The permits approved in 2014 described a hotel with a full bar, live entertainment and dancing at the corner of Griffith Park Boulevard and Lucile Avenue. The building that opened on September 14, 2026 has a dining room that closes at 9 p.m. on weeknights, a rooftop open day to day only to guests, and a pool about 15 feet square that the hotel lists as private.
That gap between what the neighborhood fought over and what actually opened explains how Hotel Lucile works for anyone who lives within walking distance. Silver Lake's share of the old Bethany Presbyterian Church is mostly one room, the sanctuary, and it's open at dinner. Most of the rest is built for the 25 rooms upstairs.
A building that kept changing hands
The church that shaped this layout went up in 1931. The hotel calls the style Romanesque Revival, which shows in the arches, masonry and stained glass on that prominent corner. Over the next ninety-odd years it held a lot of different uses:
- 1931. Built as Bethany Presbyterian Church. The city's 2014 SurveyLA historic resources report records it under the name Bethany Presbyterian.
- Mid-1960s. East West Players, the Asian American theater company, used it as headquarters and stage, according to The Eastsider.
- 1980. Bethany's original congregation merged with a growing Korean congregation to form Bethany United Presbyterian Church. The last congregation to worship there was Pilgrim Church.
- The years after worship ended. The building served informally as an antique shop and a filming location, and it was the backdrop for the interactive horror show "Delusion."
- 2020. Casetta Group took over the long-term lease from the Presbytery of the Pacific, which still owns the property.
- September 2026. Hotel Lucile opened after what Eater LA describes as six years of renovation.
Every one of those uses ran through the sanctuary. The theater company performed there, the congregations worshipped there, the antique dealers filled it with merchandise. General manager Anthony Gutierrez summed up the building's history in an email quoted by the Los Angeles Times:
"The building has lived several lives. It has always been a place for people to gather."
The conversion follows that history closely. The gathering room stays the gathering room, and everything added since 2020 went into the parts of the building congregants rarely saw.
The room that stayed public
Sous Sous took over the former sanctuary. It comes from the team behind De La Nonna: chef Patrick Costa and operations and beverage director Lee Zaremba. Casetta hired Venice's Electric Bowery to design the room. The firm restored the original stained glass and arches, then added jewel tones, custom banquettes and an upstairs lounge that looks down on the dining room. The bar sits beneath a high central arch and is built to look like a church organ. The Times reports seating for about 120, with occasional live music on the room's stage.
The menu mixes southern France with the American South, cooked with California produce:
- Oysters with an Espelette pepper rim and a seasonal mignonette
- Hush puppies with honey butter and serrano chile
- Zucchini carpaccio with burrata, pistou and anchovy
- Le Burg, an eight-ounce bistro burger with caramelized onions, cheddar and Dijonnaise
- Roasted and grilled chicken with a chicken jus reduced over three days
- Bouillabaisse for two
Zaremba's cocktails follow the same theme. There's a fried green tomato tequila drink with an Old Bay rim, an espresso martini made with mezcal and chicory as a nod to New Orleans, and a Sazerac made with rye infused with toasted coconut. The wine list is mostly French, from small producers. Costa told Eater the menu will stay largely the same through the year, with light seasonal changes.
Some of the sourcing is local. Herbs come from the hotel's rooftop garden, and Eater reports a partnership with Skylight Books in Los Feliz. Local artists' work hangs on the walls. The hotel also rotates a display of more than 100 contemporary artworks, and many are for sale.
What the floor plan keeps for guests
From the sidewalk, the building reads as one landmark. Inside, the access rules change from room to room:
| Space | What it is now | Access |
|---|---|---|
| Former sanctuary | Sous Sous restaurant and bar | Dinner nightly, reservations on Resy |
| Former church school | 25 guest rooms | Overnight guests |
| Roof deck under the bell tower | Lounge with downtown views | Guests only, or by event booking |
| Pool deck | Plunge pool, loungers, cabanas | Private guest pool, or by event booking |
| Fitness center | Peloton and stretching space | Guests only |
| Choir loft | Coffee and drinks beneath stained glass | Overlooks Sous Sous |
| Organ loft | Meeting space | Events |
The hotel's site describes a café that serves morning espresso, pastries from Friends & Family and daytime food from the Sous Sous kitchen. The Times reported that the café would serve hotel guests at breakfast and lunch. The choir loft, the pool deck, the sanctuary and the roof deck can all be booked for private events, and so can a courtyard reached through the Lucile Suite.
Taken together, the daytime spaces belong to people staying the night or booking an event, and the evening space belongs to anyone with a dinner reservation. A rooftop garden was part of the original approval plans. Today it grows herbs for a kitchen any neighbor can eat from, while Eater reports the roof deck itself is open only to guests.
The objection that the opening didn't settle
Neighbors who opposed the project early on named noise, traffic congestion and the loss of street parking. Supporters argued that a hotel would save a vacant church and bring it back to life, according to The Eastsider's coverage of the approval process. By 2020, the comments published under The Eastsider's story on the ownership change had added zoning, alcohol, and the question of why the building became a hotel and not housing.
The dinner-only schedule takes care of some of the noise concern. Parking is still there. The hotel has no on-site parking, and the Times reports that it relies on valets and on street parking the paper calls "already tight," for overnight guests and diners alike. For anyone driving to Sous Sous from the other side of the reservoir, that means handing the car to a valet. For anyone living on the surrounding blocks, it means about 120 dinner seats now draw on the same curb space.
The building's outward signals have also changed. The hotel keeps the rooftop cross lit at night, while the old church bell remains silent.
A weeknight at the corner of Lucile
The practical details for a neighbor:
- Hours. Sous Sous serves dinner Sunday through Thursday from 5 to 9 p.m. and stays open until 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
- Reservations. Tables are booked through Resy.
- Address. 1629 Griffith Park Boulevard, near Sunset Junction, within walking distance of the Silver Lake Farmers Market, Pine & Crane, 33 Taps and the Photobooth Museum.
- Staying the night. At opening, rates started at $441 a night plus a $50 amenity fee. Management launched a locals rate of 15% off for guests with a California state ID. Of the 25 rooms, 24 have a single king bed and one has two queens. One suite has its own courtyard patio and fountain.
Outside of a booked event, an overnight stay is how a neighbor gets onto the roof deck under the bell tower or into the plunge pool, and the locals rate takes some of the edge off that price for a staycation a few blocks from home or for hosting out-of-town family.
The conversion is also an architectural case study close to home. Casetta specializes in adapting older buildings and runs six properties in California and New Mexico, including the Surfrider Hotel in Malibu and Casa Cody in Palm Springs. Casetta's Laney Langenstein told the Times that the team "did preserve as much as we could of the original beams and stained glass." Those beams and windows are best seen from a banquette in the sanctuary. For more of the neighborhood's buildings, our guide to Silver Lake for architecture and design lovers is a good next stop, and our report on why Silver Lake's newest restaurants didn't start here looks at the business side of Sunset Junction's dining scene.
At RSR Real Estate, we follow adaptive-reuse projects like Hotel Lucile because a restored landmark changes the blocks around it, from street parking to evening foot traffic. If you own near Griffith Park Boulevard or are thinking about Silver Lake, we're glad to talk through what this corner's new chapter means for your street. Request a Private Consultation.
