Garden of Allah Sunset Blvd Garden of Alla Former Location Homes Hotel Los Angeles California USA

Garden of Allah Sunset Blvd Garden of Alla Former Location Homes Hotel Los Angeles California USA July 31, 2021. The Garden of Allah was a famous hotel in West Hollywood, California (then an unincorporated area of Los Angeles which was usually considered a part of Hollywood), at 8152 Sunset Boulevard between Crescent Heights and Havenhurst, at the east end of the Sunset Strip.

Originally a 2.5-acre estate called Hayvenhurst, it was built in 1913 as the private residence of real estate developer William H. Hay. Alla Nazimova acquired the property in 1919: she converted it into a residential hotel in 1926 by adding 25 villas around the residence, which opened as the "Garden of Alla Hotel" in January 1927. In 1930, new owners renamed it the "Garden of Allah Hotel" (adding an 'h'). The property operated under a succession of owners for three decades until the last, Bart Lytton, owner of Lytton Savings & Loan, demolished the hotel in 1959 and replaced it with his bank's main branch.

Chase Bank was located it it has now been demolished again a parking lot for new construction.
he estate that later became the Garden of Allah Hotel was built in 1913 by real estate developer William H. Hay in the northwest corner of the Crescent Heights neighborhood, a 160-acre tract bounded by Sunset Boulevard on the north, Santa Monica Boulevard on the south, Crescent Avenue (later renamed Fairfax Avenue) on the east and Sweetzer Avenue on the west, which Hay had subdivided and developed starting in 1905.

The estate's original address was 8080 Sunset Boulevard but was later changed to 8152. It occupied a 2.5 acre lot that fronted Sunset Boulevard and was bounded by Crescent Heights Boulevard on the east and Hayvenhurst (now spelled Havenhurst) Drive on the west. The property's southern boundary was also the border between the Hollywood district of the city of Los Angeles and the then-unincorporated area that later became the city of West Hollywood.

Catering to both short-term and long-term guests, the hotel soon gained a reputation as a place where the famous could enjoy living in a quaint, cozy, village-like setting, conveniently located yet shielded from gawking tourists and autograph seekers by discreet security patrols, under a management that was not inclined to probe, judge or interfere with the private — and sometimes public — activities of its often unconventional patrons.

The Garden of Allah became home to many celebrities and literary figures. F. Scott Fitzgerald lived there for several months in 1937–38 at the beginning of his final stay in Hollywood. He wrote himself a postcard while there: "Dear Scott — How are you? Have been meaning to come in and see you. I have living [sic] at the Garden of Allah. Yours, Scott Fitzgerald." Fitzgerald's biographer and lover Sheilah Graham later wrote a book about the place, titled simply The Garden of Allah.

Humorist and actor Robert Benchley was a frequent resident. An array of Golden Age Hollywood stars and featured players, ranging from Greta Garbo to Ronald Reagan, stayed there at least briefly, and so did classical music giants Sergei Rachmaninoff (who was musically assaulted there by an annoyed Harpo Marx), Igor Stravinsky and Jascha Heifetz. Humphrey Bogart lived in villa 8, where Errol Flynn stayed when Bogart was out of town. Gloria Stuart and Arthur Sheekman lived at villa 12. Dance band leaders Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw and vocalist Frank Sinatra were among the pop music personalities. Kay Thompson, then designing musical numbers for Judy Garland and her own nightclub act with The Williams Brothers, lived there; Thompson later wrote about a little girl who also lived in a hotel, Eloise.

Garden of Allah Hotel Guests included: Buster Keaton, Lauren Bacall, Ramon Novarro, Tallulah Bankhead, John Barrymore, Humphrey Bogart, Clara Bow, Gary Cooper, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Errol Flynn, Greta Garbo, Ava Gardner, Jackie Gleason, DW Griffith, Jon Hall, Ernest Hemingway, Woody Herman, Eartha Kitt, Charles Laughton, DW Griffith, Ruth Gordon, Benny Goodman, Dorothy Gish, Marx Brothers, Tyrone Power, Ronald Reagan, David Niven, Ginger Rogers, Red Skelton, Barbara Stanwyck, Frank Sinatra, Orson Welles, David Niven, Maureen O'Hara, Laurence Olivier, and many more.