Located on the northeast corner of Hollywood and Western, the Hotel Rector held its gala grand opening on the night of October 4, 1924, at the same time as the Hollywood Guaranty Building down the street at 6331. An electrical display, “the Aurora Borealis,” supplied by Otto K. Olsen for both buildings lit the Hollywood sky to mark the occasion.

Hollywood Citizen News 10/6/1924

The new Hotel Rector. Hollywood Citizen News 10/3/1924

The 4-story brick structure was designed by architects Walker & Eisen for the leaseholder: the realty development department of the United Cigar Stores corporation. The ground it stood on was owned by a wealth widow, Delia Nadeau of Butte, Montana (who died in 1927). When people got hold of land in Los Angeles, they almost never sold it. Rather, they would issue long term leases on the property. If the leaseholder ever defaulted, any improvements made to the property reverted to the owner of the underlying ground. When the term “sold” was used in relation to real estate transactions, it usually really meant that the building itself, with its attendant lease, changed hands, not the underlying land. Heirs whose relatives didn’t sell off their land to pay for their gambling habits (thanks a lot, Grandpa Bob) lived off the profits of these long-ago leases for decades.

Like most large hotels of the era, it had retail shops on the ground floor. Some of the original tenants were the Rector Pharmacy, the Rector Bootery shoe store at 5461 and the Rector Master Tailor at 5459. The hotel itself was usually addressed as 5447; it was sometimes known as 5455.

Announcing new management of the Hotel Rector five months after it opened. Hollywood Citizen News 3/7/1925.

The 5400 block of Hollywood Boulevard looking west. The LA Public Library dates this photo to c. 1935.

The Hotel Rector saw Hollywood’s rise and its subsequent decline beginning in the late 1960s. Never a luxury accommodation but was a decent mid-level tourist hotel for most of that time, the Rector became a single-room occupancy (SRO) residence. It closed in the late 1980s, supposedly due to damage from the Whittier Earthquake (1987). With vacant or boarded-up structures, the corner of Hollywood and Western was increasingly known for rampant crime- mostly drugs and prostitution.

LA Times 9/6/1990

In September 1990, the Los Angeles Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) gave developer Ira Smedra $5.1 million in loans and other funding to redevelop the 3-plus acre Hotel Rector property as mixed-use retail and low-income senior housing complex to be known as the Hollywest Promenade and the Hollyview Apartments. Smedra was supposed to secure the remaining funds needed by 1992 or begin paying 10% interest. Most of the money went toward acquiring the property. In September 1992, with the funding to build the project still unsecured, the CRA, which had extended Smedra’s funding deadline (without charging interest), approved Smedra’s request to demolish the Hotel Rector, on the basis that he would have a better chance of getting bank loans if the parcel was vacant. Some CRA board members questioned whether the senior housing was even a good idea- would seniors even want to live in such a crime-ridden area? They seem to have forgotten that the redevelopment was supposed to rid the area of said crime, but whatever.

The Hotel Rector was demolished in July 1993.

LA Times 5/8/2001

In March 1996, the CRA granted Smedra a sixth extension on the terms of his loan (no interest paid). The corner of Hollywood and Western continued to decline, with more boarded-up structures as a result of the Northridge Earthquake. As of February 1998 the parcel remained vacant. Construction on the retail portion of the project finally got underway around late 1999. In May 2001, still only partly completed, Smedra requested another $37 million for the senior housing portion of the complex, which was used as a scapegoat for the lack of progress. The senior housing opened in October 2003. The CRA purchased the project upon its eventual completion and turned the housing wing over to a nonprofit Retirement Housing Foundation.

The Hollywood Boulevard facade of the Hotel Rector property today. Google map image.