Sleeping With the Stars: My Stay at the Palihotel Culver City
I checked into the Palihotel Culver City expecting a chic boutique stay — colorful wallpaper, craft cocktails in the courtyard, Sony Studios just down the street. What I didn’t expect was to be sleeping in the same building where a very young Joan Crawford once lived nearly a century ago. It’s not every day your hotel key unlocks a piece of Hollywood history.
The Palihotel looks every inch the stylish modern traveler’s dream: 49 snug rooms, teal walls accented by a dramatic botanical mural, a restaurant buzzing with creatives, and a courtyard perfect for late-night conversations. But underneath the mural and modern design lies the old Washington Hotel, built in 1923 with 51 rooms — and the unlikely home of MGM hopefuls in the studio’s golden era.
Joan Crawford in her early days at MGM around the time she would have stayed at what is now the Palihotel Culver City
Before we left on our trip did some digging when I found out the hotel was Joan Crawford’s first lodging in Los Angeles because it is literally across the street from MGM. That puts it ground zero for Old Hollywood.
Joan Crawford Checks In
In January 1925, a 20-year-old Lucille Fay LeSueur — not yet Joan Crawford — stepped off a train in Los Angeles, signed her brand-new MGM contract, and was whisked to the Washington Hotel. She had just left New York, where she’d been a chorus dancer, and now found herself across the street from the dream factory. According to her memoir A Portrait of Joan, “visiting The Washington Hotel was the first stop she made after she was retrieved at the train station.”
The Washington was no grand palace. It was a three-story, E-shaped building with small rooms and shared meals, a “home for hopefuls” as Joan later called it. The place was filled with would-be stars — most of whom never made it past the lobby. Crawford remembered it as lonely: “I had no friends. I had no idea how to act, how to talk, or even how to walk in the way they wanted.”
But every morning she crossed Washington Boulevard into MGM’s lot (what is now Sony Pictures), where she was drilled in diction lessons, dance classes, and posture training. She landed tiny parts that year — a chorus girl in Pretty Ladies, a model in A Slave of Fashion, a dancer in Sally, Irene and Mary. Nights were quieter: Joan practiced in the mirror, studied other actresses, and wrote letters home. “I used to stand in the wings and watch Norma Shearer,” she recalled. “I thought if I could learn what made her so poised, maybe someday I would have a chance.”
It was here, from the modest Washington Hotel across the street, that Crawford began to reinvent herself. Within a few years, she was headlining Our Dancing Daughters and by the early 1930s she was a full-fledged MGM star.
From Boarding House to Boutique
The Washington Hotel endured long after Joan had moved on. Over the decades it was rechristened the West End Hotel, stripped of its ornate zigzag decoration, and painted in forgettable stucco. By the 1980s it looked tired — another fading Los Angeles boarding house.
That could have been the end of it. But in 2018 the Los Angeles-based Grifka Group swooped in with a plan: restore the bones, revive the glamor, and turn the building into something Culver City didn’t yet have — a modern boutique hotel that nodded to Hollywood’s golden age. They gutted the interiors, added modern plumbing and HVAC, opened a courtyard restaurant and bar, and painted the building a deep jewel-tone teal. The original 1923 exterior was preserved, though the interiors were reimagined with retro-Hollywood flair.
When the Palihotel opened later that year, it became a new kind of “home for hopefuls”: not chorus girls and contract players, but streaming producers, fashion photographers, and road-weary travelers looking for a stylish base in Culver City.
Staying There Today
Walking into the lobby today, it’s hard not to imagine Joan Crawford dragging her suitcase through the same doorway in 1925. My room was petite — boutique hotels in Los Angeles tend to run cozy — but artfully layered with vintage furniture and moody colors. The bar downstairs poured a mean Negroni, and the leafy courtyard buzzed with conversations in half a dozen languages.
The location is unbeatable for a film buff. The old MGM lot (now Sony Pictures Studios) is just across the street. You can book a tour and wander past the soundstages where The Wizard of Oz was filmed, or the recording stage where Judy Garland sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Walking around, I realized that Joan’s “commute” from the Washington Hotel was barely a minute — literally a crosswalk away.
It’s this blend of past and present that makes a stay here so fun. By day, you can wander Culver City’s “Old MGM” landmarks — the gates, the studio bungalows, the streets where silent-era hopefuls once hurried in their best clothes. By night, you’re sipping cocktails under string lights in the courtyard, surrounded by the buzz of today’s entertainment world.
Hotels don’t always wear their history on their sleeves. The Palihotel is small, stylish, and modern — exactly what you’d expect from a boutique brand. But knowing its backstory, the place feels richer, almost cinematic. Joan Crawford’s lonely, ambitious nights here make the walls hum with energy. The fact that it’s survived a century — from hopefuls’ dormitory to worn-out boarding house to lively boutique hotel — makes it a hidden gem for anyone fascinated by Hollywood’s layers.
If you come to Culver City to tour Sony Pictures and chase the ghosts of Old MGM, staying at the Palihotel turns the trip into an immersive experience. You’re not just visiting history; you’re sleeping in it. And as I lay in my room, I couldn’t help but imagine Joan on the other side of the wall nearly a hundred years earlier, rehearsing in the mirror, dreaming of stardom.
If You Go
Hotel: Palihotel Culver City
3927 Van Buren Place, Culver City, CA
49 rooms, on-site restaurant and bar, leafy courtyard.
What to Do Nearby:
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- Sony Pictures Studio Tour: Across the street, explore sets and soundstages from MGM’s golden age to today.
- Culver Hotel: Just a few blocks away, another legendary Hollywood lodging with MGM ties (the Munchkins stayed here during The Wizard of Oz).
- Downtown Culver City: Cafés, galleries, and indie theaters perfect for wandering.
