Hilton Checkers | Los Angeles Conservancy
Hilton Checkers
Photo by Johnathan Clover, www.cloverleafimages.com

Hilton Checkers

The Mayflower Hotel (now the Hilton Checkers Hotel) is built on a lot only sixty feet wide and 160 feet deep. The architect, Charles Whittlesey, was known for his hotel designs, which include the El Tovar (1905) at the Grand Canyon and the Wentworth Hotel (1906) in Pasadena (now the Ritz-Carlton, Huntington Hotel & Spa). The Mayflower's façade features ornate Spanish-style ornament. Swirls, checkerboard patterns, and stylized gargoyles abound on the façade's lower three floors. Originally, bas-relief sculptures of the famous ships Mayflower and Santa Maria graced either side of the entry.

While the hotel's exterior is Spanish in style, the original interior leaned more toward "Pilgrim Revival." The ground-floor lobby included the Mayflower Tavern and Ye Bull Pen, a popular eatery decorated in a cattle shed motif. The hotel underwent a major renovation in the 1980s, when two floors were added on top of the building (to house the physical plant as well as a health spa for guests). The guest rooms, originally numbering 348, were enlarged and their number reduced to 188.

Photo by Larry Underhill

The Biltmore Hotel Los Angeles

Opening to great fanfare in 1923, the Biltmore was then the largest hotel west of Chicago and this day it remains one of L.A.'s best examples of Beaux Arts style architecture.
Photo from L.A. Conservancy archives

Lincoln Theatre

Opened in 1927, the Lincoln Theatre is the last remaining theatre in Los Angeles that catered specifically to the African American community.