Armchair Traveler

Everyone has a place they travel to that is often more of a home than their actual one. No surprise to those who have heard me rave about it—some say, to extremes—that the Chateau Marmont is mine.

At least I’m not alone. Owned and operated by André Balazs for the past 18 years, and months from its 80th anniversary, the hotel strictly protects its illustrious guests’ privacy. Leaking “names” is forbidden. But a regular inhabitant there cannot help but meet and often befriend others in residence, famous or not. And over the years, many have told me their tales of extended stints, and how the Gothic castle on Sunset has taken them in.

This includes Oscar-winning screenwriter William Monahan, who owns a house nearby the Chateau, but has holed up in the cottages and bungalows there for months at a time. David Alexanian, a filmmaker friend who recently co-directed Long Way Down—a documentary he shot last year with Ewan McGregor (click here for exclusive images of their wild South African trip)—turned one of the suites into his office and apartment.

Val Kilmer transformed his room and patio into a 24-hour think tank of creativity for a month. Christopher Walken kept a litter of Abyssinian kittens in his deluxe corner suite (he even ended up giving me one: “Wolfie”). The actor would often be spotted walking Sunset Boulevard to Bristol Farms to buy groceries for his full kitchen there. Gentlemen thespians Stellan Skarsgård and Justin Theroux specifically request the ghost-happy rooms to live in while making films in Los Angeles. Helmut and June Newton—dear, longtime friends of Balazs—were seasonal residents until, in 2004, the great photographer tragically died in his car outside the main driveway.

Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara never leave the pool (or seem to be out of their bathrobes). They’ve chatted us up like wizened grandparents, extolling life advice, while marking up scripts. Of course, it’s widely known that Leonardo DiCaprio loves “the Big House,” and even invited staffers to join a room party once. And while Lindsay Lohan had a perfectly respectable residence nearby, she opted nonetheless to reside at the hotel (until she abruptly didn’t). Writers like Dominick Dunne and Dana Thomas, as well as novelists like Jay McInerney and Todd Komarnicki, have finished stories and books there during long stays. There’s a whole tome of first-person essays about “doing time” at the hotel: Chateau Marmont Hollywood Handbook, edited by Balazs.

It’s not just that you can be yourself there. Or disappear there. Or blackout there (“it happens to everyone!”). It’s that everyone you need to meet with for work and for play come to you (even if they bitch about the parking). The building begs codependency. But it’s the staff—smart, calm, attractive, funny, seen-it-all—that is the true draw. I don’t know how many times I’ve sat under the garden’s arches interviewing some famous subject, and yearned for the company and conversation of a favorite manager, bartender, waiter, busboy instead.

Here, for our summer travel double issue, we decided to give a good portion of those veterans and newcomers a bow with an exclusive staff portrait of the unsung groundskeepers and housekeepers, as well as the better-known gatekeepers and personalities. This “cast” of characters couldn’t have come together so seemingly organically without the curatorial skills of Balazs, who knows how to spot “talent”—and nice people—like a seasoned film director. He opted to not be included in the pictures in order to give his players the center stage. Raise a glass to them.

Elsewhere, our fashion director Elizabeth Sulcer found herself quite at home at the tropicali TownHouse hotel in Miami Beach, where she and photographer David Roemer created a bathing suit fashion story that made me long for the Florida waters, a needed tan, a “dressed” Cuban sandwich, Key lime pie, and sweating, among other things.

This issue is all over the map in the best of ways. Okay, back to my Screwhound. One part Screwdriver. One part Grayhound. Add vodka.

Photo by Greg Endries