Beverly Hills Hotel: Timeline for 100-year history

Associated Press
In this April 25, 2012 photo, Robert S. Anderson, author and Beverly Hills Hotel historian, poses for a portrait in front of the Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. Anderson's book "The Beverly Hills Hotel - The First 100 Years" celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Beverly Hills Hotel. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Timeline for 100-year history of Beverly Hills Hotel:

1912: Hollywood Hotel former manager Margaret Anderson builds the Beverly Hills Hotel for $500,000 with architect Elmer Grey.

1914: Beverly Hills becomes an incorporated city.

1915: The first five of the hotel's private bungalows are built.

1919: Douglas Fairbanks buys a lodge and expands it into "Pickfair" house with his love Mary Pickford, above the hotel.

1928: Interstate Company of New York buys the hotel from Margaret Anderson.

1933: With the economy devastated by the Great Depression, the hotel closes in April.

1934: Bank of America reopens the hotel under trusteeship in February.

1939: William "Hernando" Courtright, Bank of America's then vice president, is chosen to oversee the hotel's liquidation, and becomes the hotel's longtime manager.

1942: Courtright buys the hotel with friends Loretta Young, Irene Dunne, Harry Warner and Joe Schnitzer, and renames the El Jardin restaurant as the Polo Lounge in honor of polo players.

1942: Billionaire Howard Hughes moves into the bungalows, staying there on and off for 30 years.

1948: The hotel is painted pink, dubbed the "Pink Palace," as part of a redesign during the 1940s by African-American architect Paul Williams that includes the Crescent Wing and Fountain Coffee Room.

1954: Detroit real estate magnate Ben L. Silberstein buys the hotel.

1957: Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall's film "Designing Woman" is shot at hotel's pool, Cabana Club.

1959: Marilyn Monroe and Yves Montand stay in bungalows 20, 21 while filming "Let's Make Love."

1978: Neil Simon's "California Suite," starring Maggie Smith and Bill Cosby, uses the hotel as a set.

1979: Silberstein's daughters Muriel Slatkin and Seema Boesky inherit the hotel after their father dies.

1985: Seema Boesky and her husband Ivan Boesky gain control of the hotel. Ivan Boesky is indicted by the Securities and Exchange Commission for insider trading a year later.

1986: Denver oil executive Marvin Davis purchases the hotel.

1987: The hotel is bought by the Brunei Investment Agency. (The agency's luxury hotel properties now belong to the Dorchester Collection.)

1992: The hotel closes in December for a $100 million restoration.

1995: The hotel reopens that June.

2012: The Beverly Hills Hotel celebrates its centennial.

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SOURCE: "The Beverly Hills Hotel and Bungalows — The First 100 Years" by Robert S. Anderson.