While there are plenty of photos of Alla Nazimova’s 8080 Sunset Blvd home after she completed her renovations, there are only a few that show how it looked when she took possession of it in 1919. Louis B. Mayer at Metro Pictures had lured her to Hollywood with a purported $13,000 per week contract and she bought a 99-year lease on the “Hayvenhurst” at 8080 Sunset for $65,000 and spent another $65,000 giving it a makeover, thus turning it into what we’re more familiar with as the main building of the Garden of Allah Hotel (opened in January 1927 at 8152 Sunset) and looks nothing like the building pictured here. What made me laugh was the “big watch dog” inscription!
The address is listed as “Hayvenhurst”, not “Havenhurst”. The one with the “y” is in the Valley, and the one in West Hollywood, the correct one, is without the “y”. So, the spelling is incorrect.
I made a movie a few years ago called “Dispatch”. It’s based on my experiences as a Hollywood limo dispatcher. The joke in the movie is that a driver keeps getting the Havenhursts wrong. Check it out on the film’s site, http://www.dispatchfilm.com , where you can view the film for free. It was on Netflix and other sites previously.
While there are plenty of photos of Alla Nazimova’s 8080 Sunset Blvd home after she completed her renovations, there are only a few that show how it looked when she took possession of it in 1919. Louis B. Mayer at Metro Pictures had lured her to Hollywood with a purported $13,000 per week contract and she bought a 99-year lease on the “Hayvenhurst” at 8080 Sunset for $65,000 and spent another $65,000 giving it a makeover, thus turning it into what we’re more familiar with as the main building of the Garden of Allah Hotel (opened in January 1927 at 8152 Sunset) and looks nothing like the building pictured here. What made me laugh was the “big watch dog” inscription!
The address is listed as “Hayvenhurst”, not “Havenhurst”. The one with the “y” is in the Valley, and the one in West Hollywood, the correct one, is without the “y”. So, the spelling is incorrect.
I made a movie a few years ago called “Dispatch”. It’s based on my experiences as a Hollywood limo dispatcher. The joke in the movie is that a driver keeps getting the Havenhursts wrong. Check it out on the film’s site, http://www.dispatchfilm.com , where you can view the film for free. It was on Netflix and other sites previously.