The world is full of starchitects like Tadao Ando, Renzo Piano, Jeanne Gang, David Adjaye–even the ghost of Zaha Hadid is still going strong. But the most famous, the one most likely to be found in the upper parts of lists about the greatest of all time is 93-year-old Frank Gehry.
While his buildings around the globe are renowned, the Canada-born architect first broke through in his adopted home of California. Our latest selection for Room Key takes us to his latest work in his hometown, the new Conrad Los Angeles.
The hotel is at the edge of downtown and part of a two-tower complex designed by Gehry called The Grand. It’s across the street from his famed Disney Concert Hall and diagonally across from The Broad art museum. The hotel building is not a frenzied deconstructivist work like the concert hall or his recent metallic Weasley-house-looking LUMA Arles, but it’s still a sculptural tower of stacked rectangular boxes.
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The hotel is the first on the west coast for the brand. For the unfamiliar, Conrads (along with the Waldorf-Astoria Collection) are the luxury group within Hilton hotels. Thus, rooms here start in the $600s and there is an extensive spa, pool, and gym available. But what sets this hotel apart (as well as the price point) and why there was so much anticipation for its opening is that Gehry isn’t the only megawatt star involved with it.
The inside of the hotel was overseen by Tara Bernerd, whose designs are filling hotel brands like Four Seasons, Belmond, and Rosewood. Here she has managed to soften what could have been a cold tower. In the lobby and in the rooms, floors are covered in wide plank white oak. In the lobby (which is on the 10th floor of the tower) textured Ceppo di Gre stone accents an array of wood furnishings and cladding. Don’t miss the polished lava stone bar top or the curved ceilings reflecting the hall across the street. The rooms are understated, with linen walls and not only an open wardrobe but open bathrooms that, thankfully, seal shut with rolling doors. For those who pay close attention to health and beauty product selection, the hotel’s rooms are stocked with products from the always chic Byredo.
The other megawatt star involved in the project is restaurateur José Andrés, who has four spots in this hotel. One is the bar called Beaudry Room with the aforementioned lava bar top and the second is the poolside Airlight, which serves handheld bites. Agua Viva is a rooftop restaurant around the corner from the pool that feels as if you’ve been transported to Miami, and that includes the music. For those looking for something light (it is LA after all), you can’t go wrong with the beefsteak burger which is made with tomato instead of meat.
The signature restaurant is called San Laurel and it opens up onto a deck overlooking the Disney Concert Hall on one side and out across Dodger Stadium to the mountains beyond on the other. It’s one of those classic spaces out here that LA does really well, carving a snazzy green space out of urban environments like office towers, busy roads, and parking lots. The food here is Spain meets California, and if the almond crab soup is still on the menu when you go, order it. It’s nutty and sweet and sour all at once. But no matter what you eat it’s hard to beat sitting on a terrace at this restaurant at sunset, as the metal on the concert hall shimmers and the endless sprawl is bathed in that hazy Los Angeles light.
