A building near the intersection of Hollywood and Vine that once was home to SBE’s Redbury Hotel and later Paul Allen’s h Club will have a third act as The Aster.
Due in June, The Aster will be a hybrid project that combines a 35-room hotel and a private members’ club, created by Salt Hotels, whose co-founders have extensive backgrounds working for hoteliers Ian Schrager and André Balazs. Each room will be a suite and generously sized at not less than 700 square feet (from $595 a night, theasterla.com), while private member dues will be $3,600 a year.
The hotel and a rooftop restaurant will be open to the public, and the development also will include co-working spaces, a roof deck with an outdoor movie theater, a gym, hair and beauty salon, screening room and recording studio. “There will be lots and lots of amazing amenities,” says Kevin O’Shea, chief creative officer of Salt Hotels. Two floors of the project will be dedicated to spaces for members. The 95,000-square-foot building, adds O’Shea, “has these incredible views of the Capitol Records Building and The Hollywood Sign.”
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O’Shea, a former designer at Morgans Hotel Group, says that even with the many private clubs vying for clients in L.A., he believes there’s room for one more, especially given that so many workers are less tied to a five-day week at offices. “I think people with all this newfound flexibility are going to be looking for social spaces like this. You could come in, get a couple of hours work done in one of the co-working spaces, then maybe do a workout, get cleaned up, go have a cocktail, meet some clients and maybe get a room for the night so you don’t have to drive home.”
The Salt Hotels owners say they are hoping to attract a wide range of people as members and put a focus on programming and events for its clients.
“There isn’t a membership committee that you have to go through to apply,” explains Salt Hotels CEO David Bowd. “You know there are so many different groups of people in L.A, musicians, artists, investors, younger people, older people. Let’s have a mix of all these people.”
The Aster will be located not far from a number of other recently opened hotels in Hollywood, including the tommie, the Thompson and Godfrey, with the W Hollywood, the Dream and Mama Shelter also in the mix nearby.
“Hollywood is so gritty and it’s such an interesting mix of companies and people that have come together in Hollywood,” says Bowd, the former COO of André Balazs Properties (New York’s Mercer Hotel, London’s Chiltern Firehouse, L.A.’s Chateau Marmont). “We like it, you know, a little grittier, a little more down to earth and authentic. And the location being Hollywood and Vine — it doesn’t get much more iconic than that.”
Salt Hotels operates four other properties: Hotel Greystone in Miami, Florida; Hutton Brickyards in Kingston, New York; and Salt House Inn and Eben House in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
A version of this story first appeared in the March 2 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
