How a 1931 church became Silver Lake’s glamorous new Hotel Lucile
There’s a cross on the roof, stained glass in the windows and a choir loft upstairs, but this whitewashed three-level building near Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake is no longer a house of worship.
It’s the Hotel Lucile, a 25-room boutique lodging that opens Sept. 14 with a restaurant and bar in the high-ceilinged sanctuary where churchgoers once gathered. This opening follows more than a decade of controversy and transformation, including a community debate, bankruptcy and the arrival of a new hotelier in 2020.
It also brings further energy to the Sunset Junction area, Silver Lake’s main, walkable hub, which is already home to stylish spots including the Silver Lake Farmers Market, Taiwanese restaurant Pine & Crane, sports bar 33 Taps and the Photobooth Museum.
Dining room in Sous Sous restaurant.
The new hotelier is Los Angeles-based Casetta Group, which specializes in adapting older structures and has six properties in California and New Mexico, including the Surfrider Hotel in Malibu and Casa Cody in Palm Springs.
When guests arrive at Hotel Lucile, they will find many reminders that the building was constructed as Bethany Presbyterian Church in 1931. But those guests will also see plenty of updates, including 25 guest rooms in the space that once held a church school; a small pool (about 15 feet square); and a rotating display of more than 100 contemporary artworks (many for sale). The organ loft is now a meeting space. The choir loft is retooled as a zone for coffee and drinks. The rooftop is a lounge with downtown views.
After serving as a church for most of the 20th century under varying names, the building was informally adapted for multiple uses, including spells as an antique shop, filming location and the backdrop for interactive horror theater experience “Delusion.”
1. Bathroom inside a suite. 2. Desk inside a premium king room. 3. Sitting area inside a suite. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
“The building has lived several lives,” Hotel Lucile general manager Anthony Gutierrez said in an email. “It has always been a place for people to gather.”
The establishment fell idle as developer Dana Hollister took over the lease and sought city permits to convert it into a hotel with alcohol and dancing. Despite opposition from many neighboring homeowners and businesses alarmed by possible traffic impacts, those permits were approved in 2014.
But Hollister declared bankruptcy in 2018 and sold her interest in the property in 2020. That’s when the Casetta Group took over Hollister’s long-term lease from the Presbytery of the Pacific, which owns the property.
This church-to-commerce transition isn’t entirely unique. Across the city and the country, declining attendance has idled many religious buildings, often leading to conversions. In DTLA, the restaurant and event space known as Redbird + Vibiana was previously St. Vibiana’s Cathedral, deconsecrated by the Catholic Church after suffering damages in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. In Beachwood Canyon, the Monastery of the Angels was built as a private mansion and rebuilt by the Catholic Church in 1948 as a monastery. In early 2026, Homeboy Industries bought it from the church and began remaking it into Home of the Angels, a “recovery campus” for people impacted by trauma, substance use disorders and involvement in the justice system.
More church conversions may follow, thanks to California law SB4, passed in 2023 to allow faith-based groups and nonprofit colleges to avoid some local restrictions when converting buildings into affordable housing.
Meanwhile, the Hotel Lucile begins a new chapter, retaining interior arches, masonry, woodwork details and a rooftop cross that the hotel will keep alight at night. (The old church bell, however, will remain silent.)
Because the hotel has no on-site parking, it will rely upon valets and street parking (already tight in the neighborhood) to accommodate the cars of overnight guests and restaurant diners.
The rates begin at $441 nightly, plus a $50 amenity fee. To start, management is offering a “locals rate” of 15% off for guests who can show a California state ID.
“We did preserve as much as we could of the original beams and stained glass,” said Laney Langenstein, who oversees strategy and marketing for Casetta. Though guest rooms have minibars (curated by Erewhon and other partners), Langenstein noted that hotel staffers will also push a martini cart that will “go through the hallways and see if anybody thinks it’s cocktail hour.”
The dinner-only restaurant, Sous Sous, will draw upon cooking traditions of southern France and the American South, seating up to about 120, with occasional live music on the room’s stage. A hotel cafe will be open to guests for breakfast and lunch.
The new look of the hotel was produced by Casetta Hotels and design firm Electric Bowery. Children are permitted at the hotel, but not encouraged by the layout. (Of 25 rooms, 24 have a single king bed and one has two queens. Most rooms have showers, not tubs. There is one suite, which has its own courtyard patio and fountain.)
With an eye to potential expansion later, hotel management has also bought up one of the three immediately neighboring properties.
Meanwhile, now that the hotel is about to open, feelings among neighbors are mixed.
A booth at Sous Sous restaurant.
“When they tried to get a permit for the hotel, we all went to speak against it. But they got the permit,” said Jin Chang, longtime owner of nearby Big Mac’s Liquor on Sunset. Now, Chang said, he’s neutral about the hotel opening and relieved that his mini-mall has its own parking lot.
“What’s the definition of progress?” asked VJ Kesh, a longtime neighborhood resident. “Is this hotel a reflection of Silver Lake? Hell, yes. So I’m in favor.”
