When the Academy Awards are presented tonight, the presenters, nominees, guests, and members of the press will file into the Dolby Theatre for the evening’s celebration. What most of them likely do not realize—or perhaps never considered—is that the very ground beneath their seats was once the site of the legendary Hollywood Hotel, owned and operated by the formidable Almira “Mira” Hershey.
By Allan R. Ellenberger
Long before the studios dominated Hollywood Boulevard and long before the red carpets of the modern Academy Awards, a determined and visionary woman helped give Hollywood its first sense of elegance and permanence. Hershey—known to friends simply as “Mira”—was a real estate investor, philanthropist, and civic booster whose name became inseparable from the famed Hollywood Hotel. In an era when few women wielded financial power or shaped urban development, Hershey helped transform a quiet agricultural suburb into a place of refinement, culture, and opportunity.
While she was born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on November 14, 1843, Almira Hershey grew up in Muscatine, Iowa. Her family achieved success early on in America's rapidly expanding lumber industry.
She reportedly was a distant relative of the famed Hershey chocolate dynasty. Her father, Benjamin Hershey was one of the area's earliest and most successful lumber barons, operating several sawmills, and later founding a bank which would become the foundation of the Hershey family fortune.
Hershey was one of four daughters who benefitted not only from her father's financial success but also his business acumen. After being educated at schools in both the United States and Germany, she returned to Muscatine and took a job as secretary for her father's lumber business, which would later become known as the Mira Hershey Lumber Company.
Even in her early years, Hershey’s interests extended beyond business. The Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Muscatine (1893) described her as a cultured woman of artistic and musical talent whose mind was stored with the best thoughts of the best authors. Friends recalled a cheerful personality and sunny disposition that would characterize her throughout her life. Beneath that sunny veneer, though, was steel. At a time when women were supposed to focus on homemaking, Hershey was already investing and handling properties and managing charitable works.
Her philanthropic endeavors began in Muscatine. Building a hospital in honor of her father, she established Hershey Hospital, an institution that treated patients regardless of race, religion, or ability to pay; it was remarkable for its inclusiveness during the late nineteenth century. She later funded the addition of a Nurses' residence, as well as partial construction of Lutheran Homes, which provided shelter for the elderly as well as orphans. She aided in funding for several civic projects including Muscatine's YWCA and the Hershey Building.
In 1894, Hershey headed west to California, where she found herself captivated by Los Angeles. Although growing, Los Angeles was still considered a frontier town and offered a chance for anyone with money and creativity. Hershey decided to move there permanently, investing her own funds as she arrived. She purchased real estate throughout Los Angeles, acquiring land and buildings across the city at a time when property speculation was shaping its rapid growth.
The Hollywood Hotel (1902-1956), today the site of the Hollywood and Highland Center and the Dolby Theater, home to the annual Academy Awards ceremonies.
Hollywood itself was still little more than a quiet settlement of citrus groves and scattered homes. But Hershey’s friend and fellow developer Hobart Johnstone Whitley recognized the area’s potential and encouraged her to purchase a newly built hotel at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue. Around 1906, Hershey acquired the Hollywood Hotel and soon transformed it into the social center of the young community.
Designed in the graceful Mission Revival style, the hotel was a massive white building complete with shaded arcades, balconies and gardens. Its architecture was the romantic Southern California dream Hershey wanted. At Hershey's hands, the hotel was more than just lodging for travelers. It soon became the center of Hollywood society. Guests socialized there at dinners and dances. When people from across the nation visited, they were met with elegance that was surprising from what had just been a pasture.
Hershey herself resided in a suite on the hotel's top floor. She oversaw its operation with authority and elegance. Hershey was described as gracious, yet authoritative by those of her time. Guests viewed her as intelligent and sure of herself, qualities which afforded her respect in Los Angeles society. Hershey would frequently stand on the hotel's wide veranda that overlooked the palm tree lined driveway and watch carriages and autos arrive at the front entrance.
Anita Loos’s niece later recalled that Hershey would step onto the veranda to supervise the traffic flow, though her bifocals occasionally betrayed her depth perception and caused her to stumble down the steps. To prevent mishaps, the edges of the steps were painted white and attentive bellhops were stationed nearby to catch her if she slipped. The story perfectly captured the combination of elegance and eccentricity that made her a memorable presence in Hollywood.
She was also known for her independence. Once a month she drove her electric automobile downtown to Spring Street to meet with her attorneys. Often, she would forget where she had parked it, forcing the police department to help locate the wandering vehicle somewhere in the busy financial district.
Meanwhile, the Hollywood Hotel flourished as a social hub. Its dining rooms and gardens hosted gatherings that brought together artists, civic leaders, and eventually members of the emerging film industry. During the 1910s and 1920s, as motion picture companies migrated to Southern California, the hotel became a favored meeting place for actors, producers, and directors.
View from the northeast corner of Hollywood and Highland.
Hershey’s real estate empire expanded beyond Hollywood. Among her most ambitious projects was the Hershey Arms Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard, one of Los Angeles’s earliest luxury apartment hotels. She also owned substantial properties in downtown Los Angeles and continued to invest in land that would soon become some of the city’s most valuable districts.
Her philanthropic instincts remained strong in California as well. Determined to replicate the charitable spirit she had fostered in Iowa, she funded the creation of Good Hope Hospital in Hollywood—later known as Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center—where patients of modest means could receive treatment and pay only what they could afford. Hershey personally subsidized the difference between their payments and the hospital’s operating costs.
The Hershey Arms Hotel was located at 2600 Wilshire Boulevard
Education was another priority. After the University of California established its southern campus in Westwood—what would become UCLA—Hershey provided critical financial support during its formative years, leaving $400,000 ($7.8 million today) to them in her will. She funded the university’s first on-campus dormitory (Mira Hershey Hall) and left $100,000 as a student loan fund to help young scholars pursue their studies.
Almira Hershey was, in her elder years, one of Los Angeles' most admired and quietly powerful citizens. However, she never strove for recognition. Hershey's riches and power were for constructing cities, not self-aggrandizement.
On March 20, 1930, Hershey died in her suite at the Hollywood Hotel from apoplexy and a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of eighty-six. Funeral rites were held at the Hollywood Cemetery Chapel, after which she was cremated. On May 27, 1930, her ashes were returned to Muscatine, Iowa, and buried in the family plot at Greenwood Cemetery.
Her estate—valued at more than $2 million ($38.8 million today)—was distributed largely to charitable causes and educational institutions, continuing the pattern of generosity that had defined her life.
Although Hershey would not live to see the later decline of the Hollywood Hotel, her monument still stood proudly as one of the few reminders of Hollywood's early beginnings. For years the hotel served as Hollywood's unofficial town hall, welcoming residents and visitors as well as film industry moguls who often lounged underneath the hotel's porches. However, by the mid-1900s, the once majestic hotel began to crumble. In 1956 the hotel was demolished, despite preservationist efforts, to build way for a bank building and parking lot. The land the hotel once stood on is now the Hollywood & Highland center, home of the Dolby Theatre where the Oscars are hosted every year.
The building may be gone, but the legacy of Almira “Mira” Hershey endures. She was not an actress, producer or studio executive. She was something much scarcer in early Hollywood; a woman who saw opportunity where others only saw rolling hills and she constructed institutions that allowed the town to prosper.
Through her investments, philanthropy, and vision, Hershey helped give Hollywood its first sense of elegance and permanence. In doing so, she proved that the foundations of the film capital were laid not only by filmmakers and performers, but also by pioneers whose quiet determination shaped the landscape long before the cameras began to roll.
If you watch the Academy Awards ceremony tonight, take a moment as the stars enter the Dolby Theatre to remember that the site once held the grand Hollywood Hotel—and the remarkable Almira “Mira” Hershey, whose philanthropy left a lasting mark on Hollywood and the city itself.
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The Hollywood and Highland Center along with the Dolby Theater sits on the site of the Hollywood Hotel
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