The Los Angeles Athletic Club, that solid, stalwart, built-in-1880 pile located on West Seventh downtown, has been of the swankiest, squash-playing-iest spots in all of LAdom for several years running now.
Now its hotel has had a huge redo, and we mean huge. Multi-million-dollar huge. The Club -- let's call it LAAC for short, just to be chummy and all -- calls the look of its freshly plumped 72 rooms "1920s French moderne with some British campaign and a touch of Americana." Which we can see from the early pictures, which include brassy lamps and holly-berry-hued wingback chairs and plush details everywhere.
And just the kind of oversized couches one wants to drop into, wearily, with drama, post-squash.
The Hotel, capital H, debuts with a grand soiree on December 9th, but USC and UCLA people might want to start calling for reservations now. There is a Bruins suite, that's a symphony in blueness, and a gold-bedecked Trojans suite, too.
Theme hotel meets swanky quarters. Doesn't happen too often, so when it does, we embrace. But don't get too close; we still got hit the showers, and stow our racquet.
