The Beverly Hilton: The Awards-Season Hotel That Never Stops Working
- The Gala Girl
- Jan 6
- 6 min read
There are hotels that are beautiful, and then there are hotels that have a role.
The Beverly Hilton has always had a role. It is not simply a place to sleep in Beverly Hills. It is one of Hollywood’s most enduring “company town” stages, built to court the film industry in the 1950s and then immortalized by decades of award shows, galas, and televised events. When awards season arrives, it becomes something more than hospitality. It becomes infrastructure.
I have stayed there many times over the years, most recently during the Annie Awards last year, and I will be staying there again in 2026. I keep coming back because it is one of the few hotels in Los Angeles that still feels like it understands what it was built to do.
A Hotel Built for Hollywood
The Beverly Hilton opened in 1955, designed by architect Welton Becket and launched by Conrad Hilton during a postwar Beverly Hills boom fueled by the movie business. It was modernist and polished, a mid-century vision of luxury meant to host both the stars and the machinery behind them.
Its history is layered. Ownership shifted over time. Prudential held a stake. Then entertainer Merv Griffin bought the hotel in 1987 and owned it until selling it in 2003 to Beny Alagem’s Oasis West Realty, which has overseen major renovations and refreshes while Hilton continues to manage it.
That blend of stability and reinvention is part of why the hotel works. It feels contemporary, but it does not feel newly invented. In Hollywood, that is a rare and valuable combination.
The Golden Globes Have Lived Here Since 1961
The Beverly Hilton is not just associated with the Golden Globes. It is the Golden Globes venue.
The International Ballroom has hosted the Globes since 1961, which makes it one of the longest-running relationships between an awards show and a single physical room. That matters, because venues shape ceremonies.
Unlike the Oscars, which play like theater, the Golden Globes have always had the feel of a dinner party with high stakes. The International Ballroom is smaller and more intimate than the Dolby Theatre, and that intimacy is part of what makes the Globes the Globes.
This is why Globes fashion reads differently. People are seated at tables. The lighting is warm. The camera catches reactions up close. You see not only what someone wore, but how it behaved in a room, how it looked while seated, how it looked when someone laughed or leaned in to talk. That environment rewards sleekness, polish, and intention.
The Hotel as a Production Engine
What people forget is that awards shows are not one-night events. They are full-scale productions, with multi-day build outs, rehearsals, staging, security, press movement, and endless coordination.
You feel that when you stay there during awards season. The hotel is functioning as a backstage space. It is alive with staff, event crews, publicists, and guests moving in formal attire at unusual hours.
And this is where my own relationship with the Beverly Hilton begins to feel personal.
The Coconut Club Years
The first time I stayed at the Beverly Hilton was when Merv Griffin owned the hotel. That era had its own kind of charm, and one of the most memorable details was what happened to the ballroom on weekends.
On Friday and Saturday nights, the Grand Ballroom was transformed into a club called The Coconut Club, a glamorous retro throwback inspired by old Hollywood and the Cocoanut Grove era. There was big band music. A tropical theme. Gold palm trees. Multiple bars. A room that, during the week, could host corporate conventions was suddenly reimagined as a vintage cocktail venue.
What amazed me was the sheer logistical elegance of it.
Every weekend, the ballroom became the Coconut Club. Then, by 2 a.m. Sunday, a crew would begin dismantling everything and returning the space to a convention-ready ballroom by Monday morning. It was elaborate, theatrical, and temporary, which is honestly a perfect metaphor for awards season itself.
Merv Griffin opened the club in 1998 as a tribute to his early career as a big band singer. That detail makes it even more charming. It was not just a gimmick. It was personal.
I had a wonderful time there several evenings, and I still think about that club when I walk through the hotel today, because it reminds me that the Beverly Hilton has always known how to turn itself into what the moment requires.
Why I Stay Here Even When the Awards Show Is Somewhere Else
Here is the truth: even when an awards show is held at another venue, I still love staying at the Beverly Hilton. That is because the Hilton is often hosting an entirely different awards show the same night, which means you might be navigating through a red carpet, a party crowd, or a cocktail reception just to get to your room.
Sometimes it is inconvenient. But it is also incredible.
There is something surreal about taking the elevator up to your room while everyone in the lobby is dressed for a gala you are not even planning to attend. The hotel becomes a kind of living cross-section of the industry. And if you are paying attention, you see how real these rooms are. It is not just celebrities. It is nominees, producers, journalists, talent teams, and working professionals who make the whole machine run.
I have had engaging conversations in the bar with nominees and winners from the Producers Guild Awards, and I have run into actors and recognizable faces in the downstairs lounge areas that have been taken over for events.
One moment that stands out: I had a lovely conversation with D’Arcy Carden in 2019 when she was attending the 69th ACE Eddie Awards. She hosted the following year, and at the time she was on The Good Place, which is one of my favorite shows.
That is the Beverly Hilton experience. It is not just seeing celebrities. It is being in a space where they are also simply moving through the world, having a drink, waiting for a call time, trying to find the right room.
The hotel makes those moments possible because it has been designed for them.
The Beverly Hilton’s Most Famous Pool, and Its Most Famous Dive
Even outside the ballroom, the Beverly Hilton has iconic spaces. The Aqua Star Pool, inaugurated by Esther Williams in 1955, is still one of the most famous pools in Beverly Hills. It remains a centerpiece of the hotel’s identity (currently closed for major renovation).
The pool also has its own awards season folklore. One of the most repeated stories is that Angelina Jolie jumped into it in a sequined gown after winning a Golden Globe for Gia in 1999.
The reason that story sticks is because it feels like Hollywood in one moment: formal, theatrical, and then suddenly playful. It is also a reminder that the Beverly Hilton is not just polished on the surface. It has a lived-in glamour that still makes room for spontaneity.
What This Venue Does to Awards Fashion
The venue matters because it sets the visual language of the night.
The Beverly Hilton is not a theatrical stage like the Dolby Theatre. It is a ballroom, and a ballroom asks something different of fashion. It rewards clothing that looks elegant while seated, that works under warm lighting, that feels expensive up close, and that holds its shape while people move between tables.
That is why the Globes often become the place where we see:
sleek metallic columns rather than heavy sparkle
structured shoulders that read modern, not theatrical
jewelry that frames the face rather than fills the neckline
styling that feels intentional rather than loud
The Beverly Hilton encourages polish. It does not demand spectacle.
And that is why it remains such a strong awards season venue. It supports the show without swallowing it. It gives the Globes their signature feeling of intimacy, glamour, and closeness.
I’ll Be Staying There Again in 2026
I will be back at the Beverly Hilton again in 2026, and part of why I’m looking forward to it is that this hotel always reminds me that awards season is not just a broadcast. It is a world. A series of rooms, rituals, schedules, and small human moments that shape what we see on screen.
The Beverly Hilton does not just host awards shows. It has been quietly training for them for seventy years.
And if you want to understand awards season fashion, you could do a lot worse than starting with the room that has defined one of its biggest nights for more than six decades.
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