Secret Hollywood
West Hollywood is a playground for fun seekers and trend setters in the glittery shadow of the world’s leading movie industry. Visitors find plenty of restaurants, pubs and a score of music and comedy clubs – plus one striptease bar – all on or around one of the most well known streets of the world, the Sunset Strip.
In Southern California, make-believe is a thriving industry. Style is deemed far more important than substance. What you are, overshadows who you are. In this environment, the City of West Hollywood is comfortably at home, clearly cut from the same cloth of fantasy wrapped around reality.
It essentially exists to fulfil the Sybaritic pleasures, not necessarily of its residents, but of its visitors. These are, more often than not, wealthy, powerful, and creative trend setters and fun seekers of all ages.
Other communities of the same population, about 37,000, are satisfied if their retail base consists of a couple of small grocery stores, some fast food restaurants, maybe a motel or two and a sprinkling of apparel shops. But for its size – just three square kilometres – West Hollywood smugly boasts close to 150 restaurants, pubs and sidewalk cafes, plus jazz, comedy, R&B, pop and rock clubs. This makes it perhaps the largest concentration of such establishments in a community of this size anywhere. Many of these are found on West Hollywood’s main street, which is known universally as the Sunset Strip.
“West Hollywood is a vibrant kaleidoscope of things to do and see,” says Brad Burlingame, president of the West Hollywood Conventions & Visitors Bureau. “We attract people looking for fine dining, high-end shopping and entertainment.” Adds an associate: “That other Hollywood is where you think you’ll see celebrities, but here in West Hollywood is where they really are.” She adds: “We have the edginess of Hollywood and the glamour and glitz of Beverly Hills. We are a merger of both.”
All this action and energy is located in the heart of metropolitan Los Angeles. Until 1984, the area was a patchwork of land in an unincorporated part of Los Angeles County, until it became a city in its own right and the City of West Hollywood was born. It is bounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles and on the fourth by the city of Beverly Hills. Just across the invisible line that divides West Hollywood from Beverly Hills are vast estates that sprawl behind high walls, and luxurious homes set off by spacious lawns and flower gardens. “Our patrons don’t live here in West Hollywood,” concedes a restaurateur. He nods his head westward. “They live there, but dine here.”
It is no surprise that paparazzi stake out the “in” restaurants and clubs each evening to photograph the comings and goings of show business and sports celebrities, and they are rarely disappointed. It is well known that the regular patronage of the rich and famous is as important to attracting less renowned patrons to these establishments as their cuisine.
Shopping is yet another diversion for visitors, with West Hollywood eschewing the sprawling southern California mall in favour of elegant boutiques and exclusive shops. One of these is Lotta Stensson, named for its owner, who is a renowned designer. Like many shops in the city, Lotta Stensson is accustomed to dressing some of the biggest names in the entertainment world, including Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry, Madonna and Nicole Ritchie.
When it comes to the city’s look and overall ambience, West Hollywood is anything but restrained. While most other cities fight the construction of large billboards, West Hollywood welcomes them; particularly giant, one-of-a-kind “vanity” billboards that often promote a new movie or recording artist. Walls of ten storey high office buildings along the Strip are regularly painted with similar colourful promotional displays. Says one city official: “Along the Sunset Strip, almost anything goes.”
While the hedonistic Strip comes alive after dark, during the day another section of the city attracts those with swank apartments and expensive homes to furnish. Their turf is Robertson and Beverly boulevards and Melrose Avenue, promoted by denizens as “Avenues of Art and Design”. Here some 400 businesses are concentrated, including designers, chic clothiers, antique and contemporary furniture stores, interior design shops and galleries. Some of these establishments are so exclusive that they receive prospective customers by appointment only. “A typical gentleman doesn’t go into one of these shops to just buy a tie or shirt,” says one astute observer. “He’ll probably pick out an entire outfit with a half dozen custom-made shirts.”
While the main industries of West Hollywood admittedly are entertainment, dining and shopping, serious creative work is also done there. In recent years, recording studios and pre- and post-production facilities have settled in the town, attracted in part by the popularity of the area with the international creative community.
All this activity requires the presence of performing artists, musicians, writers, agents and producers, among other specialists who converge on the community from all over the world. For the weeks that their work is in progress, they take up extended residence in the community’s hotels and contribute in no small way to the glitter and the glamour that is very much part of the West Hollywood scene.
Accommodation in West Hollywood is in keeping with its generally high-end appeal. Among the community’s 14 hotels are several of southern California’s most exclusive full service and elegant properties. But there are also a number of boutique hotels, mostly all suites, discreetly located on quiet residential streets. Typical of these is the Chamberlain. Its guest register has included the likes of Oscar Academy winners and Grammy nominees, as well as A-list celebrities.
The existence of all these upmarket establishments contrasts sharply with West Hollywood’s permanent resident population. Of the 37,000 living there, about 12% are recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union. They live quite modestly at the eastern end of the tiny community, shopping in stores with signs in Russian and shelves stocked with Old World specialties.
Another 30% of the city’s residents are gays and lesbians. Bars, bookstores, coffee shops and retail shops catering to those practicing this lifestyle line Santa Monica Boulevard.
Every year in June Santa Monica Boulevard is closed to traffic for two days and becomes the setting for the annual Christopher Street West’s Gay & Lesbian Pride Celebration. With as many as 300,000 spectators and participants, the parade is one of the largest in California, second only to the New Year’s Day Rose Parade in Pasadena.
“West Hollywood is for those looking for something completely unique,” concludes Burlingame. It certainly is that.
Story by Norman Sklarewitz/TCS
Pix © Ron Mesaros /TCS
