The Vibe Hotel was originally known as the “Movie Town Motel”. It was built, owned and operated in 1952 by the Italian immigrant brothers Salvador and Antonio Pinelli. It is located on Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, USA. This is considered to be part of the “Hollywood Strip” that runs through the heart of Hollywood beneath the Hollywood Sign and past Hollywood and Highland where the Dolby Theatre is now the permanent home to the Oscars every year.
Back in the late fifties and early sixties this motel was a stop over for many Hollywood industry types because of its location proximate to the studios. It is said that many young starlets have lost their innocence on the casting couch in these rooms including Marilyn Monroe. It is also said that Elvis had visited the motel to see a sick friend who was staying there in the early 1960s. Many TV and film scenes have been shot at the Vibe Hotel including a recent TV episode of “Shark” starring James Woods.
The motel has seen many eras of Los Angeles from the slick fifties, to the groovy sixties, to the disco seventies, to the excessive rocking eighties, to the earthquake and riots of the nineties when it fell into disrepair as organized crime and gangs spread into this area of Los Angeles. Then into the early 2000s when the entire Hollywood area had a huge makeover and restoration that included many Hollywood landmarks. The Movie Town Motel was remodeled and brought back to life as its former self of a retro funky motel and renamed the Vibe Hotel. The Hollywood area continues to be revitalized and the Vibe Hotel is a cool landmark on Hollywood Boulevard from the 1950s era.
Design
Built in the classic era and exaggerated style of Googie architecture with space age ideals and rocketship dreams that was part of post World War II American futurism, the "donut" shaped motel features retro design elements of that period, along with a motif of bright colors, tile and furniture all reminiscent of the fifties and sixties.