (accessed, if necessary, by ladder). Commune restored the building’s iron grillwork and entirely created a storefront for the in-house restaurant, LA Chapter. LA Chapter is from the team behind Brooklyn hotspot Five Leaves. “It’s meant to evoke a Viennese coffee house built in LA in the late 1920’s,” says Alonso. The coffee window–we recommend pairing a pot of Earl Gray with the house ginger cookies, which are both sweet and salty and the best any of us had ever tasted. Patterned tiles–yet another detail we’d like to bring home, and it turns out we can. Inspired by the work of Brazilian artist Burle Marx, they’re part of Commune’s Sitio Collection from Exquisite Surfaces. A counter situated by the elevator has a stained glass view into the restaurant. The glass is the work of The Judson Studios, a fifth generation workshop in LA’s Highland Park. Two sizes of tongue and groove paneling–3 inch and 9 inch–were used in the restaurant and stair that leads to a satellite sitting area. The mezzanine overlooks the restaurant (and offers table service). In lieu of lounging in the lobby, the mezzanine offers a variety of seating options. Witty DIY wallpaper: each landing is decorated with wheatpasted pages from old Hollywood scripts that provide a backdrop for stenciled signage. The guests rooms take their cues from the modernist designs of LA architect Rudolph Schindler... ...and also make great use of economical materials. Aside from the Noguchi globes, all of the lighting in the hotel is by Atelier de Troupe, one of our LA favorites. “We maintained as much of the original concrete, as we could; it had so much character,” says Alonso. In contrast to the industrial ceilings, the beds have custom Mondrian-patterned Pendleton blankets, available from the Ace gift shop. A double sink with a honed Carrara marble top rests on a steel base that was inspired by the balconies of the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany. The custom mirrors each have a support that doubles as hook for hanging soap. In order to incorporate showers into small guest rooms, the designers installed steel and glass partitions in place of walls. What looks like a shoeshine stool is the work of the Moreras, a father and son team in Culver City, who spent two years making more than 200 for the Ace. Above L: The Do Not Disturb sign reinvented in particle board. We’ve loved and visited all of the Ace’s outposts; have a look at our Ace Hotel posts, including the hotel that launched the look, the Ace in Portland, and the Ace Hotel Shoreditch, which opened in London this past fall.