Continental Hyatt House "Riot House" (Andaz West Hollywood)

The Continental Hyatt House on Sunset Boulevard was the preferred hotel of the British rock invasion in the late 1960s and early 1970s — a tower at the western end of the Sunset Strip that served as the operational base for every major touring band that came to Los Angeles. Led Zeppelin's extended residencies gave it the nickname "the Riot House." The name was earned: Keith Moon drove a motorcycle through the corridors on at least one occasion. Robert Plant addressed the Sunset Strip from his balcony as though it were a stadium. Jimmy Page occupied suites that were reportedly rearranged to resemble something between a library and an occult cabinet.

The Rolling Stones stayed here. The Who. Alice Cooper. The touring infrastructure of rock music was conducted in the Hyatt's rooms and hallways — managers meeting promoters, deals done at two in the morning, the real business of the music industry transacted with considerably more chaos than in any office. Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous, drawn from his own experiences reporting on the rock circuit as a teenager, used the hotel as a primary location and a central symbol: the place where ambition, money, and excess converged in the particular way that only the Sunset Strip of the early 1970s could produce.

The hotel was acquired by Andaz and renovated in 2009, emerging as the Andaz West Hollywood — a conventional luxury property with balconies that still overlook Sunset Boulevard in exactly the direction they always did. There is no acknowledgement of its former identity in the public areas. The balconies are still there.