These are some of the large Pop-Art canvases I created for the Historic Culver Hotel in Culver City, just across from Culver Studios and Sony Pictures.

Recently the whole downtown Culver City area has been enjoying a major renaissance and renewed interest, with the opening for example of Ford’s Filling Station (Wow! I had some great dinners there!) and the Kirk Douglas Theater.

My studio was located on the second floor of the hotel for over a year and I enjoyed my stay there very much, it was a highly creative time. While a tenant, I was invited by the owner of the hotel to help him with certain design aspects for the remodeling and redesign of the lobby, bar, ruby room club and restaurant areas. Thus I ended up designing the new version of the hotel logo

as well as the logo for ‘Duke’s Hideaway’ bar and the murals and ‘trompe l’oeil’ fake awning inside the lobby and around the bar which were painted and excecuted by the brilliant Ramiro Fauve and his team. (We even snuck our signatures in next to the lobby window by the stairwell).

The hotel is a magical (and haunted?) place. It was once owned by John Wayne, and the cast from The Wizard of Oz stayed there during filming. If you are in Los Angeles and in the neighborhood, if you are an aficionado of flatiron buildings, if you always wanted to sleep in a round bed with purple satin sheets (book the John Wayne Suite) or if you just need a drink and need it now – why don’t you swing by Duke’s, relax and view these pieces up close.

Photography by Ben Kufrin, Venice, CA 

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