Fun is heavily factored in the Mama Shelter experience, as everything from the penny candy machines in the lobby to free X-rated films on the iMacs in the rooms suggest. Mama Shelter is the first U.S. property of an affordable, youth-focused hotel brand started in France by Benjamin Trigano, an art gallery owner, whose grandfather helped launch Club Med. Like Mama Shelter’s first property in Paris, Mama Shelter has chosen an out-of-the-way, scruffy neighbourhood in Hollywood to debut in. The former Hotel Wilcox, which opened in the 1930s, has been transformed by the brand’s vibe: a hip home away from home. Trigano says if a kibbutz and the Chateau Marmont had a baby, it’d be the Mama Shelter. And his baby is popular – since the brand launched in 2008, it has opened three more hotels in France, one in Istanbul and now Mama Shelter in L.A.
Location, Location
Like its Paris property in the 19th arrondissement, Mama Shelter is in an area that is not necessarily the first you’d want to hang out in. (Hollywood is “the first place tourists go and the last place locals go,” one of the latter told me.) But the Mama Shelter’s fun scene and rooms, bar, restaurant and rooftop space are changing things. And once guests discover the great old-school neighbourhood dive bars and restaurants, such as La Velvet Margarita Cantina and Aventine, a new crowd is being drawn to this lost corner of Selma and Wilcox Avenues.
Design
Thierry Gaugain, who was head of Philippe Starck’s design studio, employed a mash up of French chic and So-Cal retro. There’s a neon-pink flamingo light on the roof and, in the lobby, a chalkboard ceiling covered with Mama-themed graffiti created by local artists. A mosaic of colourful Post-It notes greets guests at the entrance and on low tables next to vintage chairs are Mad magazines, surfer and motoring magazines from the 1970s.
There’s a lot going within each each colourful room. By each bedside you can find both a copy of the Bible and Keith Richard’s autobiography. Bedside lamps are covered in sequined masks. Scripts from L.A.-based movies such as Pulp Fiction and The Big Lebowski are on the desks, and iMacs are loaded with Netflix and TV channels. Snap and download pictures of yourself in your room and they may end up in the montage in the lobby. In the rooms, you’ll also find baskets filled with maps of Mama-approved places to check out. This may sounds like they’re trying too hard but there’s a light touch to how it’s done, so it works, and the design is never at the expense of comfort.
Eat in or Eat Out?
In. Giselle Wellman, a Top Chef contestant also formerly at Petrossian, where she was Los Angeles’s youngest female executive chef at 26, cooks food at Mama’s restaurant that is both rustic and refined, and just health-focused enough. In the dining room, tables are communal and an eclectic mix of brightly coloured chairs surrounds them. Menus remind us that Mama doesn’t want us to skip breakfast, and so offers dishes such as potato latkes with smoked salmon, poached egg, avocado and mixed greens. At dinner, roasted Jidori chicken with Castelvetrano olives is a good bet.
If I could change one thing
I don’t mind the thud and clunk of the one slow, small elevator announcing each stop; it’s an inside joke for hotel staff and guests. But one elevator for cleaning staff and guests is not enough. Hopefully they’ll be putting another one in soon.
Best amenity
The rooftop. It’s a yoga studio in the morning, then a restaurant and bar later in the day. The view of the glittering Hollywood Hills and of course, the Hollywood Sign is going to help make this space a neighbourhood hot spot.
Mama Shelter, 6500 Selma Ave., Los Angeles, Calif., mamashelter.com/en/los-angeles; 70 rooms from $139 (U.S.).
The writer was a guest of the hotel.