This article was one of Herald Travel’s top stories of 2024.
The flight time from Auckland to Los Angeles is just over 12 hours, so you can swap your laidback NZ lifestyle for high-end luxe in less than half a day, writes Greg Bruce
I was returning from a big afternoon touring the ludicrously luxurious boutiques of Rodeo Drive and feeling both my relative lack of wealth and the full weight of my ageing body as I approached the Beverly Wilshire’s front door. The doorman stepped forward, opened it, and said, “Welcome back,” which was a nice enough gesture, then followed it with two words that were so far beyond expectations they left me reeling: “ ... Mr Bruce.”
I had never seen this man before in my life, let alone spoken to him, let alone told him my name. This was the Beverly Wilshire, one of the world’s most iconic, historic, celebrity story–rich hotels, a place referred to by staff as “The Grande Dame”. This is the place where Julia Roberts and Richard Gere stayed in Pretty Woman, the place where Elvis once lived, where Warren Beatty at the height of his fame occupied a whole floor and the elevator attendants spent most of their days preventing women sneaking up to visit him. Mr Presley? Yes. Ms Roberts? Of course. Mr Bruce? Eh?
Take a look inside the heavenly Beverly Wilshire in Los Angeles.
At the shock of the sound of my name on those unfamiliar lips, my soul lifted clear of its bodily constraints. All my issues – physical, psychological and emotional – dissolved and were replaced by a cloud of wonder. The hotel had 400 rooms. The doorman couldn’t possibly know every occupant by name. I tried to work through the possibilities, but none of them seemed likely. I thought about asking him how he did it, but what I had just experienced was a moment of magic and the surest way to destroy magic is to find out how it works.
My body continued on, now only loosely tethered to my soul, through the lobby, past its egregiously enormous floral centrepiece (changed every Friday) under its obnoxiously large crystal chandelier, into the lifts in which Julia Roberts’ character was so delighted by the seating options and up to my suite where I sat on the balcony and stared out at the Hollywood sign as if all this was somehow normal and reasonable.
Everything about the place was astonishing. The concierge offered to pick up gifts for my children from her local supermarket, one of the doormen regularly fist-bumped me and called me “My man” which made me feel cool, and the astonishing massage therapist dealt with many of my physical and spiritual problems, handwrote me a beautiful, personalised card, and stood outside the door for 10 minutes after she’d finished, waiting to present me with tea on my exit. I felt terrible that she’d done that, obviously, but was also aware that this was the level of luxury to which this place granted me access.
My stay was made up of a similar series of out-of-body experiences. Beverly Hills is, in almost every way, an alien world. A big part of the thrill is knowing how far you’ve gone beyond the reality of everyday life. It’s the feeling you get when you’re driving down Rodeo in a Bentley or Mercedes G–Wagen, or wandering through the villas at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where Marilyn Monroe used to live. It’s a connection to stories, people and places so famous as to have ascended to a plane somewhere beyond reality.
It’s something you feel particularly strongly in the famed luxury consumerist temples of Rodeo Drive, where, at the enormous, newly-built Chanel, I was met at the door by not one, not two, but three impeccably dressed hosts, who told me there would be a 20-minute wait to gain access. By this, I assumed they meant: “We are interested and amused to learn that you and your polyester T-shirt from Shein would like to enter our store, but we would prefer you to not.”
I declined the wait, only partially from shame, and instead moved on to Burberry, where I idly wondered if I might make a special birthday purchase of the black hoodie I had so admired on David Beckham in his recent Netflix documentary. The nice man there told me it was NZ$2000. I touched it. It felt warm.
At Gucci, I became enamoured of a beautifully ludicrous, enormous steamer trunk (NZ$100,000), which opened to display both drawers and a space for hangers, and would have been perfect for me had it been 1865 and I had been on a grand tour of Europe accompanied by four or more valets.
I went back to Chanel the next day, and was ushered in after only a few minutes by a polite, well-dressed woman. I told her she should go and attend to someone with enough money to buy even a single item in the store, but she told me she was required to stay with me for the duration of my visit. I felt sorry for her so I didn’t stay long.
Much later in my stay, acting on a tip from a friend, I finally found something I could afford on Rodeo Drive: Condoms from Saint Laurent (NZ$40 for six). Because I’ve had a vasectomy, this is easily the least useful purchase I’ve ever made, so it tells you a lot about Beverly Hills that I considered it great value.
The restaurants too are like something out of a movie. Beverly Hills is the spiritual home of Wolfgang Puck, whose local restaurant, Spago, launched his empire, and whose steak temple, Cut, is the Beverly Wilshire’s flagship restaurant. Salt Bae also has one of his Nusr-Et restaurants here.
Much of the eating in Beverly Hills is about being visible, so my NZ$100 plate of black truffle gnocchi on the patio at Blvd outside the Beverly Wilshire was not just delicious, but culturally appropriate. The undoubted dining highlight, though, was Dante Beverly Hills, high up in the Maybourne Hotel. The front of the restaurant opened on to a terrace overlooking the Hollywood hills, the scene inside was like a Hollywood dinner party in an Italian cathedral and the food was a wood-fired Mediterranean fever dream.
Although my mind was bent again and again by the otherworldliness of Beverly Hills, it was never bent more severely than at the art gallery Mr Brainwash.
Mr Brainwash is best known as the star of the 2010 documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop, made by Banksy, the world’s most famous street artist. The movie is, in Banksy’s words: “The story of a guy who tried to make a documentary about me but he was a lot more interesting than I am so the film is kind of about him.” The “guy” is Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant to the US who had an unhealthy attachment to his video camera, filming basically everything he ever came across, including many, many hours of Banksy, whom he met through his street-artist cousin. At the conclusion of the film, Guetta launches his street art career, under the name Mr Brainwash.
We must be careful when evaluating the truth of this story, because it’s not known who Banksy is, or if he’s one person or many, and no one can agree whether Exit Through The Gift Shop is real or an elaborate prank, so it’s impossible to say we “know” anything about its central character.
Despite or because of all this, the film made “Mr Brainwash” extremely famous and his art extremely valuable. His gallery is like an art version of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Everything inside is either exactly as it seems or the exact opposite, or somewhere in between. In other words, like everything Banksy has ever touched, there is a strong air of WTF.
It is now weeks since I was inside Mr Brainwash and the more time I have spent reflecting on it, the more I have come to see hidden meanings, hidden truths, hidden identities, jokes, pranks and other clevernesses.
The museum was closed to the public for our visit and we were met at the door by our guide, a woman who claimed to be Mr Brainwash’s niece. She said her name was Clara, which was surprising to me because she was the first person I’ve met named Clara who was not my daughter.
“Clara” never broached the question of whether “Uncle Thierry” might be Banksy, so I asked outright if he was, at which point she laughed and said she didn’t think so, but who knows? She said she had once asked him about the real identity of Banksy, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t tell her. She “joked” to me about the possibility she was Banksy. She laughed and I laughed, although I can’t say for sure that the joke wasn’t on me.
When I left, I asked Clara if I could get a photo of her holding a business card with her name on it. I told her it was for my daughter, which was not untrue, but I also knew the picture might one day be extremely valuable. She told me she did not have a business card. Later, I googled her name extensively in relation to this, her place of work, using words like Brainwash, niece, uncle, Thierry, Guetta, Banksy etc etc. I could find nothing. There was no trace of her.
Whoever Mr Brainwash is, his / her art is optimistic and inspirational and if not pro-capitalist, then at least not anti-capitalist – in other words, it’s almost entirely antithetical to the Banksy project. Then again, the Banksy project at this point is so many regressions past irony, so full of deception and misdirection as to be basically impenetrable. What is truth anyway?
If this kind of artistic estoterica isn’t your bag, no probs! You’ll have a great time at Mr Brainwash anyway. The art is funny, joyful, creatively inspiring and exactly the sort of thing you would expect from an immigrant to America who still believes unashamedly and deeply in its long-dead dream.
You can get on a horse sculpture, sit with The Simpsons in the back row of a movie theatre and sit inside a lifesize 3D recreation of Edward Hopper painting Automat at a table with its lone subject (funny because the original painting is about loneliness).
On one level, the art of Mr Brainwash says: “Live big, laugh often and dance like nobody’s watching” Who knows? Maybe that’s its only level.
What is true? What is truth? These are good and important questions and worth pondering, even on a luxury holiday, but if we spend too much time pondering life and not enough time living it, we can fail to appreciate the things that make it worthwhile, like extravagant food experiences.
On the penultimate day of my stay, my tatty old jeans and I took high tea (NZ$440 for two) in the Living Room at the Peninsula Hotel. I drank champagne and some sort of coconut creme tea and ate a frankly ridiculous number of handmade chocolates, pastries, sandwiches and macarons while a harpist played a mix of standards and modern classics in the background. It was, by every measure, an astonishing afternoon, and was perfectly summed up by the appearance at reception of a young man in a fabulous white tracksuit who I watched check out and leave the hotel in a matching white Ferrari. Had I ascended to heaven and encountered an angel? My best guess: Yes.
Details
United Airlines flies from Auckland to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) with four direct flights per week. united.com
This story was originally published in Herald Travel on January 10, 2024.