W Magazine | October 2001

HOTEL DES ARTISTES

's first Hollywood hotel follows a string of East Coast hits.

By M.G.

"I would die of heart failure-and Philippe would kill himself-if anyone thought this was an L.A. Delano!" barks . "Sure, this is Hollywood, but we don't do sequels."

Schrager, of course, is the hotel impresario who created New York's Morgans, Royalton and Paramount hotels, as well as Miami Beach's Delano, and Philippe is Philippe Starck, the French designer who brought most of them to life (Morgans was designed by Andrée Putman). And "this" is the very big, very visible Mondrian hotel, on Hollywood's Sunset Strip, Schrager's first foray to the West Coast.

"The Delano is indigenous to Miami," he argues about the South Beach hotel. "Here, Philippe wanted to capture the spirit of California, so we used natural materials. We incorporated the outdoors, vistas and views-and I think it's ethereal, and evokes rather surrealistic emotions."

The original Mondrian, opened in 1985, was the quintessential Eighties West Coast habitat: an homage to black lacquer, chrome, glass and other shiny excesses. The hotel's name came from its primary-color-blocked exterior, reminiscent of a Piet Mondrian canvas. But by the Nineties, it began to stand out as a tower of tackiness teetering over the Sunset Strip.

Schrager's Mondrian is something completely different from L.A.'s mostly pastel-and-palm-tree hotels, and even from the Chateau Marmont's shabby chic. Starck took his inspiration not from Piet Mondrian's abstractionism, but from the Surrealists, in his oddly shaped, out-of-scale furniture, or James Turrell's spooky lighting in the hallways, which looks like snowy TV reception. "We were looking to make an environment that looked like a Robert Wilson play," Schrager says.

Starck's airy lobby could well be a stage set, punctuated by an orange wall behind the front desk, and special gel lighting (just like in the movies!) that casts a shifting array of hues across the organically shaped, all-white furniture at different times of the day. The open room spills onto the pool area-dubbed "The Living Room" because of Starck's parlor-inspired furnitureæwith its spectacular view of the city.

Other accoutrements include a poolside gym run by Brentwood trainer-to-the-stars Mark Stevens and a wellness center, run by Lynda Guber, wife of former Columbia Pictures chief Peter Guber, that will offer yoga and an "inner" workout in a spa environment.

The guests-most likely Schrager's international crowd of media, fashion and entertainment types-will find themselves at home in New York restaurateur Pino Luongo's Coco Pazzo, which will have some of the flavor of its lavish Upper East Side namesake and the look of a white-truffle risotto: white leather booths, pale gray and white walls, with white-on-white furniture designed by Starck.

Rande Gerber, who runs the always-hopping Whiskey Bar in Schrager's Paramount-and also at West Hollywood's Sunset Marquis Hotel right down the road from Mondrian-will be overseeing The Sky Bar, a mostly outdoors concoction of wood beams, bar stools and blender drinks adjacent to the pool. Gerber is hoping his trademark crowd-model/actresses and the rock stars who love them-will generate enough heat to make up for the lack of walls.

Schrager, too, is clearly aiming for the A list: He kicked off Mondrian's refurbishment with an Edgar Bronfman Jr. party for Robert Isabell, and is already talking to Miramax about hosting its Oscar party. And not just any Oscar fÍte. "We could," he says, "take the crown from Swifty's party."