The Polo Lounge is located inside the Beverly Hills Hotel at 9641 Sunset Boulevard, Beverly Hills, California.
Contents
The Polo Lounge is located inside the Beverly Hills Hotel at 9641 Sunset Boulevard, Beverly Hills, California.
The lounge has been described as "done up in peachy pink (as you might expect), with deep carpets and dark green booths, each booth featuring a plug-in phone. Legend has it that Mia Farrow (and maybe even Marlene Dietrich) was banned from the Polo Lounge for wearing pants." [1]
Hernando Courtright, who ran The Beverly Hills Hotel in the '30s and '40s, had a friend named Charles Wrightsman, who led a national champion polo team. Wrightsman felt it unseemly to keep the team trophy, a silver bowl, in his own home. Courtright, on hearing his friend's dilemma, offered to display the bowl in the hotel's bar, which was being redecorated at the time. The name for the bar and its lounge sprang from that favor. [2]
The Polo Lounge was seen as the premier power dining spot in all of Los Angeles. There are three dining areas complete with the signature pink and green motif. The photograph behind the bar depicts Will Rogers and Darryl F. Zanuck, two lounge regulars, playing polo. The menu "still offers a classic Neil McCarthy salad, named after the polo-playing millionaire." [3] [1]
Both the lounge and the hotel play a small yet significant role in the history of the Watergate political affair in 1972. The high command of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (Richard Nixon) in 1972 was staying at the hotel during a West Coast fundraising trip, and having a breakfast meeting in the Polo Lounge when Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy placed his fateful call to Committee Deputy Director, Jeb Stuart Magruder. Magruder took the call at his table in the Lounge, and when Liddy realized that Magruder was obviously in a public setting he initially insisted that he (Magruder) travel to an Air Force base in Los Angeles to reach a private setting and a secure telephone line. [4]
In the event, McGruder merely left the lounge and went to one of the hotel’s pay phone stations and called Liddy back. Once fully briefed, Magruder went to one of the hotel’s famous suites and participated in a meeting with Committee Director and U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell, his special assistant Fred LaRue, and Committee Deputy Robert Mardian. [4]
The hotel’s logged and charged long-distance-call records of the calls made from that suite, on the morning after the burglary, formed the basis of the evidence which convicted each of the participants of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in January 1975. [ citation needed ]
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's attempts to cover up its involvement in the June 17, 1972, break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C. It is so named "The Watergate Scandal" due to it having occured at the Watergate Office Building.
John Newton Mitchell was the 67th Attorney General of the United States, serving under President Richard Nixon and was chairman of Nixon's 1968 and 1972 presidential campaigns. Prior to that, he had been a municipal bond lawyer and one of Nixon's associates. He was tried and convicted as a result of his involvement in the Watergate scandal.
George Gordon Battle Liddy was an American lawyer, FBI agent, and a criminal who was convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and illegal wiretapping for his role in the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration.
Jeb Stuart Magruder was an American businessman and high-level political operative in the Republican Party who served time in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal.
John Wesley Dean III is an American attorney who served as White House Counsel for U.S. President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. Dean is known for his role in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal and his subsequent testimony to Congress as a witness. His guilty plea to a single felony in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution ultimately resulted in a reduced sentence, which he served at Fort Holabird outside Baltimore, Maryland. After his plea, he was disbarred.
Richard Gordon Kleindienst was an American lawyer, politician, and U.S. Attorney General during the early stages of Watergate political scandal.
Robert Charles Mardian was a United States Republican party official who served in the administration of Richard Nixon, and was embroiled in the Watergate scandal as one of the Watergate Seven who were indicted by a grand jury for campaign violations. His conviction for conspiracy was overturned because of procedural unfairness and he was not subsequently retried.
The Waldorf Hilton, London, formerly known as the Waldorf Hotel, is a historic hotel in the Aldwych, London. It is part of the Hilton Hotels & Resorts chain and has a history dating back to 1908. The hotel was originally established by William Waldorf Astor, 1st Viscount Astor, a member of the prominent Astor family. The hotel features 298 guest rooms, including 19 suites.
The Beverly Hills Hotel, also called the Beverly Hills Hotel and Bungalows, is located on Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California. One of the world's best-known hotels, it is closely associated with Hollywood film stars, rock stars, and celebrities. The hotel has 210 guest rooms and suites and 23 bungalows and the exterior bears the hotel's signature pink and green colors.
Alfred Carleton Baldwin was an American FBI agent known as the so-called "shadow man" in the Watergate break-in and the ensuing Watergate scandal. Baldwin had been hired by James McCord for a variety of purposes, one of which became to monitor electronic bugs purportedly planted by McCord in the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) at the Watergate.
The Rickshaw Inn was a 180-room hotel with a gold-plated roof, which was situated on Route 70 in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, opposite Garden State Park and adjacent to the Latin Casino, a popular nightclub which had relocated from Philadelphia to nearby Cherry Hill a few years earlier. Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack entourage, Don Rickles, Steve and Eydie, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and other notable acts performed at The Latin, and stayed and drank at The Rickshaw. The hotel was built in 1964.
Operation Sandwedge was a proposed clandestine intelligence-gathering operation against the political enemies of U.S. President Richard Nixon's administration. The proposals were put together by Nixon's Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman, domestic affairs assistant John Ehrlichman and staffer Jack Caulfield in 1971. Caulfield, a former police officer, created a plan to target the Democratic Party and the anti-Vietnam War movement, inspired by what he believed to be the Democratic Party's employment of a private investigation firm.
L'Ermitage Beverly Hills is a luxury hotel in Beverly Hills, California. Built in 1975, the property was the first all-inclusive hotel in the United States. Today, the hotel consists of 116 suites.
Dorchester Collection is a luxury hotel operator owned by the Brunei Investment Agency (BIA), an arm of the Ministry of Finance of Brunei. Dorchester Collection owns and manages nine luxury five star hotels: The Dorchester (London), The Beverly Hills Hotel, Plaza Athénée (Paris), Hotel Meurice (Paris), Principe di Savoia (Milan), Hotel Bel-Air, Coworth Park, 45 Park Lane (London), The Lana (Dubai), and Hotel Eden (Rome). The company is also planning to open a Tokyo, Japan location in 2028.
The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel is a historic hotel located at 7000 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, California. It opened on May 15, 1927, and is the oldest continually operating hotel in Los Angeles.
The Peninsula Beverly Hills is a luxury, five-star hotel at the intersection of South Santa Monica Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard. The hotel is part of The Peninsula Hotels, a chain owned by Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels. The Peninsula Beverly Hills was the second Peninsula branded hotel to open in the United States, with The Peninsula New York having opened three years earlier in 1988. When the hotel opened in 1991 it was the first new luxury hotel in Beverly Hills in 20 years.
Hernando Courtright (1904–1986) was an American businessman best known as a hotelier. At different points, he was the proprietor of the Beverly Hills Hotel and The Beverly Wilshire Hotel.
Spring Place is a members only club with locations in New York and Beverly Hills. Membership is selective and aimed at those interested in networking with fellow members in adjacent industries. It was founded by Francesco Costa, Alessandro Cajrati Crivelli and Imad Izemrane in 2016.
Le Palais also known as "The Crescent Palace," is a three-story French chateau-style limestone mega-mansion completed in 2012 by luxury real estate developer Mohamed Hadid just 15 months after breaking ground. It is the 4th largest private residence by square footage in the Greater Los Angeles Metropolitan Area.
White House Plumbers is an American satirical political drama television miniseries created and written by Alex Gregory and Peter Huyck and directed by David Mandel, based on the 2007 book Integrity by Egil Krogh and Matthew Krogh. The series stars Woody Harrelson, Justin Theroux, Domhnall Gleeson, Kiernan Shipka, and Lena Headey and it premiered on HBO on May 1, 2023.