The Prospect Hollywood

Mr Smith and I are well acquainted with Los Angeles, having spent plenty of time with family on the quiet, tony westside, and with friends on the buzzy, hip eastside, but we often end up bypassing everything in between. So it felt like a true vacation to leave our toddler with his grandparents for a couple of nights and embed ourselves in the classic, old-school glamor of the Prospect Hollywood.  

Unlike some other major American cities (*side-eyes New York*), LA has managed to preserve a lot of rich historical architecture, and the Prospect Hollywood and the structures that surround it all evoke a time long before Netflix and TMZ, many of their exteriors largely untouched since their origins in the Thirties. The building that the hotel occupies (on a low-key, residential street) was once an apartment complex and it’s impossible not to imagine aspiring starlets and wannabe lounge singers mingling together and slinging studio gossip in the cozy courtyard, which now houses a lush garden, several fire pits, fountains and plenty of cushy seating. 

These days though, the vibe of the place is much more bigwig than eager beaver — gleaming surfaces, glittering crystal glassware, bold colors, statement-making wallpaper and the staff’s insistence on pulling your car around front for you all signal one thing: you’ve made it. The place is small and quiet (and, from the outside, unassuming) enough to make you feel like you’re at a discreet, members-only club, an attitude mirrored by the remarkably attentive team who felt more like buds than bellhops by the time we checked out. 

The rooms are all uniquely named and decorated for icons: ours, the I Bergman, leaned into theme-dressing, with leopard-print carpet, a lucite bed frame, green cane chairs with a matching shiny lacquer minibar, and of course, more than one black-and-white portrait of Ingrid herself. The mood was glitzy, the bed was (supremely) comfy, and we felt about a million years and miles away from our normal lives, even before we’d started sipping nightcaps in the elegant lobby bar, where I had to convince Mr Smith that it was too late at night to order the homemade red velvet cookies that beckoned to him from the menu.

We began our first day by spending way too long in the remarkably luxe bathroom — yes, there’s always a drought in California, but how often do you have unfettered access to Diptyque bath products and a claw-foot tub?! — followed by a return trip to the lobby, where we found coffee, Farm Shop pastries, and, perhaps the most old-school touch of them all: actual newspapers. Fresh-faced and fueled up, we ventured out to indulge Mr Smith’s desire to live like tourists by parading up and down the nearby Walk of Fame (it has its charms!), after which we indulged my desire to live like locals by hiking up Runyon Canyon with the young and fit (and all of their dogs). On our way, we passed by the Magic Castle, which I’d always assumed was a Disney property of some sort when hearing that this or that celebrity had visited, but it turns out it is, in fact, a private clubhouse for magicians. Oh, Los Angeles. You are really something. 

Thoroughly walked out, we headed back to our room to soak up our child-free existence — midday naps and a movie in bed, replete with minibar M&Ms (packaged in cute glass jars, naturally) and fluffy white Derek Rose London robes. Anywhere else, we might have felt some self-imposed pressure to go out and do more, but the neighborhood is not exactly overflowing with activities and attractions. One of its best traits is that it’s so centrally located to everywhere else you’d want to be, and most places we’d frequent are within a 30-minute drive of the hotel, depending on the (famously flawed) traffic situation at any given moment. And besides: we were in search of exactly the type of getaway that would provide little temptation in terms of to-do-list travel — it was a welcome respite in that way, and a truly perfect staycation spot. Had we not had other plans, we almost certainly would have continued apace with our thematic agenda by queuing up a steak and martini dinner down the block at the storied Musso & Frank, because what’s more classic and on-theme than that? We’ll book a reservation for our next visit, for which I’ll also make sure to pack my copy of Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon — it just feels right.