16 Best Hotels in Los Angeles, California

Bordering the Strand (SoCal's famous bike path on the beach), Beach House looks like a New England sea cottage from a century ago but has contemporary amenities in its bright studio suites. Oceanfront rooms facing the Strand have terrific sunset views and small balconies. All rooms have two flat-screen TVs, a fireplace, and a wet bar. Expect to pay more for ocean-view rooms and weekend and summer stays. Rent bikes nearby or stroll on the Hermosa Beach pier. A full continental breakfast with yummy muffins and coffee awaits you in the pleasant breakfast room each morning. Many guests book an in-room massage.

The new Downtown L.A. Proper Hotel is a design-lover's dream as renowned interior decorator Kelly Wearstler infuses the property with touches of Mexican modernism to Moroccan and Spanish flourishes. Carved out of a 1926 Renaissance Revival building, this luxury lifestyle property has a lot to praise. The food and beverage outlets are by L.A. food royalty Susan Goin and Carolyn Stine and have posts in the lobby and on the roof with a mix of fresh seafood and Mexican and California cuisine. If you want to splurge, one of the suites has its own pool (and has hosted a litany of celebrity guests), while another has an indoor basketball hoop. The hotel is effortlessly chic, has a stunning rooftop, and is a great new place to hang on lazy weekend days, or fun boozy nights. 

A favorite of Price Is Right and Dancing with the Stars hopefuls (both TV shows tape at the CBS studios nearby), this hotel has a tongue-in-cheek country style with a hopping Sunday brunch and a little pool accented by giant rubber duckies and a living wall. Rooms have concrete floors, stained wooden accents, and hay-stitched walls, as well as amenities such as iPod docking stations, flat-screen TVs, and a Bluetooth speaker for streaming music in your room. The aforementioned brunch at the popular Tart restaurant includes mimosa kits with do-it-yourself bottle service. Additional amenities include an in-house retail store, free bikes for rent, and a book lending library.

If you jump in the pool with all your clothes on and your cell phone, you'll get a fully comped meal at the restaurant.

Part hotel, part shared accommodation space, the Freehand is one of the newer hotels in Downtown Los Angeles and also one of the coolest. The lobby is a wood lover's dream space with giant columns, ample work space, and free Wi-Fi attracting creative locals and business-minded guests. Retro-styled rooms have '60s-era paintings, large windows, and even more wood. On the roof, Broken Shaker is an überpopular drinking den with handcrafted cocktails, next to a picturesque pool, and in the lobby, Rudolph's serves tea-infused drinks and light bites. A social scene to be sure, you'll find everything from jazz nights, DJs on the roof, and a bustling happy hour to entice locals and guests alike.

Poolside cabana rooms are adorned with cow-skin rugs and marble bathrooms, while rooms in the main building accentuate the property's history at this party-centric hotel in the heart of Hollywood. Modern perks include flat-screen TVs and Wi-Fi. Although the Roosevelt is among Hollywood's oldest hotels, the property hosts a lively nightlife scene via the Spare Room bowling alley and Tropicana Bar. Lobby and poolside socializing is nonstop on the weekends. Original Spanish Colonial Revival details include the Spanish tiles, painted ceilings, arches, and fountains that evoke early Hollywood glamour. When you swim, marvel at the mural on the bottom of the pool painted by David Hockney in 1988. The Roosevelt is known for hosting the first Academy Awards ceremony.

This Spanish Mission–style icon has been a discreet hillside retreat for celebrities and society types since 1946 and was given a face-lift by star designers Alexandra Champalimaud and David Rockwell. Guests appreciate Bang and Olufsen TVs and iPads for ordering room service (and controlling everything else in the room). While still paying homage to Old Hollywood glamour, the country-club-like hotel also has Asian and French art deco influences, floor-to-ceiling windows, natural wood ceilings, and limestone floors. The posh spa lures high-society types, as do the beloved oval pool and famous and scenic Swan Lake outside. The hotel's Wolfgang Puck restaurant serves California cuisine with Mediterranean and French touches and offers ample alfresco dining under bougainvillea-covered trellises. The bar retains its original clublike feel, with large celebrity photographs lending a modern touch.

Each apartment-style room at this nine-room boutique hotel is unique, thanks to its designer handpicking custom-made pieces and vintage furnishings, from the bedside tables to the lamps, to create a cute little pad you wished you owned. Set in the middle of Los Feliz's bustling section of Hollywood Boulevard, the Covell is convenient to bars, cafes, and restaurants, but each room features a kitchenette complete with a Smeg fridge (with microwaves on request), so you can also dine in. Families—including pet babies—are welcome, and can be accommodated with cots that are available upon request and larger rooms with pullout couches. There's a rooftop deck and a street-level coffee shop. Unlike other hotels in the city, parking is free.

Guests at the hotel can secure advance dinner reservations and attend magic shows at the Magic Castle, a private club in a 1908 mansion next door for magicians and their admirers. (The club requires jacket and tie for men; kids are allowed only during brunch on weekends.) This former apartment building faces busy Franklin Avenue and is a quick walk to the Metro Red Line stop at Hollywood & Highland. There's nothing thematic about the guest room decor, but larger rooms have full kitchens with eating areas. The decent-size heated pool is always open, and the patio has lots of greenery. Continental breakfast (often with a magician performing), 24-hour snacks and soda, and laundry service are complimentary.

Set right on exclusive Carbon Beach in a stretch known as Billionaire's Beach, Malibu's hideaway for the super-rich remains the room to nab along the coast, with an ultrachic look thanks to designer Waldo Fernandez and an upscale restaurant and wine bar perched over the Pacific. Third-floor ocean-view rooms, with wood-beam ceilings and private balconies, are instantly calming and definitely romantic. Feather beds, crashing waves, inset lighting, original artwork, and custom-made furniture add up to designer-perfect rooms. The inn's Carbon Beach Club presents California cuisine and a well-curated wine list. The hotel has an on-site day spa, and for a fee you can access the Malibu Health Club across the highway. Beach loungers, umbrellas, and towels are provided. On holiday weekends, multinight stays are required.

Mama Shelter Los Angeles is not just a cool hotel, it's an attitude, with its tropical rooftop bar populated with beautiful people having fun, a lively lobby restaurant and café, and eclectic, playful design, throughout like masks in rooms and a foosball table in the lobby. The funky decor and cheeky touches are eye candy, attracting influencers and 'grammers like moths to its flaming hot backdrops, but there is substance to go with the style: the restaurant serves great food, cocktails are creative, and rooms offer simple design, comfort, and all the latest tech. 

Part of a proliferation of new hotels in West Hollywood, the Pendry has a legitimate claim to being the best of them all. The hotel exudes contemporary luxury from the moment you walk in and are confronted by a steel and glass Portal Icosahedron sculpture by Anthony James. Eye-popping art is proliferated throughout the property, but the hotel's true standout feature is the multiple food and beverage options, with four different outlets helmed by world-famous chef Wolfgang Puck. Perched on a hill, rooms have massive views of the Hollywood Hills or West Hollywood below and feature the latest in modern in-room amenities. Everywhere you look, you'll find a nice surprise: there's the 100-seat live music venue, a bowling alley/bar, a champagne vending machine, and Cadillacs that you can just take out for a spin---for free. 

This French Riviera–style palace overflowing with antiques and art is a favorite of boldface names, but visitors consistently describe a stay here as near perfect. A bedside panel in each room controls the temperature and the flat-screen TV. Service is exemplary and always discreet. Soak up the sun by the fifth-floor pool with its fully outfitted cabanas, or sip afternoon tea in the living room under ornate chandeliers. The Belvedere restaurant is a lunchtime favorite for film execs. A complimentary Rolls-Royce is available for short jaunts in Beverly Hills.

Set right on the sand, this inn has become synonymous with staycations, with the beachfront location and show-house decor making it one of SoCal's most popular luxury hotels. The flagship 1 Pico restaurant has launched a popular market-fresh menu under chef David Almany, formerly of Osteria Mozza. The cozy lobby evokes a New England getaway, with a fireplace and tall windows opening out to the Pacific Ocean. Guest rooms have those namesake shutter doors, pillow-top mattresses, small balconies, and built-in cabinets filled with art books and curios. Rooms were designed by powerhouse interior designer Michael Smith to feature earth-tone throws and pillows and a beach-chic aesthetic. Bathrooms are luxe, each with a deep whirlpool tub, a raft of bath goodies, and a three-nozzle, glass-walled shower. Check out the cabanas in the ocean-view pool area.

Walking distance to Venice Beach and Abbot Kinney's artsy commercial strip, this playful hotel announces itself boldly with wall murals by Melissa Scrivner before you even enter the lobby. Catering to younger budget travelers, guests love the laid-back Cali vibe; enjoy the cozy outdoor space with free Wi-Fi, or curl up in the lobby with a book and listen to the tunes spun on the house record player. Compact, newly refreshed rooms feature comic book–inspired tables, futuristic art, sublime beds, 55" HDTVs, and table tennis trophies on display. The second floor courtyard known as the Quad has a pool, loungers, Jacuzzi bar, firepit, and Ping-Pong area, which all make for a fun spot to chill before dinner.

The closest hotel to the Santa Monica Pier (it's just across PCH, with easy pedestrian bridge access), the breezy, surf-inspired Pierside, opened in early 2023, is the epitome of Southern California cool. It's all about the beach here, from the stylish coastal-inspired lobby, the sun-filled spaces, guest rooms with that soothing, natural, coastal-California palette and materials and floor-to-ceiling windows framing views of the Pacific Ocean or Santa Monica skyline, and complimentary use of a wide range of fun gear, like surfboards, bikes, and GoPros (as well as video game consoles). The indoor-outdoor Surfing Fox restaurant serves up locally-sourced Coastal California cuisine and creative cocktails and beckons locals and visitors to linger and bask in views of the pier. Don't miss the huge Shepard Fairey mural on the oceanside front of the building; the second largest in the Los Angeles region, it's a stylistic ode to Santa Monica. Dogs are not only welcome; they're treated like royalty.

The belle of Beverly Hills, this Pierre-Yves Rochon–designed five-star property impresses with a top-notch spa, state-of-the-art amenities, and a rooftop pool with VIP cabanas and a restaurant program created by Jean-Georges Vongerichten. From the moment you enter the opulent lobby, a tribute to the golden age of Hollywood with white stone and bronze, guests are treated with the highest regard. Rooms feature floor-to-ceiling windows, access to Netflix and Hulu, and Bluetooth speakers in the bathrooms. Personal concierges, three restaurants and a lobby bar, and a La Prairie--run spa worth splurging on allow for ultimate relaxation.