Long an entertaining trope for many a movie and stage play, the boarding house for theatrical performers offered an opportunity to gather together a colorful band of characters while at the same time providing them a supportive haven and family in times of trouble. Robert L. L. Warner and Pert Kelton constructed their own bohemian apartment hotel at 6326 Lexington Ave. for exactly the same reasons. Besides a great financial investment, it represented their own aims to create a home away from home for entertainers. Opening as the Warner-Kelton Hotel, the graceful building has operated under the name Hotel Brevoort for most of its existence.
Back in 1913, considered 6326 Lexington Ave. a lovely place at which to construct a home. When Warner and Kelton purchased the property in 1927, moved it to S. Figueroa, where it would remain for decades before being demolished.
Enjoying enormous success at the age of 23, Kelton looked for an opportunity to invest her growing wealth. Born 19 in Montana, Kelton began performing onstage at the age of 11, stealing scenes and quickly stealing hearts as a pint-sized comedienne. A natural talent, Kelton received enormous recognition starring in “The Five O’Clock Girl” on Broadway in 1926.
Kelton joined up with Dr. Robert L. L. Warner, a dental surgeon recognized for creating and inserting dentures turned upscale home builder in Los Angeles, to finance the construction of the 80-room, $300,000 hotel. Warner not only built but also designed the lush but cozy structure per news reports, something he had always dreamed of doing. He claimed that Kelton invested because she “knows well what is the life of a trouper, and she is trying to help these people…give these nomad people a home; the luxuries of a large metropolitan hotel; the coziness of their own homes, if they had any; the atmosphere they love, that of the stage itself,” as he revealed in an interview with the Hollywood Citizen News. In other words, an affordable home with high end taste.
Once completed, her mother, Susan Kelton, joined Warner’s wife, the former actress Olive Sherlock, to “make the Warner-Kelton a true home for all wanders who may have found their way to Hollywood, “as the Hollywood Citizen News wrote hyperbolically on November 29, 1927. With the assistance of actor Gladden James, they provided upscale interior decoration, such as elaborate seashore and seascape paintings in each hotel room’s bath, murals in hallways, arches and portals throughout, blue velvet draperies in the den with niches filled with paintings, and a lobby designed 17th Century Norman style with porcello stone tapestries, altar set, and the like. Completely furnished the hotel featured baths with each room, fresh flowers on the night table every day, afternoon receptions with fruit and confections, billiards, gardens and ahead of its time, gym and pool.
In their attempts to make it homey, the women arranged for all guests’ shoes to be shined if left outside their doors like the European custom, a den off the lobby to offer a cozy respite, barber shop and beauty parlor, and devised the Gypsy Grill, which offered programs and entertainment to guests on Fridays. Each room also featured its own radio with individual headphones connected to the lobby radio. Actress Belle Bennett, star of the wonderfully emotional “Stella Dallas,” even sponsored rooms for friends. The hotel even joined with sponsor Hollywood Dry to offer pale ginger ale as the main drink served to guests. All these special situations made it a paradise for “the romantic and of nomads who live in the land of make-believe during business hours.”
The pair offered a glamorous opening night November 29 like any elaborate movie premiere; Otto Oleson’s grand klieg lights illuminated Broadway performers, movie actors, and guests alike. Vaudeville performers crooned show and popular tunes as guests enjoyed refreshments. A few months later, the hoteliers hosted a Sunday frolic with comedians and other entertainment performing on the roof. In March, 1928, they welcomed department store B. H. Dyas Co. from Hollywood Boulevard to a small sales space in the lobby.
Such celebrities as Clara Bow’s stepmother-in law, early silent film actor Monroe Salisbury, and resided in the building. Some stories claim that Salisbury owned an interest in the hotel, while others state that he served as a concierge while living there. The California Television Society from UCLA and industry professionals operated a clubhouse in the hostelry. Actor Wallace McCutcheon, former husband of silent serial queen Pearl White, shot himself to death in his room at the complex just months after opening, despondent over his career.
Unfortunately the hotel attracted low-lifes as well, from burglars to hit and run drivers to even narcotic pushers, all before 1932.
Warner-Kelton Hotel succeeded its first seven years, before seeing bookings and reservations drop in 1934, leading to much advertising in local papers. By 1935, the partners booked more outside groups for lunches, meetings, and dances and even raised prices. Bleeding money, Warner and Kelton sold their lease later that year to F. A. Linck, who appears to have renamed it after New York’s Hotel Brevoort, which hosted many theatre and film events and guests. To increase bookings, all meals became free for those who stayed. While that brought in revenue, it wasn’t enough, leading to the dining room being opened to the public in 1938, even with free tea cupreadings at the end of the decade. Over time, day rates were added and weekly rates dropped, attempting to make a profit.
In 1939, Harry Ludwig, chief auditor of the Hollywood Plaza Hotel, purchased the lease from Linck , planning upgrades and even bungalows. While he accomplished some improvements, Ludwig failed to render it as up-to-date as other new, lush apartments. New management took over in 1951.
The Hotel remained a prominent location for meetings about movie industry people. In 1939, IATSE and Teamsters’ Union members met to negotiate connections. For a brief time, Elizabeth Short lived here in 1946. By the late 1940s, newer and more elaborate hotels and apartments lured away guests, and the hotel began a slow downward turn. The hostelry housed those struggling in their careers, leading to part of the building becoming a wing for seniors in 1968.
Still an apartment building, 97 years after construction, the Hotel Brevoort still maintains its lovely facade, a graceful ode to gentle living in the early days of Hollywood.