Tropicana Motel


The Tropicana Motel was a motel located at 8585 Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, California. Also called "The Trop", it opened in 1947 and closed in 1987. It was a hub from the mid/late 60s for musicians and artists due to cheap room rates and proximity to both recording studios and Sunset Strip drinking venues. The Trop has been described as "the palm-trees-and-Astroturf answer to New York's Chelsea Hotel."

Ownership

The late 1940s constructed building was bought by Los Angeles Dodgers star pitcher, Sandy Koufax, in 1962. Koufax was the 4th owner. The motel supplemented his baseball salary during the offseason. Jerry Heiner and his partners then purchased The Trop in the late '60s.

Design, features and amenities

The earliest building permit for the site is dated July, 1946. It lists the value of the two-story, 59-unit motel to be constructed as $95,000. Koufax later advertised "74 luxurious air-conditioned rooms" at "popular prices". The motel had a horseshoe shape. The Tropicana's pool was kidney bean-shaped, later painted black "probably so they don’t have to clean it so often."
The Trop was located near the end of Route 66 and originally a stopover for travelling salesmen from the mid-west. However, the motel's most famous clients were working rock bands, increasingly after Elektra Sound Recorders opened nearby in January 1968. Inexpensive pricing, made the Tropicana affordable. A number of struggling bands lived in their cars in the motel's back parking lot. Another attraction of the Trop was proximity to Sunset Strip venues such as The Troubador and Barney's Beanery.
Photographer Brad Elterman said, "There was a lot of really good energy there. It had an interesting garden courtyard layout—no long dark hallways to get to your room." Elterman added, "There was one payphone booth and everyone worked it for incoming and outgoing calls. It was like an office." William S. Burroughs wrote in Rolling Stone in 1980, "On the patio are rusty metal tables, deck chairs, palms and banana trees: a rundown Raymond Chandler set from the 1950s. One expects to find a dead man floating in the pool one morning."
In 1968 the original Duke's Coffee Shop opened as The Tropicana's resident eatery. With the Tropicana's scheduled demolition, Dukes relocated in late 1986 to 8909 Sunset Boulevard.

Notable guests

Closure and demolition

The property was purchased by a partnership headed by developer Yehuda Naftali. The motel finally closed in late September 1987 after Naftali won permission from West Hollywood to construct a $20-million complex of motel rooms and retail shops. Demolished began in October 1987 to be replaced by a 178 unit Ramada Inn. "I think it’s a shame. I think they should have gone and got it made a historic landmark, or something, ‘cause it was," said Richard Miller, Duke's maitre d’hotel.

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