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JEFF KLEIN: SUNSET TOWER MEET THE HOTELIER By Joe Alexander
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n 2005, Jeff Klein bought L.A.’s storied but faded Sunset Tower Hotel, where in its glory days Howard Hughes stashed his mistresses, Frank Sinatra wooed Ava Gardner from his bachelor pad, and Diana Ross had Tim Curry push the elevator buttons because her fingernails were too long to do it herself. The celebrated hotelier renovated and reinvigorated the Art Deco landmark, and swiftly restored its status as the hotspot for today’s Hollywood elite.
NOBODY WANTED TO BUY THE PROPERTY You’d imagine there had been a bidding war for the iconic property, an official landmark by 2005, but it was exactly the opposite. “Nobody wanted to buy it,” Klein says. “It was a dump; they couldn’t give it away.” The owners kept lowering the price. “Thankfully, nobody saw what I saw in it,” Klein says, adding that it wasn’t easy to come up with the cash. “I had to scramble and put money together from aunts and uncles and all these investors.” That scenario today, Klein believes, would be different because people want to own real estate, regardless of the status of the hotel on the site.
HUSBAND JOHN GOLDWYN TAUGHT KLEIN THE WAYS OF L.A. A native New Yorker who made his name with the trendy City Club Hotel there, which included Daniel Boulud’s restaurant DB Bistro Moderne, Klein’s first project in L.A. was the Sunset Tower. He was dating producer John Goldwyn, now his husband, who asked Klein how he intended to go about drawing celebrities to his new venue. ‘I was like, ‘I don’t want celebrities; celebrities are a pain in the ass,’” Klein told him. “And he was, like, ‘Dorothy, you’re not in Kansas anymore. That’s a big mistake,’ and thank God he caught it before I opened,” Klein laughs. Today, the place is a must for Hollywood’s power brokers, and is home to CAA’s annual Golden Globes after-party, which according to the Hollywood Reporter, “always proves to be one of the night’s hottest events.” Klein says that Goldwyn, the grandson of the movie legend Samuel Goldwyn, really helped him to understand what an important role Hollywood plays in L.A. “Talk about mentors. He really became, like, my Jedi trainer in Hollywood, and not only did he introduce me to all of Hollywood, but he taught me
The hotelier Jeff Klein by pool at the Sunset Tower
how to court them and create a place where they feel comfortable and wanted,” Klein says. “He obviously understands that very deeply, and he was so instrumental in everything I did.”
LESSON NO. 1: DISCRETION IS PARAMOUNT One thing that Klein has learned as the proprietor of a celebrity hangout is that discretion is of utmost importance. This knowledge came the hard way, when Britney Spears tried to book some rooms during her head-shaving phase. Klein told the manager that he didn’t want her there, and somebody in the lobby overheard him. “I learned my lesson from that not to say anything in the lobby.” Social Life