Hotel Lucile is scheduled to open September 14 in a former Silver Lake church, putting a 25-room hotel and a roughly 120-seat restaurant into a neighborhood where parking is already difficult. The property has no on-site parking and plans to rely on valets and street spaces, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Management has purchased one of the three properties immediately next to the hotel and may expand there later, the Times reported. The account did not establish how that possible expansion would address the property's parking demands on Silver Lake's narrow streets.
A church building with a new use
The building near Sunset Boulevard was constructed in 1931 as Bethany Presbyterian Church. Its stained glass, masonry and woodwork remain, and the rooftop cross is to stay lit at night. The Times reported that the former sanctuary now contains a restaurant and bar, while the property has been adapted for 25 guest rooms.
What historic protections apply?
Los Angeles Department of City Planning records identify Bethany Presbyterian Church at 1630 N. Lucile Avenue as a 1931 Mediterranean Revival building, according to SurveyLA. The 2014 SurveyLA report also documented the building as the original home of East West Players, founded in 1965, but said that association was not then eligible for listing in the National Register.
Casetta Group, whose portfolio includes the Surfrider Hotel in Malibu and Casa Cody in Palm Springs, is the hotelier. Casetta and Electric Bowery worked on the design, according to the Los Angeles Times. The published starting rate is $441 per night, plus a $50 amenity fee; guests with California state identification can receive a 15% locals discount.
The dinner-only Sous Sous restaurant will serve food drawing from Southern French and American Southern traditions and seat about 120 people, with occasional live music. A separate cafe is planned for breakfast and lunch, according to the Times.
The property’s long interval between uses
Bethany Presbyterian served a congregation for most of the 20th century. After services ended in the mid-2000s, the building was used at different times as an antique shop, a filming location and the setting for the interactive horror production Delusion in 2013, according to Eric Brightwell.
The church also has a significant place in Asian American theater history. East West Players was founded there in 1965 by nine Asian American artists and moved elsewhere in 1972, according to Hyperallergic. The company was created to provide opportunities for Asian American performers who faced limited and stereotyped roles in Hollywood, and it is now the country's oldest professional Asian American theater company.
Why the hotel took 15 years
Dana Hollister proposed a 25-room hotel conversion in 2008 and obtained Los Angeles zoning approval in 2014 after opposition over potential noise, alcohol service and parking. Contemporary coverage by CBS Los Angeles described the dispute as a fight over traffic, noise and the effect of a restaurant and dancing near homes.
The project then became entangled with Hollister's financial and legal problems. After losing litigation involving an attempted purchase of an eight-acre Los Feliz convent connected to Katy Perry and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Hollister faced damages that were later reduced through a $6.5 million settlement and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018, according to the Metropolitan News-Enterprise. She sold her interest in 2020, when Casetta took over her long-term lease from the Presbytery of the Pacific, which owns the property.
Mixed neighborhood response
The opening has not erased the earlier disagreement. The Los Angeles Times reported that Jin Chang, who opposed the permit, is now neutral about the hotel; VJ Kesh supports it; and Laney Langenstein of Casetta said the project preserved as much of the original beams and stained glass as possible. General manager Anthony Gutierrez described the building as having had multiple lives and as a longstanding gathering place, according to the same account.
Hotel Lucile therefore begins with two unresolved local questions: whether its preservation work will outweigh the effects of a new commercial use, and whether valets and street parking can absorb the activity generated by the hotel and its restaurant.
A broader reuse of religious buildings
The project is part of a wider pattern of religious properties being put to new uses. Downtown's Redbird + Vibiana occupies the former St. Vibiana's Cathedral, while Homeboy Industries began converting the Monastery of the Angels into Home of the Angels in early 2026. California's SB4, passed in 2023, also allows some faith-based groups and nonprofit colleges to avoid certain local restrictions when converting buildings into affordable housing, a route distinct from the commercial conversion of Bethany Presbyterian Church.
