Old star, blazing scene

There’s been no end to the dishy tidbits filtering out of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in the weeks since the ranking hipsters discovered the gorgeous but long-forgotten time capsule.

The arrests, the equipment seizures by LAPD’s vice squad, the reported Fourth of July antics in Lindsay Lohan’s suite, the news of Bruce Willis chatting up a coed in a cabana room, even Courtney Love’s recent drama there have helped, as controversy often does, elevate the hotel to near-superstar status in just two months.

Word-of-mouth on the Roosevelt is traveling like a flash fire, moving even faster than the crews finishing the hotel’s rooms, restaurants and salons, faster than the official publicity generated by the hotel’s team of expert trendsetters led by hip hotelier Jason Pomeranc and scene maker Amanda Scheer Demme. So fast, in fact, that it invites the question of just how much mischief is too much?

The Roosevelt’s rebirth comes as Hollywood Boulevard reclaims the club scene that, for years, has been dominated by the hyper-styled venues on Sunset. There’s just enough residue of Hollywood’s gritty recent past to lure the young crowds so sated by the superficial that they’ll devour anything with a whiff of authenticity.

“Even the bad publicity helps feed into the mythology of the place,� says Rose Apodaca, a regular at the hotel, West Coast bureau chief for Women’s Wear Daily and co-owner of the Beauty Bar and Star Shoes bars in Hollywood. “We jokingly say the scene at the Roosevelt looks like a scene out of [the HBO show] ‘Entourage’ and it does in a way. But I think there’s something kind of fabulous about that as well.�

Eleven days ago, paramedics rushed into the hotel to transport Love to the hospital, prompting conflicting reports over her condition. She told the New York Daily News that she “must have fainted� after two Diet Cokes. Police initially reported she’d overdosed on drugs but later declined to elaborate, identifying the evening’s victim only as “Courtney L.,� citing confidentiality issues and victim identity protections. A Los Angeles Fire Department spokeswoman said an ambulance responded to a call from the hotel of a drug overdose, but its records didn’t name the person transported.

During a raucous July 4 weekend, a young man reportedly jumped from the second-story balcony of Lohan’s suite, nearly missing the pool. (The actress has denied the incident.)

Since June, uniformed vice officers twice have marched through the hotel’s exclusive bar, the Tropicana, seizing turntables, CD players, mixers and speakers. Demme and party manager Jason Alexander have been arrested on noise violations and general manager Brett Blass has been cited as well. (Only Blass faces charges, a penalty of six months in jail or a $1,000 fine.)

“This comes down to a money issue,� says LAPD Lt. Manuel Romeral. “It’s big bucks for these parties. And sometimes establishments are willing to overlook the fines.... In comparison to what they’re making, it’s probably not that significant.�

Hotel guests, meanwhile, have complained loudly on several gossip blogs and in the press that Demme’s strict guest list often excludes them from the Tropicana, even when they’ve rented a room or booked a wedding there.

Although hotel management says all guests can now access the pool -- and the party carries on with digital music files played from a laptop computer -- these early incidents hit a nerve. Hollywood’s honorary mayor Johnny Grant, who has occupied the hotel’s 13th floor for 14 years, says that when Demme was arrested “there was a lot of applauding when they hauled her off.�

These early troubles are just the result of instant fame, says Stephen Brandman, chief operating officer of Thompson Hotel Group, the company managing the Roosevelt. “When we opened up, we didn’t expect the kind of crowds we opened to,� he says. “It took us by surprise.... You have the good and you have the bad and that was just part of the growing process.�

Demme, to her credit, is earnest about resolving the noise issues at the Tropicana, which she co-owns. But she can’t resist chuckling as she recalls the two hours she spent at the police station, handcuffed to a bench alongside “gangsters,� awaiting her $100 bail. “It was hard to take myself seriously,� she says.

For all the melodrama -- perhaps in response to it -- the Tropicana is still packed every night and 92% of the hotel’s 300 rooms were booked this month, doubling room revenues from a year ago, says Brandman. One guest hopes to rent out the $3,500-per-night penthouse for a year; others have relocated their offices to the poolside “cabana� rooms.

The Roosevelt hasn’t been this stylish since the 1940s. Its Spanish Colonial style, the midcentury Palm Springs feel of the Tropicana, the lobby’s tiered fountain and painted beam ceiling and the hotel’s rich history as the site of the first Academy Awards in 1929 continue to lure event planners and L.A. clubgoers, who have tired of manufactured glamour. To them, the hotel’s Hollywood pedigree renders it instantly hip.

Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Mary Pickford were among the hotel’s original investors. Carole Lombard and Clark Gable retreated to its penthouse and Marilyn Monroe posed in a suntan lotion ad by the pool, the bottom of which was painted by David Hockney in 1987.

“It’s going to have longevity, whereas other things open and burn out really fast,� says David Rodgers of the hotel. His event company, Rabin Rodgers Inc., organized a July 20 party in the Roosevelt’s candlelit lobby to promote Citizens of Humanity jeans.

This renaissance began when real estate developer Goodwin Gaw and his partner, David Chang, who bought the hotel from Clarion Hotels in 1995, partnered with ICM agent Michael Gruber in early 2003. At the time, the Oscars had recently moved to the Kodak Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland shopping complex and the neighborhood was poised for revival.

Gruber, now the co-owner of the Tropicana, helped bring in designer Dodd Mitchell, whose work includes L.A. hotspots such as Dolce, Katana and Falcon, and Demme, widow of filmmaker Ted Demme and a well-regarded music supervisor whose films include “Mean Girls� and “Garden State.� Gruber was also key in the hiring of Pomeranc’s Thompson Hotel Group, which handles the 60 Thompson hotel in Manhattan’s SoHo and the Sagamore Hotel in Miami’s South Beach.

Demme has emerged as the most public face of the new Roosevelt. She’s at the hotel every night and personally approves the Tropicana guest list and oversees events in the lobby. A strong-willed entrepreneur, she “moved in here like Gen. Patton leading an invasion,� one insider recalled. But to Tropicana guests, Demme is also personable and warm, comfortable in her skin, greeting everyone with bear hugs and kisses and “Hey, baby!�

“My job has been to brand and bring in and change the clientele and bring Hollywood and its tastemakers to this place,� says Demme. “There’s definitely a formula to it.�

Demme’s crowd may come to Hollywood for the Roosevelt, but they’ll find several exclusive clubs around the corner once they get there. In the last year, Geisha House, a sushi restaurant and sake bar co-owned by Ashton Kutcher, the Cabana Club and Mood have opened in the neighborhood within a few blocks of one another. Plans are underway to open a W Hotel at the corner of Hollywood and Vine in 2008.

“In a lot of ways [the Roosevelt’s success] is definitely reflective of the evolution that’s occurred along Hollywood Boulevard and within Hollywood nightlife,� says Apodaca. “It’s spiraled upwards into a different kind of scene.�

By fall, the Roosevelt will house even more star attractions. Prominent Southern California chef Tim Goodell and his wife, Liza, who recently opened the restaurant Dakota at the hotel, will add a hamburger stand called 25 Degrees. The couple are also revising the hotel’s room service and poolside menus. Demme will open another, more exclusive, club named Teddy’s and New York hairstylist April Barton, whose clients include U2 and Elvis Costello, will cater to VIPs from a space overlooking Hollywood Boulevard. A spa, a gym and newly updated rooms are in the works.

On a recent night at the Tropicana, the music was retro rock and guests leaned into one another on cushioned lounge chairs and chatted like old friends while they awaited designer Tracey Ross, who was celebrating her birthday. Around 10 p.m., Lohan perched near an outdoor fireplace while Gisele Bundchen lined up at the bar and Nicole Richie enjoyed a private dinner at the pool’s end. Herds of other long-limbed blonds with fashionably mussed young men in tow decorated the space in between veteran scenesters Kelly Lynch, Michael Des Barres and New York nightlife impresario Amy Sacco.

“If I’m in my 20s, I want to stay here,� says Gruber. “If I’m in my 30s, I want to play with the 20-year-olds. If I’m in my 40s, I want to think I’m playing with the 20-year-olds.�