Real Estate Developer Credited With Restoring Chateau Marmont Dies At 89
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The real estate developer who restored the Chateau Marmont hotel in West Hollywood to its old glory has died.
Raymond Sarlot was 89.
Sarlot and a partner paid $1 million for the landmark Sunset Strip property in 1975.
He said years later at the time he was just looking for a tax write-off.
Instead, the hotel became a West Hollywood landmark and has a history with Hollywood royalty that is both storied and scandalous.
Sarlot died April 27 at his home in Los Angeles after a long illness, his wife Sally Rae Sarlot told the Los Angeles Times.
The Chateau Marmont renovation took several years and during the building and re-building, Sarlot moved onto the property.
The hotel has been a who's who haven for such notable Hollywood figures as Greta Garbo, Billy Wilder, Marilyn Monroe, Katherine Hepburn, Tony Randall, Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate since it was built in 1927.
Infamously, one of its bungalows was the scene of comic actor John Belushi's death from a drug overdose in 1982.
The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission declared the property a historical landmark in 1976.
Sarlot, a Chicago native who was also instrumental in launching the Los Angeles Marathon, sold the hotel in 1986.