HOLLYWOOD - On Sunset Boulevard, where neon once shimmered and film stars once slept, the Hollywood Center Motel now sits like a ghost from another age — its faded sign and boarded windows silently bearing witness to a century of dreams, danger, and decay. Once a symbol of modern travel and mid-century charm, the motel is now a symbol of Hollywood’s uneasy relationship with its past — and its present.
By Allan R. Ellenberger for The Hollywoodland Revue
The Hollywood Center Motel, November 2025.
The Hollywood Center Motel, May 2014. Photo Credit: SFGATE/Rob Corder via Flickr CC 2.0
This once-proud landmark, located at 6720 West Sunset Boulevard, is at the center of a bitter battle between preservation and progress. Over the past year, it has endured neglect, vandalism, fire — and even violence. In the latest episode, historian and tour guide Scott Michaels was attacked by a homeless person as he documented the condition of the motel for historic preservation purposes, a grim sign of the site’s ongoing deterioration.
From Country Estate to Motel Dreams
Long before Sunset Boulevard became the main artery of the movie capital, the site was a tranquil stretch of farmland. Around 1905, a stately Queen Anne–style home known as El Nido stood here, belonging to William and Sarah Avery. As Hollywood’s studio district boomed in the 1920s, the property was transformed into a 13-unit bungalow court, catering to actors, studio technicians, and traveling families.
By the 1930s, it had been redeveloped into one of the first motor inns in the United States to cater to America's new car culture. Called the Hollywood Center Motel, its bright neon sign lured tourists and hopeful newcomers to what remained, for many decades, a low-key, bustling bungalow court in the heart of Tinseltown.
Hollywood on Screen
The motel’s unassuming exterior made it a favorite for filmmakers seeking grit and realism. It appeared in episodes of Perry Mason, The Rockford Files, T.J. Hooker, and NCIS, and became part of the noir landscape of Los Angeles crime cinema.
Among its most famous appearances:
- L.A. Confidential (1997) — where Kevin Spacey’s detective discovers a murder victim in Room 203.
- Hit Man (1972) — the blaxploitation classic used the motel for pivotal action scenes.
- The Royal Road (2015) — an indie documentary that captured the motel’s haunting beauty in its twilight years.
Its blend of old Victorian bones and mid-century motel wings made it a cinematic chameleon — a place where fiction and reality often blurred.
A Dark Reputation
By the 1960s, the Hollywood Center Motel’s glamour had faded. Crime crept in. A 1963 robbery marked the beginning of its decline, and by the 1980s, it was notorious — tied by proximity to the Billionaire Boys Club murder case in 1986. Locals whispered that the motel had become “Hollywood’s most sordid address.”
In later decades, it fell further into ruin. Rooms were rented by the week, then by the hour. By the 2000s, the once-welcoming neon had rusted into silence. Reviews online described it as a “relic of disease and despair.”
Fire, Neglect, and the Battle to Save It
In recent years, the Hollywood Center Motel has suffered a different kind of violence — fire and neglect. The Los Angeles Fire Department has been called to the property multiple times, extinguishing blazes that gutted several units. Preservationists call it “demolition by neglect,” alleging that the property’s owners are letting it decay until it can be declared unsafe and bulldozed.
Yet no replacement project has been proposed. Demolition permits have been filed, but building permits have not. “It’s as if the city is watching history burn,” lamented one heritage advocate.
A Historian Attacked
In the most alarming recent event, Scott Michaels, renowned Hollywood historian and founder of Dearly Departed Tours, was reportedly attacked while photographing the motel grounds for documentation. A homeless man threw an object at him near the property’s fence — a grim reflection of how Hollywood’s homelessness crisis now collides with its architectural decay.
Preservationists who heard the news were appalled that another attack had happened, illustrating the increasing hazards at the city's abandoned landmarks. "We're fighting for history," Michaels said in an interview after the incident, "but sometimes it feels like history is fighting back."
What’s Left to Save
Despite years of damage, portions of the original Queen Anne residence and the 1920s bungalow wings still stand. Architectural historians describe the site as “a rare surviving hybrid” — part early-Hollywood residential structure, part 20th-century motor court. Its layered identity tells the story of Los Angeles itself, from country town to movie empire to urban sprawl.
For preservation groups like Hollywood Heritage and Esotouric, the motel is more than an eyesore — it’s a tangible record of Hollywood’s working-class roots. “Every time we lose one of these properties,” one advocate said, “we lose another chapter of how people actually lived in the shadow of the studios.”
The Hollywood Center Motel in better days, 1940s. Photo Credit: California State Library/Calisphere
The Road Ahead
As of this writing, the Hollywood Center Motel remains standing — charred, boarded-up, and silent — a cinematic ruin in the heart of Sunset Boulevard. Preservationists continue to petition the city for protection or adaptive reuse, while the property’s future hangs in limbo.
In its prime, the motel represented optimism: a place where travelers came to find Hollywood magic. Today, it stands as a cautionary symbol — of what happens when a city famous for creating myths forgets to preserve its own.
For now, the last motel on Sunset waits in the flicker of its fading neon, uncertain whether it will be resurrected — or erased.
Share your thoughts below — I’d love to hear your take on this piece and Hollywood’s ever-unfolding story.
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Please attend the Dec 4, 2025 meeting of the Cultural Heritage Commission of the City of Los Angeles to support the application by Hollywood Heritage for historic landmark status. Check with Hollywood Heritage for specifics on how you can write in and attend. Right now please send your opinion to emma.howard@lacity.org and ask that she have Department of Building and Safety do something to stop the decay...