Hotel Lucile

The building on Lucile Avenue has been part of Silver Lake since 1931, when it opened as Bethany Presbyterian Church. Designed in a Romanesque Revival language by architect Scott Quintin, it later passed through several other uses before sitting largely vacant for much of the past decade. Casetta, the California hotel group known for reworking architecturally significant properties, brought it back into public life as Hotel Lucile. Its location near Sunset Junction places it squarely within the creative heart of east Los Angeles, close to the reservoir, Griffith Park, Barnsdall Art Park and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House. The building no longer functions as a church, but its original spatial hierarchy remains immediately legible.

The Nave Becomes a Restaurant

Electric Bowery, led by Lucia Bartholomew and Cayley Lambur, oversaw the architectural and interior transformation with an emphasis on preserving the church’s European sensibility. Original stained-glass windows remain in place, alongside timber beams and the high vaulted ceiling. The former nave now holds Sous Sous, allowing the most dramatic volume in the building to remain communal rather than being subdivided into hotel rooms. The restaurant itself was designed by Heather Tierney, who uses the scale of the old sanctuary rather than competing with it. The result is a dining room that still feels unmistakably ecclesiastical without becoming theatrical.

Murals for a New Congregation

Two large-scale paintings by Los Angeles artist Erin Lynn Welsh anchor opposite ends of the former church interior. One, rendered in deep red above the former chancel, responds to Eaton Canyon in Altadena and the destruction caused there by the 2025 wildfires. At the other end, a green landscape takes its cues from the native vegetation of Elysian Park. The murals extend Hotel Lucile’s broader commitment to Los Angeles artists, creating a direct relationship between the historic architecture and the contemporary city around it.

Twenty-Five Rooms, Six Ways to Stay

The guestrooms are considerably quieter than the public spaces. Twenty-five rooms and suites are arranged in six categories, ranging from compact king rooms to the Lucile Suite with its own living room and private courtyard. Interiors are refined and minimal, allowing the building’s historic character and the art to remain visible. Original works curated by Rhett Baruch Gallery appear throughout, while natural tones and clean detailing give the rooms a deliberately residential calm. It is a different rhythm from the nave below: less monument, more retreat.

The South Meets the South of France

Sous Sous takes an unusual culinary premise and makes it coherent. Chef Patrick Costa brings together Southern Californian ingredients, recipes and techniques associated with the South of France, and flavours from the American South. Marseille, Nice, Charleston and New Orleans become points on the same coastal map — places shaped by ports, seafood, spice and long growing seasons. The wine list follows the same lighter coastal logic, while cocktails reinterpret familiar classics with unexpected Southern references. The concept is distinctive enough to give the restaurant its own identity rather than leaving it dependent on the architecture.

A Landmark Returned to Public Life

Hotel Lucile is most convincing as a piece of neighbourhood repair. The church’s strongest architectural elements remain intact, but the building has been reopened to Silver Lake through food, art and hospitality rather than preserved as an isolated landmark. Guest-only spaces — including the rooftop terrace and small grotto pool — sit alongside a restaurant clearly intended to attract locals as much as travellers. For a neighbourhood defined by continual reinvention, the project feels particularly apt: a church becomes a hotel without losing the scale, atmosphere or cultural presence that made the building important in the first place.