Gay-Owned Ace Hotel Chain Expands to L.A.

The newest Ace Hotel will take shape in an 85-year-old Los Angeles theater and office tower built by Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford.

The Ace chain, viewed as hip and urbane, was begun by three gay men in 1999. Alex Calderwood, Wade Weigel, and Doug Herrick successfully turned a Seattle halfway house into a destination hotel before opening properties in Portland, Ore., Manhattan, and Palm Springs. Many of the hotels are frequented by celebrities, media, and LGBT patrons.

The newest Ace will open at the historic United Artists building on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles, the site of rapid gentrification in the last decade. The Hollywood Reporter notes that the beautiful Spanish Gothic structure was erected with support from Hollywood luminaries like Chaplin, Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith. There is hope that the new operators will restore the building's 2,214 seat theater, recently used as a church, to its former glory. Read more here.