The Garland Hotel from “Parks and Recreation”

A couple of years ago, I drove by a hotel that looked like a little slice of retro heaven and became transfixed. I made a mental note of its name and vowed to research it further. As soon as I got home, though, I realized the name had escaped me and, because I have no sense of direction whatsoever (my mom says I couldn’t find my way out of a paper bag!), I did not even really remember where it was located. Then this past November, fate stepped in. While the Grim Cheaper and I were driving to the Valli Tropics apartments from Wicked City, we randomly passed by the hotel and I just about did a dance of joy! This time I took note of its name, The Garland, and vowed to book a stay there in the near future. In a synchronistic twist, fellow stalker Michael of The Golden Spoon Café and Downtown Christmas Shopping District from The Brady Bunch fame, happened to mention in an email just a few days later that he had stayed at the Garland on a recent trip to L.A. and loved it. So when it came time to book a hotel for my and the GC’s Christmas shopping trip shortly thereafter, The Garland was the only hotel I looked into. And it turned out to be even better than I had imagined!

The Garland stands on a seven-acre parcel of land once owned by Gene Autry. Fillmore Crank, the real estate developer husband of actress Beverly Garland, purchased the large, undeveloped lot in 1970 with thoughts of building an apartment complex there. His good friend baseball player Casey Stengel convinced him to construct a hotel on the land instead. So the couple partnered up with Las Vegas hotelier John Kell Houssels Jr., secured a 20-year deal with The Howard Johnson Company, and in 1972 the Beverly Garland Howard Johnson Motor Lodge opened to the public.

The 155-room hotel was not constructed in the typical Howard Johnson fashion with an angled red roof, but in the Mission style as a nod to its Southern California location.

When the contract with Howard Johnson ended, Beverly and Fillmore ran the hotel independently for a short while before eventually signing on with the Holiday Inn, at which time it was renamed the Beverly Garland Holiday Inn. To locals and frequent guests, though, it was known as the “Beverly Garland” or “The Garland.”

In 2000, Beverly and Fillmore’s son, James Crank, took over management of the hotel, though Beverly could still often be seen flitting around the property, helping guests. When the Holiday Inn contract expired in 2013, James decided to once again operate the site as an independent hotel that he redubbed “The Garland.” He also began a $20-million renovation of the place at that time, the results of which are absolutely spectacular!

From the Instagram-able lobby . . .

. . . to the unique retro touches at every turn . . .

. . . to the lively décor . . .

. . . The Garland is honestly like no other hotel I’ve ever seen.

The Christmas decorations were also majorly on point.

Today, the 257-room hotel boasts a large outdoor pool (which sadly, due to the seriously frosty weather, we were unable to partake of) . . .

. . . countless outdoor spaces . . .

. . . a myriad of activities for families, children and couples, including a foosball table and board games set up in the courtyard. . .

. . . gorgeous vistas . . .

. . . literally everywhere you look (yes, that’s a wall of flying butterflies!) . . .

. . . whimsical design elements around seemingly every corner, which I had fun with . . .

. . . and a massive outdoor garden event space designed by famed landscape architect Jonny Appleseed.

The Garland also offers free shuttle service to Universal Studios and Universal City Walk, complimentary Wi-Fi, a plethora of onsite classes including poolside macramé and garden tai chi yoga, a business center, a gym, a fabulous gift shop that carries all sorts of California- and L.A.-themed goodies, and over 16,000 square feet of meeting and event space.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention The Front Yard, the hotel’s onsite restaurant.

Upon checking in, we received a coupon for two complimentary cocktails at The Front Yard, so we decided to try the place out and wound up staying for dinner. The GC and I both opted for the TFY Burger – a ground short rib burger with a potato bun, truffle dijonnaise, wild mushrooms, Point Reyes toma cheese, and red onion balsamic jam. It was uh-ma-zing! So good that the GC was literally craving it all day the next day and couldn’t wait for dinnertime so that we could rush back there.

Oh, and our room wasn’t too shabby, either. It was the perfect combination of retro and modern, with whimsical touches throughout.

All in all, The Garland is a fabulous hotel and I couldn’t more highly recommend a stay there.

To add to the allure, The Garland is also a popular filming venue! The site has been a location scout favorite from the beginning, in fact. Back in its early days, it appeared in everything from Quincy, M.E. to Falcon Crest to Switch. In the book Beverly Garland: Her Life and Career, author Deborah Del Vecchio quotes Garland as saying, “They’ve also done a Six Million Dollar Man and Police Woman [at the hotel]. In fact, they’ve done just about all the big shows here. They have filmed everywhere in the hotel – inside at the desk area, around in the back, jumping off of balconies – and the guests just love it. Of course, it is a mess when they do film because they’ve got cables running everywhere. They’ve done commercials around the pool and the tennis courts. We always put a sign up saying, for instance, “Universal is filming Six Million Dollar Man here today” so that our guests will know that sometimes they would not be able to get to the front desk for a while or do certain things that they’d like to do. And yet they get a kick out of that. Most people enjoy the fact that they are in Hollywood and that the studios are filming here at the lodge. And it’s good publicity for us and we like it!” Couldn’t have said it better myself, Beverly!

The Garland appeared no less than five times on the popular television series Knight Rider. One such instance was Season 1’s “Forget Me Not.”

The episode made use of the hotel lobby and really gives a feel for what The Garland looked like pre-remodel.

An actual room was also used in the filming. It cracked me up to see how different the rooms were back in 1982 when the episode was shot.

In 2012, The Garland masked as Pawnee Supersuites in the Season 4 finale of Parks and Recreation titled “Win, Lose or Draw.” It was in the hotel’s Garland Ballroom, renamed the Jermaine Jackson Ballroom for the episode (LOL!!!), where Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and the rest of the Parks gang waited for the City Council election results.

Very little of the ballroom was actually visible in the episode, though, due to all of Leslie’s campaign decorations.

Nevertheless, it is still recognizable from its appearance.

Pre-remodel, the Garland Ballroom appeared in the Season 2 episode of Knight Rider titled “Speed Demons,” which aired in 1984. The room looks so incredibly different now, it is hard to believe it is the same place where Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff) tried to help a down-on-his-luck dirt bike racer.