An initial study published by the City of Beverly Hills offers up new details on plans for a new Cheval Blanc hotel on Rodeo Drive.
The project, which is being developed by Louis Vuitton parent company LVMH, would rise along the south side of South Santa Monica Boulevard between Rodeo and Beverly Drive, replacing a former Brooks Brothers retail store and the Paley Center for Media. Plans call for the construction of a roughly 220,000-square-foot building featuring up to 115 guest rooms with restaurant space, and a private club.
Architect Peter Marino is designing the proposed hotel in coordination with Los Angeles-based Gruen Associates. Plans call for a four-to-nine-story structure, rising to a maximum height of 115 feet above street level. Tiered roof levels would and setbacks would be used to create a guest amenity spaces, including a garden and multiple pool decks.
Public art to be integrated into the building at several locations, including sculpture planned with a pedestrian plaza at the corner of Rodeo and Santa Monica.
According to the initial study, construction of the Cheval Blanc is expected to occur over a roughly 38-month period, starting with the demolition of existing structures in 2022 and concluding with the opening of the new hotel in early 2026.
Paris-based LVMH has owned the development site since late 2018, when it purchased the former Brooks Brothers building for the reported sum of $245 million.
The company's proposed Cheval Blanc is one of several new hotels planned in Beverly Hills, including an adaptive reuse project which would transform the landmarked Gibraltar Square office complex, a ground-up development on South Lasky Drive, and the $2-billion One Beverly Hills project.
Despite the new slate of hotel projects, and the city's status as one of the wealth centers of Los Angeles County, even Beverly Hills has not proven immune to the wave of hotel closures that has resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. One block south from the proposed site of the Cheval Blanc, the 86-room Luxe Rodeo Drive hotel shuttered earlier this year.
- Cheval Blanc Hotel Planned in Beverly Hills (Urbanize LA)