LA Story

As the year drifts into autumn, we find ourselves California dreaming – sunshine, orange groves, movie Stars, cocktails round the pool… Make ours a Malibu.

Words by Katie Newton

You know what it’s like before you’ve even been there. LA: it’s the Hollywood sign, the stars on the Walk of Fame, the surfers at Malibu, and Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. It’s all the ‘hoods from television and songs: Bel Air, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and Long Beach.

It’s the anxious gated communities and the pastel-hued hotels, where people live (live!) in splendid, idle luxury. It’s the guy with the flashy sports car and the girl with the stilettos and the off-the-hook body – with breasts that soar skyward without any help from a bra. It’s absolute plastic perfection, and it’s the absolutely unattainable dream of that. Just ignore the race riots, poverty, car jacking and gridlock. More than any other city in the world, the flotsam and jetsam of life in LA has permeated our collective consciousness.

And we flock there. Not just, of course, for the girls and the weather, but for the industries; entertainment, oil, shipping, finance and aerospace. The 88 independent cities that make up the county popularly known as LA have had ballistic population growth since the beginning of last century, making it the second-largest city in the United States. LAX is the world’s fifth busiest passenger airport, with more than 60 million passengers a year passing through. They too want to discover LA, and experience the intangibles for themselves. The salty tang of the breeze from the Pacific. The exhilaration that hangs in the hot Saturday night air. The silly but thrilling realisation that yes, that is Cameron Diaz getting in her car, heading home from yoga.

For what is really the modern cultural epicentre of the Western world, LA is so often perceived to be void of the stuff. While it may lack the history of London or the sophistication of Paris, it has entertainment by the swimming pool. The movie industry has lured in some of the world’s brightest creative talents, the moneyed client base some of the greatest minds of modern architecture and design. Richard Meier’s Getty Centre and Frank Gehry’s Walt Disney Concert Hall are among the many brash and elaborate architectural endeavours that probably would never have been built anywhere else. Rather than seeing LA as a ruined paradise where scented orange groves and acres of coastline have been turned into a tangle of smogchoked freeways and McMansions, see it as a vibrant, decadent city that really just wants to be liked.

WHERE TO STAY Forget Beverly Hills and Malibu, the most sought-after real estate in LA is the poolside cabanas at The Viceroy Santa Monica (www.viceroysantamonica.com). A must-stay for scenesters, the hotel is one block from the beach and the Santa Monica pier, and has extravagant touches such as in-room beauty bars stocked with full-sized products, fl at screen televisions, and Playstation Portables or Playstation 2s – available with or without a one-on-one tutorial from the ‘games butler’.

Old-time movie buffs might rather stay at the Hollywood Roosevelt (www.hollywoodroosevelt.com. com), the original venue for the Academy Awards and gathering place for the stars since 1927. Refurbished last year, it still retains a retro flavour with a cabaret club, upscale burger bar, penthouse with rooftop access to the iconic neon sign, and themed evenings organised by the very lovely socialite, Amanda Sheer Demme. Request the Steven Spielberg room for the best view in the building.

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If you’re after the very latest word in design, The Chamberlain (www.chamberlainwesthollywood.com) is the newest member of the Kor Hotel family, oozing understated calm albeit with some quirky touches. Tucked away on a tree-lined residential street in West Hollywood, it has chic interiors in celery and ice blue, fireplaces in every room and a rooftop pool where you can lounge in a cabana and watch Sunset strip shimmer below.

Or if you prefer things on a smaller scale, The Avalon (www.avalonbeverlyhills.com) has just 68 apartment-sized rooms on a residential street in Beverly Hills, a short walk from the nipped and tucked shoppers on Rodeo Drive. Features such as the original hourglass pool and the vintage and custom-designed furniture give it an artsy, rather than sceney, feel.

WHERE TO SHOP If shopping is a religion, in LA they worship at Fred Segal. Three decades on, it’s still the celeb’s favourite shop to drop cash on labels as diverse as Martin Margiela and Juicy Couture. Unlike most department stores, the buyers will take a punt and stock emerging fashion designers, and at the yearly sale (usually late September) there’s 50 percent off everything.

With all those palatial homes needing furniture, showrooms like Twentieth (www.twentieth.net) are an integral part of the city. Tightly-curated, Twentieth mixes hard-to-find modernist pieces with African sculpture and fine art, and makes them into its own in-store mini installations. It sounds scary but it’s not – the store is a favourite for movie set designers and is constantly loaning out its hottest items. The favoured label with the city’s style-savvy starlets (and the wannabes), Marc Jacobs (www.marcjacobs.com) has not one, but three LA locations, all within a stiletto-friendly totter of each other. First up, the new Marc Jacobs boutique is crammed with antiques and has an opulent ‘30s feel. Over the road, the biggest Marc by Marc Jacobs store in the world sells his younger, less expensive diffusion line, and the accessories and homewares at Marc Jacobs Home gives the latent house hippie in all of us some cred.

For the boys, Alpha (www.alpha-man.com) is the store for the whimsical to the practical and everything in between. It stocks everything from cufflinks to barbecues, to three-piece suits and sex toys; and has clothing from labels such as Y-3, Paul Smith and APC. In-house services include a stylist, event planner, closet organiser and interiors consultant.

WHERE TO EAT We’re not sure how much the line of Ferraris waiting for the valet messes with the feng shui, but as soon as you pass through the ornately carved gates at Koi (www.koirestaurant.com) all your earthly troubles should be left behind. Whether you sit in the dark and sultry dining room, the sunken lounge, or the bamboo-lined patio, the flickering votives and celebrity clientele should provide ample distraction until your perfectly cooked Asian fusion meal is delivered.

For those who would rather wolf down plates of robust and tasty food with glee, A.O.C (www.aocwinebar.com) is the place. The wildly popular ‘small plates’ restaurant has a wood-burning oven, an entire menu page devoted to cheese, and a charcuterie where cold meats of your choice are carved while you watch. As with every good place in LA, the long, loud bar has a smattering of celebs.

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Understatement is not on the menu at La Boheme (www.cafe-laboheme.com), a cavernous dining room off Santa Monica Boulevard (the strip where Lee Tamahori was sprung). The velvet drapes, fi replace and opulent Italian crystal chandeliers evoke a gothic kind of opulence. You half expect to see Tony Soprano growling over his goblet at a group of Armaniclad gangsters.

If you want to give your Jimmy Choos a rest for the evening and head out in your sneakers, (sorry, ‘trainers’) Magnolia (www.magnoliahollywood.com) on Sunset Boulevard has a cosy neighbourhood atmosphere without being twee. The chic interior is black and white with gold embossed walls, the menu anything from a toasted ham and cheese to lobster ravioli.

WHERE TO DRINK Provocative and absurd, the rooftop bar at *The Standard Downtown (www.standardhotel.com) is worth a visit for the sheer LA-ness of it all. Lined with shagpile carpets and bright red Astroturf, it has bent banana loungers or vibrating waterbeds for reclining on as you watch movies projected onto the walls. With 360° views of downtown and the odd helicopter whirring past, it’s a bit like The Jetsons – on acid.

At the intersection of Las Palmas and the hot nightclubbing strip Hollywood Boulevard, LAX (www.laxhollywood.com) is an airport-themed club owned by superstar DJ and Nicole Richie’s sometimes squeeze, DJ AM. The doorman can be harsh and the youngish crowd snooty, but the interior is slick and inviting with mirrors shaped like aeroplane windows and an orb-shaped jellyfish tank.

If it’s not obvious from the dramatic white canopies visible from the Hollywood Walk of Fame or the limos clogging the street outside, White Lotus (www.whitelotushollywood.com) is another hipper-than-thou clubbing destination. Whether you’re on the tented patios, dancing around the circular bar or trying not to knock over the Asian antiques in the VIP areas, you’ll hardly be able to see the plebs for the celebs. It’s often worth making a reservation at the very good sushi restaurant to get automatic access to the bar.

And believe it or not, there are plenty of places to go out in LA that don’t have brutal door policies. A true gem is Star Shoes (www.starshoes.org), both a cocktail lounge and vintage shoe salon. Fitted out like a 1950s department store, you can sip cocktails, peruse the cases of vintage heels, or boogie on the tiny dance fl oor while a rockstar passing through town spins a spontaneous DJ set. A shoe shine costs $5.

WHAT TO SEE Without doubt, a visit to the Getty Centre (www.getty.edu) is a compulsory part of any trip to LA. Set in Brentwood in the Santa Monica mountains, it has stunning views across the city and out to the Pacific. The expansive complex is made from creamy cleft cut Italian travertine, textured with fossilised leaves and feathers. The gardens are extraordinary and there are the five gallery pavilions filled with priceless art.

Take an architectural tour around the Walt Disney Concert Hall (www.musiccentre.org/wdch). The fourth addition to the Music Centre of Los Angeles, it houses the Philharmonic and Master Chorale and has a 2256 seat concert hall, outdoor amphitheatres and a myriad of rehearsal spaces. Designed by Frank Gehry, the mad, wavy stainless steel façade used almost ten million kilograms of primary steel in 12,500 pieces, with no two exactly the same.

The bright lights of the big city are exhibited, collected and preserved at the Museum of Neon Art (www.neonmona.org). From new works by up and coming artists, to a selection of vintage American beer signs, this museum pays homage to all that’s great in neon. Thanks to the museum and restoration group Lumens, LA has preserved much of its neon history.

When you’re starting to think LA has no soul, a moment in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels (www.olacathedral.com) will convince you otherwise. Push through the enormous bronze doors and marvel at the soaring ceiling made of 12,000 panes of translucent alabaster. On Wednesdays the 6019-pipe organ bursts into action with a free lunchtime concert, which literally makes the building vibrate.