2. BOULEVARD3
Overview
When is a club not just a club? 1) When it’s built on the site of the
former Hollywood Athletic Club, infusing it with more than 70 years of
fabled history and celebrity antics; 2) when it offers the services and
luxuries of a boutique hotel; and 3) when it’s the brainchild of Skybar
partner, Peter Famulari, known for developing nuanced spaces that
offer patrons a sense of sophistication and challenge them to actually
interact.
Perhaps his latest space, Boulevard3 – which fuses the intimacy of a
party at a private home, the luxury of a four-star estate, and the spirit
of play – might be best described as a “counterclub.”
The opening of Boulevard3 was sparked by Famulari’s initial reaction
to the space five years ago. A former denizen of New York City, he
says, “This was how I visualized clubs: big, free-flowing, dramatic. I
felt it was the only place that could possibly follow Skybar.” Having
experienced such New York venues as Studio 54 and The Tunnel in
their heyday, he was also motivated to open a venue that shattered
the malaise of the typical club scene. “There really are no dance
places in Los Angeles,” states Famulari, who probably knows L.A.
nightlife better than anyone after working to keep Skybar hot for
nearly a decade. “People go to clubs and stare at each other.”
While eschewing nostalgia for its own sake, Famulari chose the name
Boulevard3 after viewing an old surveyor’s map of Los Angeles. At the
time, when the city was just beginning to take form, the east/west
streets were marked by numbers, with “Boulevard3” the designation
for what would later become Sunset Boulevard. With a new paradigm
for L.A.’s club scene brimming with possibilities, Famulari hopes to
recapture a sense of grace, elegance and engagement that once put
Hollywood on the map.
3. BOULEVARD3 design
Designed by the late Greg Jordan, former designer to the Trumps and
New York socialites, Boulevard3 was conceived as “an English manor
house with modern insides,” a mix of old-world charm and digital
generation appeal. Jordan’s protégé Oliver Furth finished executing
Jordan’s vision after his passing. Entering from Sunset Boulevard,
guests pass through a large iron gate – a “door within a door” that
foreshadows a theme that pervades the property – into a landscaped
English courtyard. In the center sit a pair of reflecting pools, one
ending in a 20 foot tall fireplace whose flames seem to float on the
water.
Bordering the courtyard are canopied private rooms, their walls
created from Ficus bushes with a “floating” window cut in the middle,
something one might expect to see in Alice in Wonderland. While
earth tones define the central courtyard, each of the garden rooms is
distinguished not only by a range of muted colors, but by specific
fragrances: from lavender to gardenia to rose.
An intimate “manor library” takes guests inside Boulevard3. Gaining a
sense of grandeur with its vaulted ceiling and marble fireplace, the
library blends old and new through the technology on its walls: picture
frames with DLP projection screens displaying dynamic images as
opposed to portraits of dead kings and placid countrysides. When the
main ballroom is open, the library serves as an antechamber;
otherwise it can function as a freestanding space accommodating its
own bar.
The intimacy of Boulevard3’s library opens to a 7,500-sq. ft., three-
level ballroom, including a 1,500-sq. ft. dance floor (the former
Olympic-sized pool of the old Hollywood Athletic Club –prior to
embodying the role of Flash Gordon, Buster Crabbe served as its
lifeguard and trained to win a gold medal in the 1932 Olympics).
Capable of accommodating a large stage for live performances, the
ballroom features a main bar situated beneath 30’ high ceilings and a
majestic skylight.
Around the periphery of the ballroom, a Mezzanine is set three feet
above the main floor that provides a perfect locale to experience dance
floor festivities. For the perfect mix of luxury and comfort, the
mezzanine boasts a 36’ long plush velvet couch with unobstructed
views of the “Niche of Possibilities”. As you move onto the dance floor,
Boulevard3’s design further challenges the senses by interpolating the
worlds of hospitality and entertainment. Interlocking platforms are
carefully plotted to set the stage for dynamic performances that occur
throughout the evening. Ranging from innovative cirque performances
to full choreographed shows, Boulevard3’s guests are provided an
unforgettable experience.
4. The Garden Rooms overlooking the reflecting pool.
The interior space of one of the nine Garden Rooms.
5. The entrance to BOULEVARD3 takes you into the Garden.
Complete with reflection pools, cabanas, fireplace, outdoor bar and
park-like seating, this is by far the most beautiful outdoor area in
Hollywood.
7. The Library Room offers a full service mahogany wood and leather bar,
Herringbone wood floors, and red leather furnishings that make the
Library a sexy and sophisticated place to relax.
Overlooking the Library Chesterfield Couch is a LED Tile Wall that can
be utilized to project a corporate LOGO or moving image.
8. The two story Grand Ballroom of BOULEVARD3 is without a doubt the most
spectacular room in all of Los Angeles with its expansive dance floor and thirty foot
ceilings. Boasting a half a million dollar Color Kinetics LED lighting system and a top
of the line Tannoy sound system, BOULEVARD3 provides the highest level of
entertainment.
There are over 15 Balcony Suites overlooking the dance floor from the second story
Balcony of the Ballroom at BOULEVARD3. Each suite is equipped with a custom mini-
bar, flat screen TV, wireless technology, X-box (upon request) and luxurious couch
seating fit for a grand English manor.
13. In House Staging, Light and Sound Production for Performances &
Runway Shows
Concert Performances
Custom Runway Builds
State of the Art Lighting,
Backstage and Green Room
15. BOULEVARD3 BALCONY
The highest level of Boulevard3 is reserved for patrons who reserve a
private suite on the balcony. Ascending a back staircase directly from
the parking lot – with a separate stairway descending to a private
garden – elite balcony guests have access to an exclusive area
overlooking the entire ballroom. Recessed to offer privacy from eyes
below, balcony suite guests have exclusive access to their own
upstairs bar as well as personalized mini-bars filled with gourmet food
and decadent treats.
Technology also ensures the desired sense of engagement for patrons
of Boulevard3. Boasting a half a million dollar LED Lighting System,
the walls, columns, ceilings, and floors are adaptable to over 1200
static or moving colors. Along with our 12-channel Tannoy sound
system and advanced Color Kinetics LED lighting, a thunder and
lightning storm can come to life and seem to move through the venue
without shedding a drop of rain. To further enhance the mood,
Boulevard3 has thirteen networked plasma screens, a large 13’ by 9’
projection screen in the Ballroom, a projection screen over the Library
mantel, and a vast LED LOGO wall in the Library. Providing another
amenity to your event, Boulevard3 has an extensive steel deck staging
system that can be utilized to build a performance stage, multi-level
dance floor, or fashion show runway.
Though DJs themselves are an integral part of the experience,
Famulari envisions more interactive experiences that distinguish
Boulevard3. Whether flamenco dancers, aerial performers, or other
unexpected surprises that knock people out of a passive posture, the
mandate for his Sunset Boulevard venue is clear: keep it active,
deliver the unexpected and earn the moniker of “counterclub.”
Wii and Playstation Packages Available for each 13” Plasma Television
16. BOULEVARD3
The Former Hollywood Athletic Club
Boulevard3 occupies part of the site once occupied by The Hollywood
Athletic Club, which for three decades was revered as the “playground
of the stars.” It opened on New Year’s Eve, 1923, its adjoining
residential tower distinguished as the tallest building in L.A.
Notwithstanding its name, the venue served not only as a fitness
destination, but an exclusive men’s retreat where its famous members
could eat, drink and be very merry indeed. Along with founders Cecil
B. DeMille, Charlie Chaplin, Lon Chaney and Rudolph Valentino, its
original members included W.C. Fields, John Wayne, Errol Flynn,
Tyrone Power, Jr. and John Barrymore (legend has it, after
Barrymore’s death in 1942, some merry HAC pranksters stole his
corpse from the morgue, snuck it into Errol Flynn’s private room, and
propped it up on the bed for “a final drink”).
Despite hosting the very first Emmy Awards and telecast in 1949, the
Hollywood Athletic Club closed its doors in 1953, a victim to changing
times. In the next 50 years it had other occupants and owners, from
the Jewish Theological Seminary and University of Judaism to a string
of real estate developers. During the early 1990s it was used as an
upscale billiards hall. More recently the venue was resurrected, albeit
briefly, as the Hollywood Athletic Club, serving as a space for special
events. Under the direction of Peter Famulari, it has once again
become a destination for Hollywood’s best-known moguls and stars as
well as the public at large.
