The CalEdison from “The Morning Show”

L.A. never ceases to amaze!  Case in point – the CalEdison.  Built in 1931, the Art Deco masterpiece is not only a sight to behold, but its grand lobby is open to the public!  Somehow though, I never knew about the place until last week when I was researching locations from The Morning Show.

During my viewing of the new Apple TV+ series'”‘”‘ premiere episode, “In the Dark Night of the Soul It'”‘”‘s Always 3:30 in the Morning,” I became a bit mesmerized with what was said to be the Archer Gray Hotel in New York.  With towering marble columns, ornate tile flooring, and intricate wrought-iron windows, the space was striking to say the least.  Shocked I had never come across it in all my years of stalking, I immediately set out to track it down.  Because The Morning Show is largely filmed in L.A., with only a few exteriors shot in NYC, I knew the Archer Gray had to be somewhere in SoCal.  Its seemingly historic architecture led me to look first in the downtown area.  But Google searches for “historic building,” “grand lobby,” and “marble columns” did not bring up images that even remotely resembled the place.

It was not until episode 5, “No One’s Going to Harm You, Not While I’m Around,” aired that I was able to pinpoint it.  In a scene at the close of the episode, Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) attempts to secure the room number of her boss Cory Ellison (Billy Crudup) from an uncooperative Archer Gray front desk clerk, during which a massive mural is visible behind her, as well as what appeared to be a coffee bar of some sort.  Adding those elements to my search terms led me straight to The CalEdison, a historic office building in the heart of downtown.  I was elated to discover upon researching the place further that it is open to the public!  My parents just happened to be heading into L.A. a few days after my discovery and had booked a room at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, located right across the street from The CalEdison.  So I, of course, tagged along and ran right over to stalk the building immediately upon check-in.

The 14-story structure originally served as the headquarters of Southern California Edison and was known, appropriately, as the Southern California Edison Building.

Designed by the Allison & Allison architecture firm (who also gave us the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles and UCLA'”‘”‘s Kerckhoff Hall), the property'”‘”‘s gorgeous exterior features a limestone and terracotta façade, bas-reliefs sculpted by artist Merrell Gage, and a towering two-story entry portico.

It is the interior that is the real stunner, though!

The expansive lobby boasts over 17 varieties of marble, 30-foot coffered ceilings, a mural painted by Hugo Ballin, and stunning friezes above each elevator.

Even the trash cans are elegant!  And those building directories!

The CalEdison is more than just a pretty face, though.  As the first seismically-retrofitted building in L.A., as well as the first to be electrically heated and cooled, it was incredibly technologically advanced.

Boasting 250,000 square feet of office space, The CalEdison cost a whopping $2.5 million to construct.

When SoCal Edison sold the place in 1972 in order to relocate to Rosemead, it was renamed One Bunker Hill.  Its stellar architecture was mutilated in the decade that followed – its ceilings dropped, walls removed, and large fourth-floor patios enclosed with glass casings.  I actually really like the look of the latter, which have been described as “greenhouse-like structures.”  You can see what they looked like here.  Thankfully, the lobby was left untouched during the renovations.

In October 2015, the grand building was bought by Hermes Investment Management of London, Limestone Investments and Rising Realty Partners for $92 million.  The group renamed it The CalEdison and set about bringing the site back to its original glory, as well as renovating the many upstairs office spaces into creative work sites.  The patio casings were also removed as part of the project.  Though I wish those casings had been left intact, the rest of the work performed can only be described as perfection.

GreekOak Real Estate bought out both Hermes and Limestone earlier this year for $140 million, though Rising Realty continues to hold on to its share of the property.

While walking around the vast lobby, I couldn'”‘”‘t help but think how fabulous is it that this masterpiece exists and that it is open to the public for Angelinos and tourists alike to enjoy.

On The Morning Show, the Archer Gray Hotel is where network exec Cory checks in upon arriving in New York to deal with the fallout from the firing of Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell).  Bradley also moves there in episode 5 after being relocated from The Standard, where she was initially put up.  Only the lobby of the building is featured on the series.  (My photo below is a little off on the angling, but shows the same area of The CalEdison as is pictured in the screen capture.)

Bradley’s room . . .

. . . as well as Corey’s are both just studio-built sets.

And the exterior of the Archer Gray Hotel is a building in New York that I have yet to identify.

The Morning Show is not CalEdison’s only claim to fame!

The building is also seen briefly in the 1953 noir The Bigamist in the scene in which Mr. Jordan (Edmund Gwenn) first arrives in L.A.

The property was used for interior shots of the office building Davey Osbourne (Henry Thomas) and Kim Gardener (Christina Nigra) try to infiltrate in 1984’s Cloak & Dagger.

Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle) gets arrested for robbing a bank at The CalEdison before being rescued by Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) in the 2001 thriller Ocean’s Eleven.

Jack Bauer (Keifer Sutherland) almost gets arrested there in the Season 8 episode of 24 titled “11:00am-12:00pm,” which aired in 2010.

That same year, the building served as the office of Victor Racine (Michael Ironside) in the Season 2 episode of Castle titled “Den of Thieves.”

Narcy (Paz Vega) heads to the bank on The CalEdison'”‘”‘s lower level to empty her dead husband’s safety deposit box in the 2015 Lifetime television movie Beautiful & Twisted.

During the second season of Big Little Lies, which aired in 2019, the offices of Scheper Kim & Harris LLP, located on CalEdison’s 12th floor, portrayed the office of lawyer Ira Farber (Denis O’Hare), as I detailed in this post.  (I learned this tidbit thanks to a reader, but because only the 12th floor appeared in the episodes, I never took a look at images of the lobby or the rest of the building, which is why I was unfamiliar with it prior to trying to track down the Archer Gray.)

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Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The CalEdison, aka the Archer Gray Hotel from The Morning Show, is located at 601 West 5th Street in downtown Los Angeles.  The building’s lobby is open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays.

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