Hotel Normandie

The owners are architects themselves, so they made the most of this Spanish/Renaissance Revival hybrid, leaving much of the original detail intact. In terms of visual style, it’s a throwback straight to 1926, not coincidentally the peak of Hollywood’s golden age, at the end of the silent-film era — but in its atmosphere and functioning, the Normandie is very much a modern-style boutique hotel.

For one thing, the Koreatown location is the dictionary definition of an up-and-coming neighborhood, near by to both Downtown and Silver Lake, and chock full of attractions of its own, from Fox and MGM’s studios to the dining and entertainment district of Wilshire Center. In fact, some of the neighborhood’s gustatory heavyweights are situated within the hotel itself; Le Comptoir and Cassell’s Burgers highlight organic house-grown produce and historic, best-in-class hamburgers, respectively.