NEED TO KNOW

  • A historic Hollywood motel featured in L.A. Confidential and frequented by Neil Young has been destroyed in a Jan. 4 structure fire
  • The Los Angeles Fire Department responded to flames engulfing the 120-year-old Craftsman-style home within the Hollywood Center Motel on Sunday morning
  • Efforts to save the building were ongoing as L.A.’s Cultural Heritage Commission voted to take the property under consideration as a potential landmark last month

Despite ongoing efforts to save a historic Hollywood motel, a large structure fire ultimately destroyed the building in the early morning of Sunday, Jan. 4.

According to a Sunday press release from the Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD), authorities responded to a reported fire at a business along Sunset Boulevard at 4:30 a.m. When firefighters arrived, they found a boarded-up, two-story Craftsman-style house engulfed in heavy flames. 

The building, dating back to 1905, acted as the centerpiece of the historic Hollywood Center Motel property. Its connection to Hollywood runs deep: The home appeared in films like L.A. Confidential and The Rockford Files. It was even frequented by rock star Neil Young and his band Crazy Horse. 

But now, the building is gone for good. 

Structure fire on Jan. 4 at the Hollywood Center Motel.

LAFD/YouTube

After an hour and 12 minutes, with 70 firefighters at the scene, the LAFD extinguished the flames. No injuries were reported to any fire department personnel, but one 42-year-old male who freed himself out of the second story was treated for a minor wound and transported to the hospital in stable condition. 

After the fire, the LAFD exercised its right to demolish the building based on public safety issues and its uninhabitable nature. Despite the building’s poor condition, local advocacy groups are mourning the loss. 

Firefighters respond to a structure fire at the Hollywood Center Motel in L.A. on Jan. 4.

LAFD/YouTube

“It’s a gut punch for Hollywood preservation,” Brian Curran, a local historian who submitted an application for the house to be designated a historic-cultural monument, tells the Los Angeles Times.

Last month, L.A.’s Cultural Heritage Commission voted to take the property under consideration as a potential landmark and the commissioners were scheduled to do a site visit this week. But now, it is too late. 

“The real tragedy is that this building had been left vacant and it no longer had any kind of purpose, so it became a magnet for transients,” Curran said. “If you go look at it now, it is essentially a pile of crushed wood that has been sprayed with fire retardant.”

According to SF Gate, the 120-year-old building was first constructed before Hollywood was incorporated into the city of Los Angeles. Eventually, the property added additional buildings and converted to the Hollywood Center Motel in the 1950s.

Curran tells the Times the motel continued to operate until 2018. After that, the former owner and long-term tenants continued to occupy the land until it was foreclosed on and vacated in late 2024. 

The Hollywood Center Motel in 2016.

FG/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Athena Novak, a representative for the owner, Andranik Sogoyan, tells the outlet transients have been a persistent problem since 2024.

“The owner, of course, was reinforcing it the best he could,” she said. “He had a maintenance man going there all the time. The maintenance man was attacked a few times with weapons.”

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Curran, who serves as co-chair of Hollywood Heritage’s Preservation Committee, said the house previously experienced two smaller fires on Sept. 15 and Oct. 19 as well. 

“The building could readily have been painted and preserved to serve in an adaptive re-use capacitive as a gem in the community,” the Hollywood Heritage Museum wrote in a Jan. 5 social media post. “By allowing its decay and neglect we again see rare historic buildings lost which were eminently restorable.”