The Thompson Beverly Hills Hotel and Bond Street Restaurant capture the sophisticated cool of late 70’s and 80’s design with the casual elegance of California modernism.  The project guts the 1960 building (formerly Best Western) back to its brutalist concrete and plaster shell and opens up the third floor parking level as a visual dividing line that reveals the hierarchical order of spaces:  Individual rooms inhabit the 5 storey floating box above, and the restaurant and public spaces ground the building in the volume below.  Perched on top of the box are two new outdoor floors featuring and outdoor bar surrounding a mature olive tree, trellis spaces overlooking panoramic views of Beverly hills and beyond, and an upper deck pool and cabana level for swimming and indoor/outdoor conferences.

The lower level lobby, bar and restaurant has been completed while the upper levels are still under construction.  Some of the innovative features of the project are:

1.     Glass windscreen:  The windscreen is a 8' tall wall of glass at the edge of the outdoor roof levels.  It provides the visitor with a full view of the surrounding Beverly Hills and beyond.  The glass is gracefully braced back to the planters with minimal visual impact.  It is unique because there are no mullions around the glass.  The result is an unencumbered view.

2.     Wood deck:  The floor has been elevated to allow for a continuous Ipe Wood deck.  All services are concealed from view.  The decking runs uninterrupted past the glass windscreen to the edge of the roof.

3.     Tree bar and trellis area:  The fully equipped bar is clad in stone and provides wraparound service on the Ipe wood deck level.  The backdrop to the bar is a mature olive tree, providing a canopy and a sense of grounding to visitors seated at the bar 10 stories above street level.  East and West steel and wood Trellis flank the bar and provide shaded hang out spaces with outdoor fireplaces as the focal point and offer the best views in town.

4.     Pool and cabanas:  An entirely new outdoor floor was designed above the open roof bar level to accommodate poolside activity.  Wide lightweight steel staircases lead the visitor to another level of ipe and stone floor with a recessed swimming pool lined with Sorovsky Crystal banding tile. Six poolside Cabana's are cantilevered off the south side of the outdoor floor for shaded activities.

5.     Grand Lobby Stairs:  Given the tight constraints of the existing structure, the stairs needed to occupy and small footprint but create a central presence to draw the visitor to the upstairs lounges, conference rooms and bar.  The monolithic stone base grounds the first flight while the lightweight steel fin treats create a lift-off from the base and are shrouded within a smoked mirror enclosure.

6.     Dining:  Indoors is brought outdoors by the use of a collapsible glass ‘nana’ wall surrounding a fireplace.  The fireplaces act as focal points that connect and help define the surrounding open spaces of the reception, lobby, and indoor and outdoor dining.

7.     Stone:  Travertine stone clads the heavy exterior base facing Wilshire and is brought inside the building via the lobby where it then wraps around the elevator core.  The core reveals itself at the rooftop deck levels where the core pops out as the highest element in the building.