{"id":1347,"date":"2026-06-07T17:08:03","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T17:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=1347"},"modified":"2026-06-07T17:08:03","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T17:08:03","slug":"a-storied-hollywood-motel-is-engulfed-in-mysterious-blaze-just-before-becoming-a-landmark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=1347","title":{"rendered":"A Storied Hollywood Motel Is Engulfed in Mysterious Blaze \u2014 Just Before Becoming a Landmark"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/p>\n
\n

\n\tThere is an excellent chance you have spent time at The Hollywood\u00a0Center Motel \u2014 if only onscreen.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump Storms Out of \u2018Meet the Press\u2019 Interview After Being Grilled on Claims of Rigged Election<\/a><\/p>\n

\nThe Rockford Files<\/em> shot there. So did Cannon<\/em>, Mannix <\/em>and T.J. Hooker<\/em>. In 1997\u2019s L.A. Confidential<\/em>, a character turns up in one of its rooms with his throat slit, and the place pops up again in a 2008 episode of\u00a0NCIS<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI take it the Ritz was booked,\u201d a character quips while surveying the seedy surroundings.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith its kidney-shaped pool, aging breeze-block walls and glowing neon sign \u2014 and a main structure that bared some resemblence to Psycho<\/em>\u2018s Bates Motel \u2014 it never required much set dressing. It was what it was \u2014 an iconically down-market destination that, on film, \u201csimply played itself,\u201d as Hollywood Heritage, the historic preservation nonprofit, put it in its application nominating the property for landmark status.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd on Jan. 4, it caught fire.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeventy firefighters responded to the blaze near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Highland Avenue, steps away from Hollywood High School, where they found flames rising from a 121-year-old structure that was supposed to be empty. It wasn\u2019t \u2014 one man was rescued from inside; two other people emerged on their own. By the time the fire department was done, the building was\u00a0gone.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe motel started as a family home in 1905, just before Hollywood\u2019s consolidation with the City of Los Angeles. It became a motel in the 1950s, acquiring its neon sign and pool \u2014 and, not long after, its first known screen credit, in a 1960 episode of Perry Mason<\/em>. In the mid-1960s, Neil Young and the Buffalo Springfield are said to have rehearsed there before their first tour, and Janis Joplin and her band rented rooms while recording their first album.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA physical chronicle of the history of Hollywood,\u201d preservationist Brian Curran, one of the writers of the landmark nomination application, calls it. His co-author Michael Iwinski remembers his own reaction upon laying eyes on it: \u201cHow is this still there?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt did indeed survive some rough times. As the neighborhood got shabbier, so did the motel. A sex worker was strangled there in the 1970s; a decomposed body turned up stuffed in a trunk in the \u201980s. The film shoots continued, but tracked the decline. In the 1972 Blaxploitation film Hit Man<\/em>, the motel proprietor tells an ex-cop sitting on a bed, \u201cIt sleeps two but parties four.\u201d By 2009\u2019s Southland<\/em>, it\u2019s where police discover an abandoned baby.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat the location never lost was its ready-to-shoot utility. \u201cThis thing represented all the decades,\u201d says Scott Michaels, founder of Dearly Departed Tours, adding that the motel\u2019s location made it a convenient backdrop. \u201cIt\u2019s in the middle of Los Angeles, between all the studios, and empty most of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe motel closed in 2018. In February 2025, after real estate investor Andy Sogoyan acquired the property through a foreclosure on its previous owner, Sogoyan posted demolition notices. He relocated the last remaining tenant, leaving the building empty for possibly the first time in its history.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut not for long. Squatters moved in. A bungalow caught fire, allegedly damaging an adjacent property. Trash and graffiti accumulated; a maintenance worker was reportedly chased off by a machete-wielding transient. Still, when those demolition notices went up, Hollywood Heritage sent their landmark nomination to the city \u2014 much to Sogoyan\u2019s annoyance.<\/p>\n

\n\tSogoyan\u2019s own history is almost as complicated as the motel\u2019s. Born in the Soviet Union, he came to the U.S. as an Armenian refugee in the 1970s at age 13 and attended Hollywood High School. A 1990s narcotics conviction ended up being reversed on appeal after he argued entrapment. \u201cAfter that,\u201d he says, \u201cI did the right thing, and everything piled up my way.\u201d He went on to build a jewelry business, launching a brand called IceLink, before moving into real estate.<\/p>\n

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\n\tBut with the Hollywood Center Motel, Sogoyan says he now feels trapped, describing offers from potential buyers as \u201cpennies.\u201d He had a tumor removed last year; the motel ordeal, he says, is \u201clike another cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe has his own ideas for developing the property \u2014 a residential building, perhaps, or an outdoor market \u2014 and not much nostalgia for the motel\u2019s storied past. His land-use consultant, Athena Novak, frames their position bluntly. \u201cIt\u2019s got a pretty diabolical history,\u201d she says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a friendly little motor [hotel] \u2026 It\u2019s like the saddest story of Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOf course, when a property owner has been fighting landmark status and the building catches fire, suspicion is an understandable reflex. What happened here, though, is not that simple.<\/p>\n

\n\tNovak says they worked to secure the site \u2014 fences, daily visits by a maintenance person \u2014 but there are limits. Says Novak, \u201cYou want them to go into an abandoned building where people are armed and high on meth and wrestle them off your property?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEd Nordskog, who spent decades as an arson investigator with the Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department, says indicators point to a homeless-related fire, consistent with an Los Angeles Fire Department report showing that between 2018 and 2024, people experiencing homelessness accounted for a third of all fires the department responded to. But the building was demolished within a day of the fire, making certainty impossible.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re never going to know, no matter what,\u201d Nordskog says. \u201cThey bulldozed it within a day, and so that makes any investigation absolutely impossible to do.\u201d As of early May, an LAFD spokesperson said an arson investigation was ongoing.<\/p>\n

\n\tPreservationists call what happened \u201cdemolition by neglect\u201d \u2014 allowing a potentially protected building to deteriorate until demolition becomes unavoidable. Sogoyan and Novak dispute the characterization.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat remains after the fire is the neon sign and breeze-block wall. In February, the Cultural Heritage Commission amended the landmark nomination to cover those elements; the full City Council approved the designation on May 1, in a matter of seconds. But preservationist Kim Cooper, who with her husband runs the historic-tour company Esotouric \u2014 which once included the area around the motel on its sightseeing route \u2014 didn\u2019t take a victory lap.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis wasn\u2019t about a cool Instagrammable sign,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is the soul of the city being ripped out inch by inch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat will ultimately become of the property is still up in the air. Fittingly, though, the midcentury metal letters that once spelled out \u201cHollywood Center Motel\u201d atop that breeze-block wall have recently disappeared. You can see them now only on the screen.<\/p>\n

\nThis story appeared in the June 3 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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The mystery of the Hollywood Center Motel fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1190,1060],"class_list":["post-1347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting","tag-local","tag-thr-investigates"],"yoast_head":"\nA Storied Hollywood Motel Is Engulfed in Mysterious Blaze \u2014 Just Before Becoming a Landmark - US Property Moves<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uspropertymoves.com\/?p=1347\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Storied Hollywood Motel Is Engulfed in Mysterious Blaze \u2014 Just Before Becoming a Landmark - 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