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The Building Lit by Golden Globes
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Next to Kinara is a 1940s building with an Elizabethan half-timbered facade that houses the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, one of the “industry’s” most obvious outposts in West Hollywood. The association is known for its Golden Globe Awards, which get enough TV viewers to convince NBC to pay a rumored $6 million for broadcast rights, despite the fact that serious journalists have documented HFPA as nothing more than a club for fewer than 100 real-estate agents, car salesmen, showbiz publicists and hairdressers (and a few journalists) who are its voting members. They use the NBC money to fund their own travel to film screenings around the world and donate a little more than a million a year to charity. While the HFPA’s facade of legitimacy has been pierced, the facade of its headquarters remains in good shape.
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Just past the HFPA headquarters we wander back into a part of North Robertson colonized by Beverly Hills. First is Lily Lodge, Ariana Lambert Smeraldo’s flower shop with an 11-by-16-foot wall of flowers behind glass that resembles a museum exhibit.
Lily Lodge is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday.
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If you’re hungry at this point in the tour, Hedley‘s, next door, is a family-owned and -operated restaurant that offers lunch and dinner and a weekend brunch at a reasonable price ($14 for Moroccan vegetable stew with couscous and cranberries).
It’s open for lunch Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and for dinner from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday and 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Saturday and Sunday brunch hours are 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
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Leaving Hedley’s and walking south, you encounter Steven Alan, one of nine stores in New York City and Southern California that offer apparel for men and women from brands such as ACNE, Daryl K, Filson, New Balance and Steven Alan himself.
This store is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Monday.
