The Best Affordable Hotels in Los Angeles
"Nick Jones’s members’ clubs have become a litmus test for an area’s cool. And while the other Soho Houses around Los Angeles are in hipper-than-thou Malibu and sceney West Hollywood, this iteration—a seven-story hotel and private club inside a huge early-1900s warehouse—plumped for a still gritty but rapidly gentrifying corner in Downtown’s Arts District with plenty of space to play: a rooftop pool, three restaurants and bars, and the huge two-floor gym (this is LA). Bedrooms have an intentionally homey, vaguely '70s feel with ceramic lights and plenty of plants, nodding to a time when the building was used as a recording studio. In keeping with the neighborhood—powerhouse gallery Hauser & Wirth and other indie outfits are nearby—there’s art everywhere, from the loading-dock-entrance mural by Shepard Fairey to a huge acrylic number up on the roof by LA-based Australian Paul Davies to the pool chairs covered in a custom print by local illustrator Ethan Lipsitz. Even graffiti tags from the days when the warehouse lay abandoned are preserved. For those who thought Soho House was (whisper it) losing its cred, this is a sneakers-and-skateboard example that it still has its finger firmly on the pulse. —Krista Simmons"
