The Palm Court , also known at other times as the Franco-Italian Dining Room , the Grand Ballroom and the Continental Room , is a ballroom at the Alexandria Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, California. In its heyday from 1911 to 1922, it was the scene of speeches by U.S. Presidents William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson and Gen. John J. Pershing. It is also the room where Paul Whiteman, later known as the "Jazz King," got his start as a bandleader in 1919, where Rudolph Valentino danced with movie starlets, and where Hollywood held its most significant balls during the early days of the motion picture business. Known for its history and its stained-glass Tiffany skylight, noted Los Angeles columnist Jack Smith called it "surely the most beautiful room in Los Angeles." The Palm Court was designated as a City of Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (HCM#80) in 1971.
Palm Court's heyday 1911-1922
Built in 1906, the eight-story Alexandria Hotel was designed by noted Los Angeles architect, John Parkinson. In 1911, Parkinson and Bergstom were hired to design an addition that would double the capacity. The Palm Court was part of the 1911 addition. When the design of the new "crystal palmroom" was announced, the Los Angeles Times wrote:
"The room will be one of the largest of its kind in California and will be available for social affairs of every nature. Its primary object, however, will be more of a furnishing a convenient place for afternoon teas, card parties and evening receptions."
When the new ballroom opened in October 1911, it was acknowledged for its beauty. The room was "christened" in a gala attended by 385 of the city's "most prominent names." The Alexandria orchestra played throughout the evening," and the Los Angeles Times reported the next day on the city's spectacular new room:
"The great room, over one hundred feet in length and seventy-five feet in width, was a sunburst of light. Great crystal chandeliers blazed from a dozen vantage points, while softer and smaller lights were placed along the four sides of the room. ... The perfection and symphony of the great room held the guests spellbound upon their arrival. As the stately ladies and gentlemen entered the salon the pause each made at the threshold as with intense interest they swept the salon with their gaze was noticeable."
For the next 12 years (until the opening of the Biltmore in 1923), the Palm Court was the city's most prestigious ballroom event location, hosting receptions for the likes of President Woodrow Wilson and Gen. John J. Pershing, as well as balls where Hollywood's silent film stars and early movie moguls mingled. By 1912, the Alexandria had become such an important gathering place that the Los Angeles Times wrote the following:
"What Union Square was to old New York, what Forty-second street is to the present metropolis, and what the vicinity of the Cort Theater is to San Francisco, the Alexandria mezzanine seems to be to theatrical Los Angeles. ... Hardly ever does the day pass in which some nationally-known actor or actress does not linger in the low settees or pause at the golden rail, looking down into the lobby below -- pausing, lingering, while in whispered tones behind rises the chatter that his or her presence has caused."
Rudolph Valentino, whose untimely death at age 31 caused mass hysteria among his female fans, was a regular visitor to the dances held at the Alexandria's great ballroom. Actress Claire Windsor recalled that, when she and Valentino were "$75-a-week extras," they rode the streetcar from Westlake Park to dance in the Palm Court. Silent movie actress Mary MacLaren later recalled that her mother had "blighted a blossoming romance" with Valentino when she would not allow her to go dancing with "Rudy" at the Alexandria. A third actress, Marjorie Bennett, also recalled meeting Valentino at a tea dance at the Alexandria, when Valentino was "a handsome aspiring Italian actor, Rodolpho d'Antonguolla."
In the Alexandria's heyday, movie stars and other celebrities, including Valentino, Mary Miles Minter, Sarah Bernhardt, Enrico Caruso and Jack Dempsey were guests. Charlie Chaplin reportedly kept a suite at the Alexandria and did improvisations in the lobby, and western star Tom Mix reportedly rode his horse through the lobby. The large oriental rug in the lobby was called the "million-dollar carpet", because there was purportedly a $1 million worth of business done there every day. It was there that D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks met in 1919 to form United Artists. U.S. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson, and many foreign dignitaries, also stayed at the hotel while visiting Los Angeles.
Notable events from the Palm Court's heyday
From 1911 to 1923, the Alexandria ballroom (now known as the Palm Court) was the site of many of the city's most important gatherings. The following list identifies some of the notable events associated with the room.
1911
- October 1911 – U.S. President William Howard Taft delivered a speech on international peace at a banquet at the Alexandria Hotel. Taft noted that it is always "the wrong men" who are killed in war. He said that the rulers, legislators, diplomats and bureau chiefs sleep in safety while the soldiers who usually "have not the least idea of what the war is about shoot at each other on the battlefield." Taft advocated the creation of a court of nations to decide disputes between countries and suggested that "there should be no armies or navies except the army and navy of the allied powers which would enforce the decree of the court." The Los Angeles Times called the speech "masterful and statesmanlike in every sense of the word."
1912
- February 1912 – The city’s leaders gathered at the Alexandria for an elaborate banquet in honor of the 75th birthday of Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, editor in chief and general manager of the Los Angeles Times.
- December 1912 - The city's first subscription ball since 1910 was held at the Alexandria, and the Los Angeles Times reported: "The social season of 1912-13 had its opening and it apotheosis last night in the ballroom of the Alexandria."
1913
- February 1913 - At a Mardi Gras costume ball, the Alexandria ballroom was decorated with "clownish faces of elfs of mischief" grinning down from every angle, and a girt with hundreds of small yellow bulbs, "each light covered with a grotesque masque," all presenting "a scene of ghostly enchantment" and casting "a halo of unreality." The Times described the following scene on the dance floor: "Serpentines glided in and out among the throng; someone started the Tango dance, a weird conception of rhythm and action which came all the way from Argentina and which offers something entirely new."
1915
- May 1915 – A.C. Bilicke, the Los Angeles millionaire who built the Alexandria and was president of the Alexandria Hotel Company, died while a passenger on the Cunard liner Lusitania, which was sunk by a German torpedo off the coast of Ireland.
- June 1915 - The Photoplayers Ball at the Alexandria ballroom was described by the Los Angeles Times as the "most brilliant entertainment which the photoplayers of Los Angeles have ever given." The dance was held in the ballroom and on the mezzanine with punch being served in the adjoining anterooms. Dinner was served at midnight in the grill. The event was enlivened by "brilliant little impromptu contributions in the way of witty speeches, songs and recitations" by actors, including Raymond Hitchcock, Tom Meighan and Carlyle Blackwell. Jesse Lasky made a speech on the future of motion pictures, and the other guests included Mary Pic
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