Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel

The story

The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel stands at No. 7000 on Hollywood Boulevard, in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles. It went up in 1926, when Los Angeles was in its architectural heyday, and took its name from Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president. Its backers were a who's who of the young film industry, among them the studio chief Louis B. Mayer, the stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, and the showman Sid Grauman. The hotel cost $2.5 million and opened on May 15, 1927, in a Spanish Colonial style.

Two years later, in 1929, its Blossom Room hosted the first Academy Awards ceremony, which tied the building to Hollywood history for good. Stars also lived there. Montgomery Clift took a room on the ninth floor for about three months in 1952 while preparing for *From Here to Eternity*, and Marilyn Monroe is said to have lived at the hotel early in her career and to have done her first commercial photo shoot beside the pool, though some sources question how long she stayed.

The glamour faded in the 1950s. An owner of that period tore out the archways, hid the painted ceilings and had the whole building painted seafoam green. The turnaround came in 1985, when Radisson Hotels bought the property and spent $35 million restoring it from the original blueprints and old photographs, bringing back the coffered lobby ceiling and adding a three-tiered fountain. In 1987 the artist David Hockney painted the mural on the floor of the Tropicana Pool.

Official recognition followed. The National Register of Historic Places added the Hollywood Boulevard Commercial and Entertainment District in 1985, with the Roosevelt counted as a contributing building, and on August 13, 1991, Los Angeles named the hotel Historic-Cultural Monument No. 545. Later decades brought more renovations, a $30 million one in 2005 and a $25 million one in 2015, and a string of fashionable bars and restaurants, including the Teddy's nightclub, a celebrity hangout from 2005 to 2015. In 2016 the hotel joined Historic Hotels of America.

The legend

Few hotels have a ghost list this famous. The best-known story concerns Marilyn Monroe and a full-length mirror that used to hang in her room. After her death in 1962, the story goes, the mirror ended up in an office used by a manager. A housekeeper cleaning it is said to have glimpsed a mournful blond figure over her shoulder, who vanished when she turned around. Blogs and tour sites name the housekeeper and place the sighting in 1985, during the Radisson restoration, saying activity grew while work was going on; no newspaper confirms those details. Guests have since reported the same blonde reflection. Monroe is also said to dance in the Blossom Ballroom and to appear behind people in photographs. Which room she occupied is itself disputed: sources variously name a suite on the twelfth floor, a poolside cabana or simply a poolside suite.

Montgomery Clift, who died in 1966, is said to haunt the ninth floor and especially Room 928, where he stayed. People describe hearing a bugle or trumpet in the corridor at night, and some stories have him pacing the hallway rehearsing his lines. Errol Flynn is placed near the piano by the Blossom Ballroom, in evening dress.

The one ghost without a famous name is a small girl in blue, known as "Caroline." People magazine suggests she may have drowned in the pool, but Wikipedia gives only her name and dress, one tour company gives her no name at all, and no record of such a death has been found. Other reports include cold spots, photographic "orbs" and odd calls to the hotel switchboard. A tour operator adds an unseen presence in the ballroom, plus shadows and the sound of splashing at the pool and the footsteps of children, but this is a weak source. LAist, in a light-hearted 2007 piece, had ghosts mingling with the crowd at the Tropicana Bar.

The legend was well established by 2000: Wikipedia's account draws on press stories from the Philadelphia Inquirer (2000), National Geographic News (2003), the Denver Post (2004) and the Hollywood Reporter (2013). In October 2024 a People reporter, Julie Jordan, spent a night in Room 928 with the "Ghost Moms," Liz Beedle and Emily Penke, with hotel security opening restricted areas. They reported a call bell that rang in response to their questions, a motion sensor going off in the empty ballroom and male voices around 3 a.m. Separately, Beedle said that in 2014 she and friends heard a man's voice through the wall next to Room 928, while security found the room empty. No TV ghost-hunting episode filmed here has been confirmed.

The hotel's own position has shifted. In 2008 it told NBC News and Travel + Leisure that it "isn't haunted by anyone, celebrity or otherwise." By 2024 it was building its Halloween program around its ghosts.

What remains today

The Roosevelt remains a working hotel, restored to its Spanish Colonial look. Recent photographs show the coffered lobby ceiling, the bars and the Tropicana Pool with Hockney's mural. The so-called Marilyn mirror now hangs in a mezzanine hallway, in a public part of the building. The hotel lists two restaurants and four bars, among them Gable, the Lobby Bar, the Spare Room, the Library Bar and the Tropicana. It is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument and part of a National Register historic district.

Visiting

The Roosevelt is easy to visit legally: the lobby, bars and restaurants are open to the public, and the mirror hangs in a public hallway. Guest floors, including the ninth, are for registered guests, so book a room if you want to stay overnight, and respect other guests and staff.

The hotel runs its own Halloween party and October poolside horror movie nights; in 2024 party tickets ran from $50 for general admission to $225 for VIP, with film nights from $12. Several Hollywood walking ghost tours, such as American Ghost Walks and Ghost City Tours, stop outside.

Sources

1. Wikimedia Commons category : Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel — Wikimedia Commons
2. USGS 1:250000-scale Quadrangle for Los Angeles, CA 1959 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1959 · Public domain (USGS)
3. USGS 1:62500-scale Quadrangle for Los Angeles, CA 1894 — U.S. Geological Survey, 1894 · Public domain (USGS)
4. "Does Marilyn Monroe Haunt This Hollywood Hotel? We Spent an Eerie Night There to Find Out" (Julie Jordan, 24 Oct 2024) — People (via AOL) — People (via AOL
5. "Halloween Is An Eventful Glam Affair At The Hollywood Hotel Allegedly Haunted By Marilyn Monroe" (8 Oct 2024) — Islands — Islands
6. "Hotels haunted by celebrities" (Joshua Pramis, 21 Oct 2008) — NBC News / Travel + Leisure — NBC News / Travel + Leisure
7. Official website
8. "The Boosevelt H" (Jacy Young, 17 Oct 2007) — LAist — LAist
9. "The Haunting of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel" — American Ghost Walks (tour operator) — American Ghost Walks (tour operator
10. Wikipedia article — Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Text written by AI from the sources above and checked by a separate AI fact-check (how we work). Images: credits and licenses under each picture.