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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I hate change, especially when it comes to filming locations. So I was devastated when the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel, one of my favorite Tinseltown lodgings and frequent film star, was sold a couple of years ago, rebranded as a Loews, and extensively remodeled. Though I have yet to visit the place post-facelift, one look at the property’s website shows that it looks nothing like its former self, which is a shame considering its many onscreen appearances. I stalked and very briefly blogged about the Renaissance back in July 2008 and then re-stalked it again in early 2012, but never wrote a subsequent post. While going through my backlog of photos recently, I came across the 2012 pics and felt a pang of sadness knowing I’d never see the hotel in that state again. So I figured it was high time I shared the images and do a more thorough write-up on the place.
Loews Hollywood Hotel, as it is now known, originally opened in 1970 as the Holiday Inn-Hollywood. At the time, the 23-story building boasted 462 rooms, a pool, free parking, a penthouse chapel that offered weekly Sunday church services, and a revolving rooftop restaurant/nightclub with two stages named Oscar’s. You can see what it looked like during its early years here.
In 2001, the Holiday Inn underwent a major overhaul in conjunction with the opening of the neighboring Hollywood & Highland Center. Not only was the property completely revamped and rebranded as the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel & Spa, but an entire second tower was constructed bringing the total number of rooms to 637. As part of the rehab, the revolving rooftop restaurant, then known as Windows on Hollywood, was transformed into the massive 3,594-square-foot Panorama Suite. The plush space, which is pictured below – it’s that round disc-like structure situated on the top floor of the building – boasts 270-degree views of the city, a baby grand piano, a wet bar, a Jacuzzi bathtub, a dining area with seating for ten, and one to four bedrooms depending upon the chosen configuration. You can check out some photos of its interior here and here.
The modernized 560,000-square-foot site also featured 1950s-inspired décor, a restaurant, a pool, a spa, a fitness center, an enormous amount of meeting and event space, Metro Line access, and a spacious lobby with a grand stairwell, a lounge and brightly colored furnishings.
In June 2012, the property was purchased by the Loews Hotels & Resorts chain, renovated to the tune of $26 million, and turned into the Loews Hollywood Hotel. Sadly, it now looks completely different than it did during the Renaissance days, though the Panorama Suite appears to have been left untouched.
The hotel has proven a production favorite in all of its incarnations, which should come as no surprise considering its convenient location right in the heart of Hollywood, sheer size, colorful aesthetic, and that unique rooftop suite.
Its most notable appearance (well, in my mind, at least) was as a Las Vegas lodging in Britney Spears’ 2004 “Everytime” music video, which you can watch here. Many areas of the property were featured in the production, including the front driveway . . .
. . . the entrance leading from the parking garage to the back of the lobby (my photo below shows the doors visible behind the paparazzi from a different angle) . . .
. . . the lobby’s rear hallway, where a newspaper stand was set up for the shoot . . .
. . . and the Panorama Suite.
Kenny Crandell (Keith Coogan) and his stoner buddies partied on the hotel’s rooftop back when it was the Holiday Inn at the beginning of the 1991 comedy Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.
Adam (Brendan Fraser) checks into the Holiday Inn-Hollywood upon leaving his father’s bomb shelter in the 1999 comedy Blast from the Past. The hotel’s exterior . . .
. . . one of its rooms . . .
. . . and the lobby were all utilized in the film.
As you can see, the place looked considerably different during its time as the Holiday Inn than it did as the Renaissance.
Sylvester Clark (Angelo Tiffe) called the Panorama Suite home in the 2004 drama Collateral, though the room’s view was faked for the shoot to make it appear as if it overlooked downtown Los Angeles.
The Renaissance’s lobby masked as the lobby of the supposed Miami-area Lux Atlantic where Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) and Cynthia (Jayma Mays) worked in Red Eye.
The 2005 thriller provides a fabulous glimpse of what the interior of the hotel looked like during the time it operated as the Renaissance.
In the 2008 comedy Yes Man, Carl (Jim Carrey) attends a Yes! Is the New No! conference at the Renaissance. Both the exterior of the hotel . . .
. . . and its enormous 25,000-square-foot Grand Ballroom appear in the film.
The Panorama Suite popped up as the location of a rather grizzly murder in the first episode of American Horror Story: Hotel titled “Checking In,” which aired in 2015. (I blacked out a portion of the top screen capture below as it was a bit NSFW in its original form.)
The lobby also appeared in the episode. By that time, the hotel was operating as Loews and bearing its newly renovated look.
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Until next time, Happy Stalking!
Stalk It: Loews Hollywood Hotel, from Britney Spears’ “Everytime” music video, is located at 1755 North Highland Avenue in Hollywood. You can visit the lodging’s official website here.
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