Constructed in 1906 at the then almost unheard of cost of $2 million, the hotel then added a large addition in 1911. The addition included a beautiful banquet hall with a spectacular stained-glass ceiling, now known as the Palm Court.

The Van Nuys Hotel was one of the finest hotels in Los Angeles upon opening, and the first to provide telephone and electric service to every room.

One of many motels and restaurants to spring up along San Fernando Road during the postwar boom but one of very few mid-century roadside commercial resources to have survived.

A masterpiece of Beaux-Arts design, the press dubbed the six-story building a "skyscraper" at the time of its opening.