Permits to Destroy Ambassador Hotel Buildings Sought

Owners of the venerable Ambassador Hotel, which closed two-thirds of its 525 rooms last month in a cost-cutting measure, filed a petition with the city Monday for permission to destroy all the structures on the 23.5-acre property.

The hotel, a casualty of shifting real estate values and an overbuilt hotel market, reportedly has posted substantial losses over the last five years and has been up for sale since 1985.

Margaret Burk, a spokeswoman for the current owners, Ambassador Hotel Properties, said the firm is seeking the permit to facilitate redevelopment of the property by any prospective buyer.

Ambassador Hotel Properties has “no intention of demolishing the hotel themselves,” she said. “But they want the permit in case a new buyer does.”

Real estate experts have estimated that the property, bounded by Wilshire Boulevard, Catalina Street, 8th Street and Mariposa Avenue, is worth between $50 million and $100 million.

“We’re in kind of a holding pattern,” Burk said. “For the time being, it’s business as usual, except that we have less rooms to rent. The swimming pools, the tennis courts, everything else is still operating.

“But it is kind of sad . . . .”

The decision to abandon any renovation plans was based on studies by hotel experts, all of whom concluded that the Ambassador is beyond repair, hotel spokeswoman Billie Greer said.

“There are a number of substantial obstacles to renovation, and at the top of the list is cost,” she said. “The estimates for renovating the main building alone have run as high as $30 million.”

Ground was broken for the hotel in 1919 on property that had formerly been a dairy farm. Opening just two years later, the imposing, quasi-Spanish hostelry soon became a favored gathering place for the rich and famous.

First it was the grand old families of Los Angeles--people like the Dohenys, the Bannings, the Garlands and the Dockweilers. They were soon joined by Southern California’s upstart royalty--the kings and queens of Hollywood.

“Back then, the film stars didn’t have the large and beautiful homes they have today . . . nor did they know how to entertain in the grand, elegant and aristocratic manner that the hotel could provide,” journalist Adela Rogers St. Johns was quoted in Burk’s book, “Are the Stars Out Tonight.” “So this is where we all came to be seen, to be coddled, amused and entertained.”