Massive new Southern California hotel-entertainment complex to open with panoramic rooftop views

Legendary hotelier Ian Schrager’s long-awaited PUBLIC West Hollywood — a glitzy new luxury hotel taking over the former Standard Hotel site — is set to open its doors on July 15, promising a fresh dose of high-end hospitality on the Sunset Strip.

Once the absolute epicenter of late 90s Hollywood decadence, the landmark property at 8300 Sunset Boulevard has been totally redone and reimagined.

Say goodbye to the antics of yesteryear, and hello to a sprawling, three-quarter-acre rooftop garden with Adirondack chairs, a campfire, wellness classes and an outdoor movie screen.

When PUBLIC West Hollywood officially opens, it will be Schrager’s latest rebellion, and the hospitality king wants you to know what will be absent from his new 137-room hotspot.

“We don’t have a celebrity chef, even though that’s something I introduced to the industry,” Schrager boasted in a video message reported by Women’s Wear Daily. “We don’t have a fancy menu. That’s out of touch.”

Instead of some over-the-top high-priced tasting menu, the hotel’s signature restaurant, Louis, is a bakery and cafe that will serve up items like pastries, unassuming sandwiches, and grain bowls. The hotel will also have a Pool Bar offering burgers and sundaes, plus the Pool Deck, which will have items like meze, salads, and sandwiches on the menu, according to Eater LA.

Schrager developed the hotel’s dining concepts with Shelley Armistead, the powerhouse former CEO and partner of the Gjelina Group, and Nicky Pickup, who used to be the head of Gjusta Bakery.

Instead of a traditional front desk, guests will go up to their room “almost like you would your own apartment or a residence,” Schrager said. Ditching the sterile check-in counters, the lobby will instead function as the life force of the hotel, serving as a communal space to socialize.

The hotel will not have an in-house spa, seen as excessive by Schrager, no “design on steroids,” and no actual television sets.

Instead of standard flat-screens, Schrager teamed up with British minimalist architect John Pawson to turn every room into a private screening room. They are ditching the TVs for 8 by 12-foot floor to ceiling projection screens reportedly powered by 4K, 5,000-lumen laser projectors.

The hotel has also put money towards soundproofing the rooms — an intentional improvement to fix the thin walls that notoriously plagued guests during the building’s era as The Standard.

There is still a nightclub on the property, but don’t expect the blinding lasers of the past.

“It will be glamorous, sophisticated and the equivalent of a sealed-off sound stage with an incomparable immersive sound you can feel as well as hear,” Schrager told The Hollywood Reporter.

Rates hover between $500 and $600 a night.

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