The Godfrey Hotel Hollywood, a 220-room property on Cahuenga Boulevard that opened just five years ago, is now in trouble with its lenders. A group led by an AllianceBernstein fund has taken the first step toward foreclosing on $59.1 million of debt tied to the hotel, after its owners failed to pay off a loan that matured this year.
According to the Los Angeles Business Journal, an October 8 notice stated that the borrower had defaulted on the $59.1 million and was facing foreclosure. The notice reportedly also gives lenders the option to sell the hotel's furniture and fixtures together with the building itself in a single foreclosure sale, a detail that underscores just how far the proceedings could go if they move forward.
The hotel sits at 1400 North Cahuenga Boulevard in the heart of Hollywood, on a site that Chicago-based Oxford Capital Group, led by John Rutledge, bought in 2016 for $16.5 million. Oxford spent years building out the 220-key property, which broke ground before the pandemic and opened in August 2021, according to Hotel Management.
A Complicated Ownership History
The Godfrey Hollywood's capital stack has shifted more than once since it opened. Oxford originally developed the hotel alongside Goldman Sachs, and in 2022 the two firms recapitalized the project's construction debt and equity, bringing in senior debt from AllianceBernstein and preferred equity from Related Fund Management, the asset management arm of New York-based Related Companies, per Hotel Management's report on the deal.
That AllianceBernstein-led lender group, registered in Luxembourg, provided a $76.5 million variable-rate acquisition loan as part of the 2022 restructuring, the Business Journal's reporting shows. Rutledge, at the time, called the handoff “a testament to the resilience and growth prospects of Los Angeles and the dynamism of the Hollywood submarket.”
Reports on the 2022 transaction diverge on exactly how much the property was worth. The Business Journal cites a June 2022 deed valuing the Godfrey Hollywood at $114 million, or about $518,000 per room, while The Real Deal separately reported the ownership transfer at around $522,700 per key. The Real Deal also noted at the time that Oxford would continue to hold a stake in the property even as Goldman Sachs exited completely, calling it the priciest hotel sale in Los Angeles County in the prior three years. It's now unclear whether Oxford retained any stake in the hotel, according to the Business Journal's more recent reporting, though the firm continues to operate the property through its Oxford Hotels & Resorts management arm.
Echoes of Trouble in Chicago and San Francisco
This isn't the first time an Oxford-linked hotel has run into lender trouble. In Chicago, Quadrum Global sued in February to foreclose on Oxford's separate, 221-room Godfrey Hotel, a property partially backed by a $23.5 million EB-5 visa program subordinate loan. The same report notes that $57 million remained due on that hotel's senior loan, and frames the dispute as part of a broader wave of EB-5-related litigation roiling Chicago's lodging industry.
Oxford has also parted ways with properties outside Los Angeles before. The firm handed four San Francisco hotels back to their lenders in 2024, staying on afterward as the operator, a deal described by the San Francisco Business Times as a “friendly foreclosure” with lender Acore.
Hollywood's Hotel Boom Keeps Shifting Hands
The Godfrey's troubles land amid a broader churn in Hollywood's hotel scene, much of it tied to a construction wave from several years back. The Business Journal's reporting notes that the former Tommie Hollywood, which opened on Selma Avenue in 2021, was taken over by Marriott International and rebranded as Hollywood Volume in 2024. Marriott separately owns Hollywood Grande, the Wilcox Avenue property that reopened in 2025 after previously operating as Thompson Hollywood.
Statewide, hotel investment has been a major business in its own right. Investors spent a total of $9.9 billion on hotels across California in 2021 alone, with 510 properties changing hands that year, The Real Deal reported, citing Atlas Hospitality Group data. Other large Los Angeles-area hotel deals in recent years include Parkwest Casinos' $102.6 million purchase of the Bicycle Hotel and Casino in Bell Gardens and EOS Investors' $100 million acquisition of the Viceroy L'Ermitage in Beverly Hills.
As of the Business Journal's reporting, representatives for Related and AllianceBernstein had not responded to requests for comment, and an Oxford spokesperson had also not responded to the outlet's inquiry. What becomes of the Godfrey Hollywood's furniture, fixtures, and building now rests on whether the foreclosure proceeding announced in the October notice moves forward.
