Back in the Pink : Beverly Hills Hotel Owners Propose Two-Year Make-Over

The Beverly Hills Hotel, a grand dame of Southern California hostelries long known for its celebrity clientele, is expected to close its doors in 1992 for a face lift and make-over of its electrical, plumbing and heating systems, hotel and city officials said Tuesday.

When the renovation is completed, it will have 14 fewer rooms rooms and a fresher look, but otherwise will be the same, Polo Lounge and all, said Kerman Beriker, its chief executive officer.

A home away from home for royalty--among them Britain’s Prince Philip, Princess Margaret and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor--the hotel is now owned by the investment agency of the Sultanate of Brunei, an oil-rich kingdom on the north coast of Borneo. Its ruler, Hassanal Bolkiah, is one of the world’s richest men.

Although it has been remodeled and added to over the years, the hotel never has had a thorough renovation, said Beriker, who also oversaw make-overs at the Hotel Bel-Air and the Hana Hilton on the Hawaiian island of Maui when he was working for other firms.

Beneath the fresh layers of paint, rooms will be larger, columns will be gone from the banquet rooms and the hotel’s innards--its electrical, plumbing, and heating systems dating back to its opening in 1912--will be brought up to modern standards, he said. Central air-conditioning will replace noisy, leaky window units.

Plans call for the addition of three luxury bungalows, for a total of 18 amid the lush gardens of the 12-acre grounds, and there will be a second-floor hideaway designed for heads of state, complete with its own kitchen and private pool.

The hideaway might have appealed to some of the legendary guests of the hotel over the years, especially Howard Hughes, movie maker, aircraft manufacturer and real estate magnate. The reclusive billionaire moved into the hotel in 1942 and lived there on and off for the next 30 years.

The hotel’s guest list has included many celebrities: Will Rogers, Greta Garbo, Spencer Tracey, Norma Shearer, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Clark Gable, Carol Lombard, Marilyn Monroe, Yves Montand, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

But not all the guests were as lively as Taylor and Burton, who broke many a room-service plate during their spats.

Actor John Barrymore was dead on his last visit to the Beverly Hills. As the story goes, Errol Flynn stole his body from a local mortuary and brought it back to the hotel for a wake.

The decision to plow millions into the renovation of the legendary hotel was driven by major make-overs of nearby rivals and the opening in recent months of two new competitors, the Peninsula and the Nikko, Beriker said.

“Yes, it has cachet, but if you have bathrooms so small that you can’t move around, then cachet doesn’t go very far,” he said. “You need to provide what the competition gives to your customers.”

The hotel, whose main building is older than the city of Beverly Hills, has 461 units but has not been fully occupied in recent years, he said.

City officials say it is impossible to predict when construction can begin, but they estimate it will be next year. Zoning variances and other decisions could take several months to work their way through the bureaucracy, they say.

Documents at Beverly Hills City Hall show that the owners have agreed to close the hotel while the work is done, rather than complete the renovation piecemeal. Beriker said no final decision has been made.

This would not be the first time the Beverly Hills--whose rates range from $225 to $3,000 a night--has closed its doors.

Built to house prospective real estate buyers who came out from Los Angeles by trolley, the hotel flourished when what had been bean fields turned into the high-priced suburb of Beverly Hills. But the hotel fell victim to the Great Depression in 1929 and closed until 1932.

The family of Ben L. Silberstein, a Detroit investor, owned the hotel for 30 years. His daughter, Seema, and her husband, former Wall Street broker Ivan Boesky, sold the Beverly Hills to financier Marvin Davis in 1987. He soon sold it to the Sajahtera Corp., a subsidiary of the Brunei Investment Agency, for $185 million.

A year ago, Brunei Investment completed a similar make-over of London’s Dorchester Hotel, which took three years.

Winston Millet, founding president of the Beverly Hills Historical Society, worked at the Beverly Hills as an elevator operator in his youth.

“I’ve seen everyone from Sophia Loren to Ronald Reagan in that hotel,” he said. “I go in there for lunch with the Rotary Club . . . and I feel a little chill every time. It’s just the memories, and you never know who you’re going to see. Over the years everybody who was anybody has been there.”