Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel, Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, US
Beverly Wilshire is a palace hotel at Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. The facade of Tuscan stone shows columns, arches and balconies in the Italian Renaissance style, while Carrara marble inside shapes the entrance hall and staircases.
Walter G. McCarty built the Beverly-Wilshire Apartment Hotel on the former Beverly Hills Speedway site; it opened on January 1, 1928, when the city had fewer than 18,000 residents. Arnold Kirkeby bought it in 1944, and Paul Revere Williams designed staged renovations between 1946 and 1957 that added a ballroom, an Olympic-sized pool and tennis courts. Hernando Courtright added a tower wing in 1971, doubling the hotel's size.
The name Wilshire Boulevard comes from developer Henry Gaylord Wilshire, who planned this central Los Angeles artery. The building stands at the intersection with Rodeo Drive, where visitors once promenaded and which remains a well-known shopping district today.
The hotel stands at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive, with the 1928 Wilshire Wing facing the boulevard and the 1971 Beverly Wing tower behind it. The lobby and public areas are open to walk-in visitors; the pool and tennis courts, added under Paul Revere Williams's renovation, are for guests.
The singer Paul Robeson stayed here in 1940 when other Los Angeles accommodations refused him because of his race. Decades later scenes for the film Pretty Woman starring Julia Roberts were shot here, bringing the location renewed recognition.
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