Hotel Family
The hotel is managed and owned by the Dorchester Collection, which is a collection of nine luxury hotels in the United Kingdom, the United States, France and Italy, and was organized in 1996 to manage the hotel interests of the Brunei Investment Agency.
Svend Petersen, the Danish-American pool manager at the hotel for 42 years, became a Hotel Ambassador in 2002. He had notably opened up the pool after hours for The Beatles and taught Faye Dunaway to swim a freestyle crawl for Mommie Dearest. He was also known for warning Southern California newcomers in drastic and memorable language about the scorching sun.
The hotel is also home to the famous place to see-and-be-seen, the Polo Lounge, and the exterior of the hotel was featured on the album cover art of the Eagles' 1976 LP "Hotel California".
From 1928 to 1932, the hotel was owned by the Van Noy Railway News and Hotel Company. Its strict resident owner from 1954 until his death in 1979 was former Detroit real estate magnate Ben L. Silberstein, who took it over from Hernando Courtright, later hotelier at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Some of the hotel's owners have been celebrities: Irene Dunne, Loretta Young, and currently (as noted below) the Sultan of Brunei.
Read more about this topic: Beverly Hills Hotel
Famous quotes containing the words hotel and/or family:
“Never relinquish clothing to a hotel valet without first specifically telling him that you want it back.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“I am the family face;
Flesh perishes, I live on,
Projecting trait and trace
Through time to times anon,
And leaping from place to place
Over oblivion.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)