The Pleasures of the Beverly Hills Hotel

My September 3 post brings back memories of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

I love it. The hotel sits in a residential area of a city with benign parking laws, so I can leave my car on adjacent Crescent Drive. Because management ignores the tiresome obsession with security, even during the wee hours, I walk to the nearest door and never find it locked. I’ve made 135 visits.

I’m not the only doctor who loves the Beverly Hills Hotel. Although the oldest (built in 1912), later arrivals – Bel Air, Peninsula, Sofitel, and L’Hermitage share its reputation for opulence and expensiveness. However, something about it attracts the fawning attention of doctors, including those who don’t serve hotels.

I’ve never met the general manager. He has the authority to designate a hotel doctor, but GMs tend to leave that decision to guest service personnel. That works out fine for me – over the long term. Over the short term, aggressive doctors exert their charms. I’ve acquired and lost the Beverly Hills Hotel four times.

For an exciting year during the eighties, it called, and I visited Leonard Bernstein twice (I can mention his name because he’s dead). Then calls ceased. They resumed several years later before stopping again; this was probably the work of the unhappy celebrity whose visit I may have mentioned earlier. The hotel closed for renovations in 1994, reopening a year later with concierges who knew me from previous jobs -- always a good sign. Sure enough, calls began arriving. By this time, Doctor Lusman was on the scene (google “Jules Lusman”; you won’t regret it). He took over until he lost his license in 2002.

All luxury hotels call now and then, and a few call regularly, but I lack the key to winning their ongoing loyalty. This might involve something as straightforward as charming the general manager or as devious as money changing hands. I don’t know.