The city we know as West Hollywood was once an unincorporated area outside the jurisdiction of the LAPD, making it the ideal spot to launch less-than-legal activities. Its location between Beverly Hills, where the stars resided, and Hollywood, where they worked, meant that well-heeled celebrities passed through this area daily so Sunset Blvd. became a mecca for vices like gambling and prostitution. As early as the 1920s, speakeasies and gambling halls opened on what came to be called the Sunset Strip, leading to its shady reputation.
Most of us have driven by the Italian Renaissance revival-style building at 8439 Sunset having no inkling of its notorious history. Through the years, this building has been known as Hacienda Arms Apartments, Coronet Apartments, and Piazza del Sol, but in the 1930s, it was home to the “classiest brothel on the Sunset Strip,” the House of Francis. Madam Lee Francis serviced some of old Hollywood’s biggest names with a stable of attractive young ladies whose ambitions to become movie stars failed to pan out. These pricey prostitutes could make as much as $1,000 a week – a lot of money during the Depression. These were the finest courtesans money could buy and they worked hard for the money, catering to the quirks of stars like Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Spencer Tracy, and Jean Harlow. There were rumors that MGM had a business charge account here for their stars and executives.
Madam Francis managed to stay in business by paying 40% of her ill-gotten gains, as well as gifts of champagne and caviar, to law enforcement and elected officials but the party was over in 1940 when she was busted in a raid and subsequently convicted of operating a house of ill repute. She recounted her exploits in her memoir “Ladies on Call: The Most Intimate Recollections of a Hollywood Madam.”
8439 Sunset passed through several owners until rock star Rod Stewart and a partner purchased the property in the 1970s. After years of legal wrangling, Stewart became the sole owner of the building but had second thoughts about it after being robbed at gunpoint and having his Porsche Carrera stolen in 1982.
Today, the Piazza Del Sol is home to offices for movie production companies like Miramax and a trendy Japanese restaurant. The building has cleaned up its act but those walls have many stories to tell.
From the 1930s through the 1940s, there were numerous gambling dens concealed inside businesses on the Sunset Strip but the biggest was the Clover Club at 8477 Sunset. The establishment’s mirrored doors hid a full-service casino where celebrity gamblers dropped as much as $10,000 in a single evening. A crackdown on the Strip’s vice dens began in 1949, leading gambling rings to relocate to the legal casinos of Las Vegas. The site of the Clover Club burned down in 1952.
Appropriately, the address 8477 Sunset Blvd. is currently occupied by Urbn Leaf West Hollywood, the first adult-use cannabis dispensary to open on the Sunset Strip. Finally, the location is home to a legal business.
I think it’s hilarious a women giving their opinion of the a beautiful West Hollywood. WeHo is the city and area I like to call the Gay capital of US. Born and raised San Diego Ca but nothing is like WeHo I always get my life in this city WeHo was where I met my first boyfriend that I dated for 20 years it changed my life I met so many amazing people talented and beautiful faces. WeHo and the Hollywood life is what keeps bringing me back yes they need to fix up more push out the homeless but… Read more »
Such an unnecessary and caustic remark. The article is factual and it seems unfortunate that you decry its female author which appears to say more about your disposition than you may realize.
You’re entitled to your own opinion just like I have mine. The title of this article speaks for itself there’s nothing Shady about WeHo, when you call WeHo shady you call a lot of people like myself Shady and I’m far from Shady so don’t try to tell me to shut for standing up for an area that’s historically changed millions of lives in a great way it’s funny the same people that spit and disgrace are the main people in the mist of it all. And you can say whatever you like I’m sorry your offended for me standing… Read more »
Hmmm! A big, professional blogger apparently with a mighty thin skin and not clever or sophisticated enough to stay on topic. Personally, was not offended, however you seem to have offended yourself with your own diatribe. Always beneficial to broaden one’s scope before being overtaken by the shade or the shady folks.
Where can one get a Masters or PhD. in blogging? Are you a coach?
Try Trump University for a blogging degree! LOL
What a vulgar and hatred reply. Weho IS shady. Everybody knows the underground world of sex and drugs that rubs rampant in that city and if u knowing this and still want to live in Weho then that means you are OK with and You are shady.
Who pissed in YOUR cornflakes is more like it.
Boy….you are a diva.
I love West Hollywood – I’ve lived here for 52 years. My beat is WeHo history so I write about the city’s past, good, bad or just amusing.
Thank you for sharing your stories and ignore those individuals who only know how to respond with negativity. I would love to know the stories on the Bel-Age (now the London) Hotel.
The shady side of WH—-is all of it. It’s the capital of woke nonsense.
People who don’t appreciate that, should probably live literally anywhere else then, eh?
Yep, we’re going backwards instead of forwards.
So, why do you live here?
Talk about Ghosts of the past. I knew there was a reason I was always drawn to this place, often stopping to sit down and admire the grounds on my walk to the movie theater in Sunset Blvd. great article, Linda!
As always, thank you for your column, Linda. It makes me chuckle when I see comments here whining about West Hollywood being a party town – when, in fact, that’s what it has always been.
Thank you! It perpetually boggles my mind as well, but a lot of people just have no interest in, nor use for history of any kind, even local. They think everything must have begun in the late 1990s.
The City unfortunately lacks any valid interest in or knowledge of its history both architectural and cultural other than the LGBTQ era.
I must say that Gay businesses, beginning in the 1970’s, benefited quite well with West Hollywood not being located within the city of Los Angeles. Studio One, Rascals, The Blue Parrot, the Nail, etc. were all going strong.
Back in the 70s the Nail was known as the Rusty Nail. The name was changed to just the Nail in the 80s.
You are so right. Once I saw picture of the bar and it just said The Nail. I, for some reason, thought I had gone mental because I remembered it as The Rusty Nail. I was partying in West Hollywood as far back as 1978 when I moved to Los Angeles that year. Thanks for the correction.
I used to be the DJ at Church at the Rusty Nail which began at 6 am on every Sunday. I wonder if you every went.
In 1968, Studio One was The Factory nightclub, a private club (not gay). Members included Peter Lawford and Robert F Kennedy press secretary Pierre Salinger.
June 4, 1968 was the California primary. Bobby Kennedy’s campaign had booked the entire Factory nightclub for his victory party. The plan was for Bobby to make his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel, then Bobby and Ethyl would ride with movie director John Frankenheimer and his wife Evans to the party at the club in Evans’ Rolls-Royce.
Sirhan Sirhan put an end to those plans.
Interesting! Thanks for that.