Fate of Ambassador Hotel Will Bear on Architect's Legacy

Crisis, The, Jul/Aug 2005 by Britt, Bruce

ARCHITECTURE

On June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy said, "And now it's on to Chicago and let's win there."

They rank among the plainest final words in the history of oratory, yet they kindled great expectations. Uttered in the triumphant aftermath of his California primary win, Bobby Kennedy's victory speech inched him closer to a U.S. presidency many hoped would reshape world politics - hopes crushed when RFK was assassinated just minutes later in the pantry of the Ambassador Hotel.

Now, as if to open those wounds anew, a feud over the historic location of Kennedy's killing is approaching its own final act. Purchased by the Los Angeles Unified School District in 2001, the stately Ambassador Hotel is scheduled for the wrecking ball, a sad example of how expediency and civic necessity often prevail over preservationist concerns. Barring an 11th-hour injunction, the district says most of the Ambassador will be razed in late 2006 or early 2007 and replaced by a sorely needed $318 million education campus, which will include three schools and incorporate significant portions of the hotel's original structure.

Though the Ambassador's impending demolition is painful for many locals, particularly Los Angeles history lovers, pundits say it is doubly unfortunate for the city's Black residents. That's because parts of the hotel were designed by Paul R. Williams, the late African American architect who, through talent, determination and moxie, emblazoned his elegant aesthetic impression on the western United States and the world. More than half a century ago, Williams designed the Ambassador's coffee shop and several of its bungalows, and also renovated the dining room and the ceiling of the hotel's ballroom.

"He had a large number of residential commissions around the city, but the Ambassador was clearly one of his defining works," says Ken Bernstein, director of preservation issues for the Los Angeles Conservancy, one of many community groups battling to preserve the Ambassador. The demolition, Bernstein says, would be one of the most significant losses of Williams's work.

Karen E. Hudson is Williams's granddaughter and a lifelong Los Angeles resident. The author of two books on her pioneering grandfather, Hudson says the Ambassador's demise is not just a loss for her family. "I don't know anybody from L.A. for whom the Ambassador didn't play a part in their life," Hudson says. "Whether it was a prom, a cotillion, a fancy dinner - most people here have some kind of Ambassador experience."

Situated on 24 sprawling acres just east of downtown L.A., the Ambassador now looms as a chipped, weed-infested shadow of its former self. Opened in 1921, the hotel enchanted guests with its Mediterranean decor, tile flooring, Italian stone fireplaces and semi-tropical courtyard. Dubbed "Hotel of the Stars," the Ambassador's guest list reads like a who's-who of Golden Age Hollywood, including Lena Home (believed to be the first Black person to stay at the hotel), Howard Hughes, John Barrymore, Jean Harlow, Gloria Swanson and every U.S. President from Herbert Hoover to Richard Nixon.

Yet for all its swank design and hip art deco vibes, the Ambassador's Williams-designed coffee shop is still, well, a coffee shop. Some might wonder: Does a famous diner merit all this preservationist fervor?

Bernstein says it does. He argues that neither the Texas School Book Depository building in Dallas nor the Lorraine Motel in Memphis - sites associated with the John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. assassinations, respectively - were as intrinsically significant as the Ambassador Hotel, yet both have been preserved as museums. "Paul Williams left a rich architectural legacy that helped define a Southern California lifestyle, and that legacy deserves to be preserved," Bernstein says.

Shuttered in 1989, the Ambassador enjoyed a second act as one of the most popular on-location filming sites in Los Angeles. Pretty Woman, Forrest Gump, The Mask, Legally Blonde 2 and The Italian Job are among the films that have had scenes shot at the hotel. But after the L.A. School District bought the property from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court four years ago, rancor ensued. Weary parents of the 3,800 students bused to the farflung San Fernando Valley because their neighborhood schools are overcrowded threw their support behind the school district. The Kennedy family also urged the demolition of the hotel.

But the Los Angeles Conservancy argued that the Ambassador's historic significance outweighed such concerns. F. Scott Fitzgerald visited often. Nixon composed his famous "Checkers" speech there in 1952. Horne, Bing Crosby and Merv Griffin launched their singing careers at the six-story hotel. Joan Crawford, Carole Lombard and Loretta Young reportedly were discovered at the Ambassador's glamorous nightclub, the Cocoanut Grove.

After much wrangling and numerous feasibility reports, the school district approved a plan called "Heritage K-12" that spares the Cocoanut Grove from demolition. The ceiling of the Embassy Ballroom where RFK delivered his final speech would be incorporated into a new library, while the Paul Williams-designed coffee shop would become a faculty lounge.